Twin Cheap Acoustic Guitars?
Yep, you’re seeing things right. I’ve got TWO, count them TWO cheap Chinese made acoustic guitars. If you’re asking yourself, “Why did he buy two identical cheap acoustic guitars?”. The answer is that I didn’t. I bought the one on the left as my first guitar, when I started my guitar journey. The one on the right was sent by Guitar Center as a replacement for the first one. Read on below for the whole story.
Rogue RG-624: So Happy Together
Every new guitar player probably knows this story. You get your first guitar, and you fall in love. Even if it is total trash, that guitar opens up a whole new world to you. You start learning and playing more and that guitar becomes your companion on your guitar journey. That’s what my Rogue dreadnaught was to me. For my first couple of months learning guitar, it was the instrument I started the basic open chords and baby steps with.
John Denver’s First Guitar Story
What’s Going on with the Neck?
About 2 months in, I noticed that there was something going on with the neck of my guitar. The finish on the guitar neck looked like it was cracking off. It wasn’t just one side of the guitar either. In the identical spot on the other side of the neck was an identical cracking in the finish. The thing was new. It was only in my hands for a couple months. But it was also cheap. I wasn’t sure if this was what you get with a cheap guitar. You can see in the pictures here that there is cracking on the finish on the neck of the guitar.
Guitar Center Customer Service: Thanks Guys!
After noticing the cracking, I took the guitar down to my local Guitar Center. It was already past the 45 free return period, but I was hoping that they could do something about it anyway. I’d only had the guitar for a couple months and I was babying the thing. There was no way that this could be my fault and I went in emotionally prepared for an argument with the store staff. I’d heard stories about the quality of Guitar Center and I didn’t have very high hopes.
I walked into the store with my guitar and after a short wait, I got the chance to talk to one of the staff members. He quickly told me that I was outside of the free return period (which I already knew) and that I couldn’t return the guitar. I showed him the cracks running down the neck and told him that this was a product defect and that there was no way that I could do this much damage to the guitar in two months. The rest of the guitar was pristine. If I was trashing this guitar, the rest of the instrument sure didn’t show it.
The poor guy looks up the guitar on their system and says he doesn’t know anything about it. I have to tell him that it’s Guitar Center’s own in-house guitar brand. I get it. They probably don’t see too many lefty acoustics to begin with, let alone the GC store branded version. The best that he could do is to give me the contact info for GC Customer Service at their headquarters. I thank the guy and go home to email customer service.
The next day, I’ve got a response from the customer service guys. They tell me the same thing that the guy at the store told me. So, I repeat my story to them in my email replay and attached pictures of the guitar. The next day, without any additional argument, they reply telling me that they’re sending a replacement guitar. No additional discussion or questions asked. No additional info needed. They looked up my initial order online and send the replacement to me. The new guitar arrives on 7/24/2023.
I was happy to get a working, non-cracked guitar, but now I had two of them. I really didn’t want to get rid of the first one. That’s the one that had the sentimental value, even if it was crap. I had no attachment to the second one. It was nice to have a working guitar, but I was already thinking of moving to electric. I didn’t really plan to play it much.
In the end, I decided to hang on to it for a while. The twins have been sitting in the extra bedroom that serves as my music room. Maybe I’ll sell the working one eventually and keep the cracked one as a decoration. I’m not sure, but that’s my Guitar Center cheap guitar story. Thanks GC.
After Thoughts: 6/28/2024
Almost a year after I first wrote this in my guitar journal, I’m still playing on my twin Rogue. As readers of my blog might know, I picked up my Rogue acoustic again after watching a fingerpicking lesson on YouTube. I could and did practice fingerpicking a little on my Epi Les Paul, but it felt more appropriate to practice on an acoustic, so… here we are. The Rogue still functions and for what I’m asking it to do, it’s doing fine. The guitars have kind of grown on me. They’re still cheap, but they have a home here.
Share Your Story
If you’ve got a guitar story, share it with us in the comments below!