Shipping a guitar can be a huge and scary step to take for most guitarists! Especially the guy who created the video above after he received a broken guitar he’d recently shipped. 

Thankfully, everything was resolved in the story above. But how can you be sure that you will not suffer the same fate?

We wanted to find out if any of you have ever shipped a guitar and suffered a similar fate? Or maybe you had no problems at all and received your guitar in pristine condition at the end of it’s journey.

How To Pack And Ship A Guitar(The Right Way)

Here is a video tutorial on the best practice to pack and ship a guitar.

As you can see if you take the first initial careful steps, it can greatly reduce any pain in the long run when you ship a guitar.

Your Feedback Needed

Please help us out by giving us some feedback in the comments below on your own shipping experiences. The reason we ask this is because we are actually looking to ship a guitar, and want to post about its progress on this website.

So, if you can advise us on what you did and why, maybe we can follow along and get our guitar from A to B!

Thanks All!

In this post we wanted to share with you a great resource for those of you that modify, or build your own guitars. This is a website we personally use to mod and customize our own guitars and basses.

All Parts – And Even More Guitar Parts

Allparts.com is a huge resource of guitar and bass parts and accessories. They have a huge inventory of practically any part you can think of, and the prices are great also!

Gone are the days of visiting a local guitar store only to find they do not have the part you are looking for, or maybe they are just out of stock when you need it? Allparts have everything covered so that you don’t have to worry about not getting the part you need.

Build it, and the parts will come!

For those of you that build your own guitars from the body up, you will be pleased to hear that Allparts also stock unfinished wood guitar bodies that you can paint to whatever color you want.

But it’s not all about the bodies;), check out some of the other categories of parts available.

• Bass Bridges
• Bodies
• Bridge Parts
• Electronics
• Fret Wire
• Guitar Bridges
• Guitar Hardware
• Inlays, Dots, Binding, Fretboard Materials
• Knobs and Switch Tips
• Necks
• Nuts and Saddles
• Pickguards
• Pickups
• Pickup Covers, Rings and Parts
• Pickup Winding Parts
• Tailpieces …… and more!

You also might want to check out the Allparts blog, which always updates posts with the latest parts available on the website.

If you are a guitarist that is always looking for new parts, you just can’t go wrong with Allparts! It’s full of great products and prices, and the shipping is super fast.

We have three more classic guitar riffs for you to learn this week! In this post we have a huge tune from Metallica, a classic from GNR(Guns ‘n’ Roses), and to finish off we have included a Nirvana mega track.

#1 Enter Sandman – Metallica

This video is an in-depth 22 minutes long, but it has all the parts for you to learn this classic Metallica track. Love it or hate it, this song basically made Metallica the rock legends they are today. And now it’s time for you to learn this unforgettable riff.

We usually only give you the intro to these songs, but for this song we feel you would benefit greatly from learning all the parts covered in this awesome video tutorial.

#2 Sweet Child ‘o’ Mine – Guns N Roses

Another classic Slash riff that is a “must learn” for all guitarists! It looks and sounds pretty hard, but the intro riff to Sweet Child o Mine is actually not that hard to play at all.

If you take your time and play along with the video tutorial above, you will be surprised to see just how fast you can learn this intro. Remember to take your time because you are playing over strings higher on the neck. But practice makes perfect, right?;)

#3 Smells Like Teen Spirit – Nirvana

The great thing about Kurt Cobain was how simple his guitar parts are. But at the same time they had that instantly classic grunge sound. Let’s face it, without Kurt, grunge would probably have not been as popular as it was during the ’90s.

Smells Like Teen Spirit is easily the most famous grunge riff of all time! And this  intro riff is just four power chords that you can learn in just a few minutes. The tricky part is getting the rhythmic timing down and turning this song into the classic riff it is.

This intro is perfect for a beginner who wants to learn something simple and recognizable to play in front of friends. It really should take you no time at all to master this great song.

That’s Riffin

Again we want to thank the creators of the great tutorials above! Please check more videos out by following them on YouTube!

Fender Guitars are looking to float on the Stock Market, and in turn raise $200 million to pay off debts and pick up some additional businesses in the process.

We discovered this news in an article on the LA Times website, and also learned a couple of other things about Fender in the process.

Apparently 2010 was not a good year for Fender who lost about $17.3 million! But in 2011 they seemed to make a great comeback with a 13% increase in sales to $700.6 million, from the previous $617.8 million. Still not too bad.;)

This is great news for investing guitarists that want a piece of one of the worlds most famous guitar makers and brands of all time. We for one really hope that Fender rock the Stock Market like they have done in the guitar market for many years.

We don’t usually do business posts, but we thought this news merited an update on our blog just to keep you informed. However we should all be pretty excited to see what kind of “new business ventures” Fender will take up next?

New Guitars For Sale wanted to get your insight into an important question we have been debating for a while now. We want to know what types of guitar related products you buy the most online?

Our Poll

To get the most accurate idea, we have decided to add a poll to our website sidebar(as well as in this post), so that you can vote on your own buying habits and help us with our research.

Voting is really easy by just clicking on your choice in the polling section and then hitting vote. This will count toward our eventual total that we will count up at the end of this month(March ’12).

It only takes a few seconds to vote.

What’s It All About?

NewGuitarsForSale.com are thinking about creating our own guitar related product, so we are looking into a little research on where we should focus our initial efforts.

However, we wanted to do this in an effort to improve a guitar product we use everyday. So if you buy a certain product but think it could be improved in some way, we would also love to know that as well.

