I took my guitar to the shop today. It plays just fine, though I suspect it could play better. Setup, intonation etc.
The guy at the shop suggested having the frets leveled. Of course this will make it play best. But if it plays pretty well as is, we must be talking about thousands of an inch. How much better can it play? Hard to say really. The cost is $250! The guitar cost $400, wow thats more than 50% of the cost. Then again if you like an instrument and play it a lot, it might as well play as well it as it can, right?
But $250! how long does this take? If it was a 5 hour job you'd be paying $50. I suppose guitar techs need to eat. I live in SF, they probably live in SF also, it's expensive out here.
I have a Hello Kitty Strat. Mine's black with the ransom note lettering on the back. I had mine before Joe got his. I got it on Craig's list for $50. It really needs a fret job. It plays OK, but frets out around the 15 fret. This guitar for $50 came with a cheap soft case with shoulder strap and a key fob that said "I'm not a bitch, I'm the Bitch". It felt like a steal, even with the fret troubles. It sounds OK, it's light weight, fun to play.
Ok, so if you have a $50 guitar and get a $250 fret job, you've spent $300 and have a guitar that plays like $300? Heck, maybe it plays as well or better than a $400 guitar. With a new pick up it might sound sound like a $500 or a $1K. What if you started with $400 and got a $250 fret job, does it play like $650? Seems there's a point of diminishing return?
On the other hand I could probably take a file take a little off the top of the last few frets and the $50 guitar wouldn't fret out, it wouldn't play like $300 or more, but, it still only cost $50. I guess it all depends on how much you want to spend.
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The cost and benefits of fret work
