How to buy a Classical Guitar-Tips and Hints to Help You Make a Good Purchase

Purchasing a classical guitar can be a difficult task particularly if you are not yet an accomplished player. Here are some tips and hints on finding a good quality classical guitar whether it is in the hundred Dollar range or the thousand Dollar range.

How to buy a Classical Guitar-Tips and Hints to Help You Make a Good Purchase

How to buy a Classical Guitar-Tips and Hints to Help You Make a Good Purchase

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How to buy a Classical Guitar-Tips and Hints to Help You Make a Good Purchase

How to buy a Classical Guitar-Tips and Hints to Help You Make a Good Purchase

If you are have ever gone into a well stocked guitar shop you have no doubt been confused by the selection of guitars. There are literally hundreds of shapes, sizes and types of guitars brands. And the price can range from a hundred dollars to several thousand. .If you are a beginner, judging the sound quality can be difficult to do because your ear is not yet highly trained. Here are some tips to help you make a good choice.

When in a guitar shop and looking at the guitars you should always ask a sales personto help you. This way you can take guitars down and play them. If you cannot play very well you should ask the sales clerk to play for you so you can get a feel for the sound of the different guitars. If the sales clerk doesn't play you should ask if there is someone working in the shop that does play. As a last resort you should even ask other customers in the store. Not listening to the different guitars is like shopping for a car but never test driving any of them. Guitars have very different feels and tones and you should listen to a lot of them to get a sense of what you like. Don't be bashful in this respect. Guitarists are usually a very gregarious bunch and a guitarist will almost always jump at the chance to play for someone else. If you don't yet play well and you can'tfind somebody to play for you I recomMend you not purchase a guitar. You should come back another time when someone is available to play or you can bring a friend who knows how to play.

Check the size and shape of the guitar

Classical Guitars, of course, come in different sizes and shapes and you should sit with a wide variety of them to get a feeling for what is comfortable to you. Your body shape has an effect on this. If you are over six feet tall the smaller guitars might not be comfortable for you and the fret board may be uncomfortable for your hands. So even if you can't play music you should always hold and sit with the guitars to get a sense of how the different ones feel.

Check the mechanics and playability of the guitar

Here are severalthings you should do when considering the purchase of a classical guitar.

1. Play every note on every string all the way up and down. Listen for frets that don't play properly. They will give a rattling sound and if this occurs on any fret at all you should put the guitar aside and try another one. This is a sign of inferior quality. Every string should play cleanly on every single fret.

2. Check the action of the strings against the frets in terms of how much pressure is needed to play notes and chords. You should play bar chords all the way down the frets to insure good pressure. If it is too hard to press the strings in order to make a clear chords this could be a sign of an inferior guitar.

3. Play harmonics on the strings. This is an excellent test ofthe quality of the guitar. Playing harmonics is the technique of plucking the note with your right hand and only lightly touching the string with your left hand. Test the harmonics of the strings on the 5th, 7th, 12th and 19th frets. If you do not know how to play harmonic notes ask the sales clerk to help you.

4. Examine and test the tuning pegs. Do they look clean and sharp? Wind and unwind them while Watching and feeling for smooth turning motion.

5. Visually examine the whole guitar. Look it over very carefully from front to back and top to bottom. Are there any small cracks? The frets Are firmly installed into the fret board? Are there any cracks or glue exposed around the bridge?

6. Tap on the front of the guitar (The sound board) in a variety ofdifferent spots. Does it have a rich sound echoing or are there spots where it sounds dead and limp? The internal structure of the classical guitar is very important for the sound and important for the longevity of it. Dull thud sounds could be an indicator of an inferior instruMent.

7. Examine the details. Look at the purfling around the edge. This is the pattern that goes around decorated the full body where the soundboard or face meets the sides of the guitar. Is it accurately laid in? If this has variations and inconsistencies it is a good sign that the guitar is of inferior quality.

8. don't hesitate to take a good look inside the guitar sound hole. You will see wooden braces in there. Do they look straight, accurate and well placed? If you seesloppy globs of dried glue around these braces it could be an indicator of inferior craftsmanship.

9. Remember that there are three distinct areas you must consider when purchasing a classical guitar: The Look, The Feel, and the Sound. If you keep all three of these things in mind and carefully examine the guitar in relation to these you will be able to choose an instruMent that will bring you a lifetime of trouble free playing enjoyMent.

How to buy a Classical Guitar-Tips and Hints to Help You Make a Good Purchase

Plasma Calibration Without Spending A Single Dime

Ok, you've gone out and bought a brand spanking new plasma TV, but how do you make sure that you're getting the best picture out of it? To do that you need to adjust the picture settings on your plasma TV, .otherwise known as "plasma calibration" in the AV industry.

Plasma Calibration Without Spending A Single Dime

Plasma Calibration Without Spending A Single Dime

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Plasma Calibration Without Spending A Single Dime

Plasma Calibration Without Spending A Single Dime

Before you start, you should know that the best calibration for your plasma TV will depend on your source material (i.e. what you're Watching), your input device (e.g. DVD player or satellite box) and the amount of ambient light in your home environMent ... among other things. You should also be aware that your plasma TV needs to be run for at least 200 hours to allow the phosphors to establish, or else you will have to repeat your plasma TV calibration in the future.

You may not own a plasma TVcalibration DVD, so this article will try to walk you through the steps using readily available material. Remember to use the best available connection to connect your input device to your plasma TV. In descending order, the cleanest signal (and hence best picture quality) can be obtained via: HDMI DVI VGA = > = > component SCART (RGB) > S-Video > Composite.

1. Adjust Brightness. This actually determines the black level on your plasma TV: too high a setting and black will look gray; too low and dark grays are swallowed into blackness. To set brightness to its proper level, simply play DVD with lots of black scenes (e.g. opening scene from Star Wars). Now crank your brightness up until the black on your plasma TV, then slowly look gray dial your brightness downuntil the black in the movie JUST matches the black on the black bars on top and bottom of the movie.

2. Adjust Contrast. This determines the white level and is responsible for how much light your plasma TV actually emits. To set contrast correctly, play DVD scenes containing a shiny bald head/forehead (e.g. The Fifth EleMent). Now increase contrast until the bald patch is glaringly hurting your eyes, and then tone it down until you're satisfied that you can see all the detail within the white.

3. Adjust Sharpness. For most poorly-encoded source material you want to use this to enhance the edges, but if done excessively this will introduce haloing and ringing around edges. It's best to bring up a "User Menu" (from your satellite box, DVD, etc) to adjustsharpness: increase it until lots of ringing artifacts occur around the edges of the words, then decrease it until the ringing just disappears.

4. Adjust Color. Color can either be too saturated or too dull ... either way the picture will not look right, with the most noticeable errors found in skin tones and green foliage. As a rough guide, you can use a DVD scenes with a hand and tinker with the color until the color matches that of your own hand.

Plasma Calibration Without Spending A Single Dime