Free guitar from Guitar Tricks

Good day,

New here and excited to be playing guitar. Paid for the year subscription and received the free guitar today. Sounds Terrible.

Johnson JG-100-NA

We have tuned it in. One string at a time and it sounds OK. When you try and play chords its terrible. In fact, sounds like crap.

I have a Ibanez acoustic and gave this free guitar to my wife. She is ready to give it back to me, and she can play.

Could it be the strings? Could it be a dud? Any ideas.

I do understand this is a free guitar but, if I had know it was going to be this bad I would not have committed for a year. Starting from scratch with this guitar would almost be unfair.

Have a great day and thanks so much for the help.

C

We looked at every guitar available at a price where we could afford to bundle it free with a subscription. We found this to be easily the best one.

The basic problem is you have a good ear. You can tell that fretted notes are not always as in tune as fingered notes. The problem is a guitar is equal tempered, which means basically that it tries to allow for playing any key instead of just one key. This is always a fudge. A really expensive good guitar, professionally set up by a guitar tech, makes it hard to tell the problem exists. But the cheaper the guitar the easier you can tell.

Here's an article on equal tempered:
http://paraglider.hubpages.com/hub/Equal-Temperament-Guitar-Tuning

With an inexpensive guitar, when I notice the problem, I usually will tune it so a G chord sounds good. That usually gets it into position to play reasonably well.

I'd recommend you try that. Also, try new strings. If all else fails, we can send you another one. Just ask customer service. But I suspect that you just haven't played a guitar of this type before and you'd be just as unhappy with the another unit.

Let me know if that helps? We could refund the whole transaction too, we don't want you to be unhappy.

Jon

I also got a free guitar with my year subs, thanks a lot by the way, i have not played or seen it yet, but my daughter likes it.

To hustlebut, have you tried a full set up on it yet.


Dave

I have a similar problem with my daughter's beginner guitar. It's a 3/4 size which I think exacerbates the problem. It's a Mitchell (Guitar Center's store brand).

Tuning to itself give miserable results, but I find using a guitar tuner sounds much better. I do find myself tweaking so an open G chord (like Jon suggests) and it gives satisfactory results.

I got my free guitar a few weeks ago and I absolutely love it. I normally play electric and have several really nice ones. I only had 1 acoustic before and I hated it, but now with this new one I actually enjoy playing it. Good luck!

Well, here is an update.

We changed strings which got rid of the ting? But still cant hear chords when playing. You just get a bad ringing.

I have a friend that signed up as well (He is the one that pointed me to Guitar Tricks). He has his guitar and he seems to think his sounds better. He is going to come over and compare. Maybe I got a dud?

I am going to check the neck ect for cracks or something goofy. Trust me, I am one not to complain especially about free stuff. But, this is bad.

Thanks for all the input, I do appreciate it. I will let you guys know what I find. I may have to get a replacement if my friends is playable.

As for the guitar tricks lessons, I think it is a fantastic set up. The lessons are broken up well, and the instructors are clear. I would recommend this site to anyone learning to play.

Have a great day people, thank for the help.

That's so great that your friend can bring you another to compare yours to. Just let customer service know here if you think a replacement will help:

http://www.guitartricks.com/contact.php

Ok Look At It This Way,well For One When Ever You Buy A Guitar Or Effects Pedal Always Google The Instrument So You Can Get A Good Idea On How It Sounds.in This Case It Was Free.and That Guitar Sells For Alittle Over $100 So You Get What You Pay For.u Really Caint Expect Gt To Hand Out $300 Or $400 Guitars.so Over All I Think You Made Out Decently.im Not Sure What A One Year Subscription Is,i Think Somewere In The Park Of $149 Not Sure.so You Paid$99 Which Is A Great Saveings To Begin With,and The Guitar Was Just A Bonus.be Happy Your Gonna Love What Gt Has Too Over You ,there Is So Many Lessons And The Best Teachers Money Can Buy.anyhow Welcome To Gt I Know You Will Only Benefit If You Stick With It.all You Really Need To Become A Better Guitar Player Is The Will To Be Better,focus On What Ur Doin And Most Of All Dedication....any A Little Tip Is This Whatever Lesson You Start I Would Suggest To Stick With It All The Way Through.dont Jump From One To Another,thats From Experience,thats What I Was Doing And Im Here To Tell Ya I Waisted Alot Of Time And Effort.so Dont Let That Happen To You.i Wish You The Best Experience On Gt.best Of Luck My Friend......

Ok. Here is an update. Borrowed my friends guitar from Guitar Tricks. Sounds worse. Then I brought mine to a friend that knows what he is doing. He tuned it by ear and it actually sounds pretty good.

My question is why. We have a tuner for it. We tune it. Sounds like crap. I tune my Ibanez guitar with the onboard tuner which matches my clamp on tuner and it sounds amazing.

How the hell am I supposed to tube this thing. I am new and I am no good at tuning by ear. I can admit it.

Any help would be appreciated for this newbie.

Thanks for the help guys.