Worst Guitar You've Ever Played or Owned?!?

[guitarcomet]

Switch/Drive Wildfire x3

I bought a Wildfire x3 from MF back in 2006.
It looked like a decent cheapie guitar for $129.95.
I mean, it had the features I wanted:
Neck binding, Humbucker pickups, Tune-O-Matic bridge, Arched top.
Had a pretty sunburst finish, too!

Once I got it, I realized I had been had (Ibenhad)
SuperCheap hardware, incredibly dull/lifeless pickups, tuners that couldn't hold tune for 5 minutes...
But the really bad part was the neck!
Couldn't put my finger on it (pun intended) but the neck just felt wrong.
Not warped, just uncomfortable. (and that puts it mildly)
The paint job was great, looked fantastic! (It's only good point)

I Googled the Switch/Drive company. They're out of business.
I can understand why.

 

[Julia]

There was this $130 Squier strat I thought I'd touch. The frets were so harsh they cut my hand -- really.

Then there was a Gibson Les Paul Studio that had a few burrs on the fretwires. This unchambered axe was $1400, while its $375 Epiphone cousin was very well finished -- sounded and played better as well and had P90s. Guess which got put on layaway.

 

[Nightdare]

about 2 days long I owned a Ibanez RG2-something

Not awfully bad, if it wasn't for the 1 way locking floyd (one that retains the ball-ends of the strings)
that thing would go out of tune just looking at it

needless to say I returned it

 

[Shinozoku]

Ibanez GIO GSA-60. Noisy humbucker with a couple of noisier single coils in a crappy body with a trem system that wouldn't keep tune, and a trem arm that just popped out.

 

[O'Doyle]

Flat Black Dean Dime ML hands down, and I've played Bullets, Lyles, Gremlins, SXs, Harmonys, etc. Body is made of cardboard and has no sustain, tuners won't hold long enough to tune the other strings even though the bridge is fixed, pickups are functional at best. But That's only counting electrics--my first guitar, a Sierra acoustic, had 3/4'' action at the 12th fret with no truss rod.

 

[nothingeined]

Probably the first Fender Squire I had. So much humming on it because something on it was not grounded.

 

[LRStrat]

I got a Cort Les Paul copy for my 17th birthday, very noisy guitar, I seen the LP's in guitar world without the pickup cover and thought that would be cool so I removed my guitar's pickup covers only to revel that my Les Paul had single coil pickups. EPIC FAIL!!!! :roll:

 

[guitarcomet]

I got a Cort Les Paul copy for my 17th birthday, very noisy guitar, I seen the LP's in guitar world without the pickup cover and thought that would be cool so I removed my guitar's pickup covers only to revel that my Les Paul had single coil pickups. EPIC FAIL!!!! :roll:

:lol:
Good story!

My first electric (@ age 16) was a Lotus LP Special copy.
Squealing pickups, cheap tuners, high action... and the neck warped in 6 months.
$100 well spent ?

 

[jdr94]

thats an easy one for me(and probably most players) it was my first guitar which was a strat copy that read MadAx on the headstock. might've had a e on the end of ax, i cant remember nor do i care to. LOL. at 10 years old it was the best guitar in the world. after years of playin great guitars i've realized how far i've come.

 

[ak37]

The most uncomfortable guitar I have owned was a Epi Firebird. It was many things that made it that way though. It was the first guitar I tried to learn to play. The shape just hung on me weird. The neck didn't feel right either. I had loved the look of the Firebird every since the Alive cover. Should have known better at my age btw. After I got my first PRS SE I realized that is what I liked. That was a great Tremonti SE! From there I swapped it in on an American CE then swapped that for the Custom 22 I have now. I am done looking at guitars now.

 

[Julia]

I picked up a $5000 PRS -- that's MAP not MSRP. It fit me perfectly. It played perfectly. Yep, this would be "the one". I could dump all my other guitars and keep this one and my acoustic. I'd be done.

This question gets into areas of "is a Steinway worth the money?" you can play a dozen or two of them and there may be "the one" in that lot.

I was in a piano store a few years ago looking at some digital stuff from Yamaha, and ventured over to the Steinway section for S&Gs. I own a "the one". I played a little on about a dozen and found another "the one." A couple came in and was looking at Steinways... I just told them "forget everything in here except this one. This is 'the one.'" I got 86'ed by the manager who was trying to sell them a piece of crap I'd just played.

 

[JKD]

Both low end Jacksons I tried were meh in terms of playability and tone...one was an 80s Dinky or something..the other a more recent DK type guitar....Crimson Swirl/Maple board (felt like plastic)

Both were Alder and had Duncans (I think JB/59 in both..can't remember now)...sounded terrible.

 

[ShowmasterQMTelite]

Mine would both be the same guitar, it was a 1958 Fender Strat, it played and sounded absoultely amazing, but wouldnt stay in tune for more than 3 or 4 minutes. One of my friends has a Cresent Srat copy that plays pretty bad to though, of course than there is any PRS SE model but i just cant deal with the wide neck on those...

 

[Zander]

Worst guitar:
Ibanez "X" Series, a star-shaped guitar (an Explorer with the area behind the bridge removed).

Floating bridge with a non-locking nut.

Just putting your hand on the bridge for palm mutes would push it out of tune.

 

[guitarcomet]

Back in 1986, I went to a "boutique" guitar store intending to get a Charvel (Like all my recent guitar heros had on stage)
I played every Charvel they had on the wall. They went up in price as we went through them.
Finally, the last guitar on the wall, (and highest priced)
A black cherry metal-flake paint job, neck-through body, Kahler Pro Vibrato, 3 - active EMG? pickups (S-S-H), bound neck & headstock...
A top-line production model.

It was "the one".

*note* 7 years later I bought a Jackson Soloist USA that blew it away :lol:

Jackson guitars were/are MUCH nicer! :shock:

 

[Brain2Me2]

Played a friends $3,000 Martin...and played like a $300 guitar...new out of the case...for a guitar that expensive I'd expect for it to have at least a nice setup.