mountainpix
Junior Member
How would you briefly sum up, from your own personal perspective, what has made Guild electric guitars special over the years?
When I started out with my S-300A as a teenager back in the mid '80s, I didn't think of it as anything particularly special. I found it at a pawnshop for a bargain-basement price, and it was just a decent American-made "Gibson substitute" that I could afford. I had no appreciation back then for the finer points of the guitar, such as just how wonderful HB-1 pickups and ebony fretboards are, so I never thought that I'd end up loving the S-300 and keeping it for thirty years. I also never expected to discover that I tend to connect well with most Guild guitars I lay my hands on, whereas I can't say the same about Gibsons, Fenders, PRSs, Gretsches, and numerous other manufacturers (though there are obviously lots of great guitars out there). Some Les Pauls, for instance, are fantastic, but I've picked up many that I immediately wanted to put down. I've never had that reaction to an M-75, Nightbird, or '90s Bluesbird. I tend to find SGs awkward and uncomfortable, while I find the S-100 to be a nearly perfect hard-rocking solid-body electric, and so on...
Early on, I thought of Guild electrics as being cheaper wannabe Gibsons: Les Paul –*M-75, SG – S-100, ES335 –*Starfire IV, etc. It appears to me now, however, that in many cases what Guild was doing was looking at whatever drawbacks were present in a popular guitar design, and saying, "we can fix this and make a better instrument for people who really play their guitars."
When I started out with my S-300A as a teenager back in the mid '80s, I didn't think of it as anything particularly special. I found it at a pawnshop for a bargain-basement price, and it was just a decent American-made "Gibson substitute" that I could afford. I had no appreciation back then for the finer points of the guitar, such as just how wonderful HB-1 pickups and ebony fretboards are, so I never thought that I'd end up loving the S-300 and keeping it for thirty years. I also never expected to discover that I tend to connect well with most Guild guitars I lay my hands on, whereas I can't say the same about Gibsons, Fenders, PRSs, Gretsches, and numerous other manufacturers (though there are obviously lots of great guitars out there). Some Les Pauls, for instance, are fantastic, but I've picked up many that I immediately wanted to put down. I've never had that reaction to an M-75, Nightbird, or '90s Bluesbird. I tend to find SGs awkward and uncomfortable, while I find the S-100 to be a nearly perfect hard-rocking solid-body electric, and so on...
Early on, I thought of Guild electrics as being cheaper wannabe Gibsons: Les Paul –*M-75, SG – S-100, ES335 –*Starfire IV, etc. It appears to me now, however, that in many cases what Guild was doing was looking at whatever drawbacks were present in a popular guitar design, and saying, "we can fix this and make a better instrument for people who really play their guitars."