Cheap Guitars from Beyond the Red Curtain

Music manufacturers around the world in their quest to reach a wider audience, particularly the lower end of the market, are always looking to lower their manufacturing costs. This has led many to peep around the red curtain and use manufacturers based in China - particularly in the last 5 years.  A lot of people have pre-conceived views on anything manufactured in China and automatically assume that because the products are produced cheaply that the products will be of bad build quality. Not necessarily true, but you do have to be wary. 

Guitarists like most musicians are wary, and want to make sure they are getting a quality guitar that is going to be durable, especially if you're gigging with a punk/metal/rock band for instance. This is totally understandable. But sometimes the dream of owning your own Fender Strat is not always possible due to budgetary constraints so you have to set your sights a little lower. 

At this point it may be worth having a look at alternative manufacturer. Some manufacturers use a company in China to build the basic model, ship it to their own shop, pull it apart, upgrade various parts and hot-rod it. One such company doing this is Sparrow Guitars which is a Canadian company who've employed the services of Scott Zimmermann (an ex-Fender master builder) to oversee the quality in China before they reach Canada and finally given an overhaul.

 

Its a wonderful model that allows for some fantastic features available on higher end models, to be made available at a significantly lower price, whilst retaining good quality in terms of build and sound.  

Sparrow electric guitars comes in models based on already popular classics i.e. Big Daddy  - Gretsch Hollow Body; The Primitive - Semi-hollow Body; The Rat Rod - Les Paul shape and the Twangmaster - Telecaster shape.  There three entry levels in terms of price represented by the Pro, Boss and Ace models. 

Additionally, guitarists can choose from custom artwork. So even if you can't play too well, at least you'll look cool. 

For an independent review click here.