We have a bunch of our own ideas and drawings already made up, so we just wanted to tally this with our poll results to see what path would be the best to take in our product endeavor.

Here Is The Poll

We want to thank you for voting, and hope that you return to check the results. As soon as we get the results at the end of March we will make sure we post of guitar related product updates as we go along.

For new guitarists, building up wrist and finger strength while learning guitar can be a frustrating task, especially on some of the cheaper guitars. But we have found you an answer in the form of a strange looking circular disc thing!

We wanted to let you know of some really cool finger/hand fitness products that you can use while away from your guitar. That way, even when you are far from your axes, you can still be improving the way you play it with some newly found finger and wrist stamina.

Finger Fitness Products

The following set of tools will really help your finger/hand stamina improve, and  also maximize the time spent shredding up and down the fret-board at full speed.

People usually laugh at products like this, but we consider them vital tools in a guitarists toolkit. Even some experienced guitarists own a few of these tools and use them in some warm up routines before they even touch a guitar.

So here is a list of finger fitness products that may interest you?

List: $39.95
Price: $24.99
You Save: $15.00
Finger Fitness Power Web Jr. Hand Exerciser

Price: $24.95
Finger Fitness Dyna-Flex Power Ball

Price: $19.95
Finger Fitness The Advanced Finger Fitness Guide Dvd

Price: $29.95
The Guitarist’s Personal Practice Trainer and Warm-Up Plan – 10 Minutes a Day to Better Technique and Finger Fitness – DVD

As you can see you have a bunch of different options available to you, even in the form of a finger fitness DVD! It’s like p90x for your fingers!;)

To see more hand fitness products, check out our finger fitness page!

Sometimes the best way to learn guitar is to actually learn a song. Owning a tab book of your favorite guitarist is another good way to get inside the mind of your hero, and begin to work out their own personal techniques.

Guitar Tab Books

New Guitars For Sale can find you an extensive range of guitar tab books for you to pick from. But if you are not too sure what to buy, or are just looking at the most popular tab books, then this post will help you with that.

We wanted to put together a post that will cover our most popular guitar tab books. These are the current hottest selling tab books from people using our website.

Price: $24.95
Hal Leonard Guns N Roses Complete Guitar Tab Book Volume 2 M-Z

This tab book covers all the Guns N Roses most classic songs! If you really wanted to get into the head of Slash, then no other book will cover his most popular riffs and licks like this book does.

For only $25 you can own a guitarists dream of classic tabs that includes songs like “Sweet Child of Mine”, “Welcome to the Jungle”, and even “Paradise City”.

This book might not be for an absolute beginner however. So if you are brand new to guitar, you can’t go wrong with this next book.

Price: $19.99
The Beatles – The Beatles 1 – Easy Guitar – For Easy Guitar with Riffs & Solos (with Tab) – Music Book

You cannot go wrong learning to play guitar with this Beatles tab book. Again this edition covers a whole bunch of songs(27 to be exact) from The Beatles most famous tunes.

This tab book is pretty easy to follow along with, and even a beginner can pick it up and begin to play some recognizable riffs and chords in no time at all.

A bargain at $20! And a pretty cool way to learn to play just like The Beatles did. But if you want mega technique, then check out this next book.

Price: $16.95
Alfred Van Halen Guitar Virtuoso Guitar Tab Songbook

“Guitar Virtuoso” says it all for this tab book! This book contains nine of Van Halens most famous guitar solos and riffs which are broken down in tab form.

If you want to learn amazing technique and shred like a master, then this might be the book you are looking for. This book is not for a beginner unless you are really brave?;)

For $17 this is another opportunity to see what techniques one of the most famous guitarists of all time uses during a solo. If you get this book and figure out some of these stunning techniques, your guitar playing will hit a whole new level of greatness!

Check out more tab books from other guitarists/bands.

Let’s face it, every guitarist needs a great capo that is reliable as well as easy to use. There is nothing worse than feeling like you have to play a game of Twister to get the thing on your guitar!

Worse still, once you have a capo hooked up, eventually you might start to get that annoying string buzz because the thing is just not tight enough to hold the strings down. Kinda like an old man trying to hold onto a rope swing!;)

Anyway, in this post we wanted to give you a heads up on some great capos, and some crap’oes(word made up). And basically anything else you should look out for in a great capo.

The Great Guitar Capo Run Down

Third Hand Capo Universal Partial Guitar Capo

This capo is pretty unique because it actually lets you clamp down on specific strings. This means that it really opens you up to create truly unique chords and sounds.

To adjust this capo you make use of the rubber sliders that bar off one of the strings, or all of the strings on the fretboard depending on your needs. They pretty much work in any combination and of course can even form chords for you.

At just under $17 the Third Hand Partial Guitar Capo is a pretty neat capo. The only downside being the fact that the strap band is made of that elastic fabric stuff, which over time and after many uses in our experience with similar straps tends to stretch, which can cause that string-buzz. But other than that we love it!

This is a guitar capo! 7/10.

Russell Regular Elastic Flat Guitar Capo

Hmmm, how to be nice?…

This capo would be great for a beginner guitarist that does not really use a capo all that much? Or for a guitar setup so well that the strings just need a delicate touch to play a note on?

But for serious gigging guitarists, you might want to give this capo a miss and go with something slightly more solid. This will save you a lot of time and frustration in the long run.

Again we have something against that stretchy elastic fabric, that eventually could stretch too far to clamp the strings down with the force needed to avoid string buzz. It is sort of like a big person that loses a ton of weight, then tries to fit into the same pants!;)

But this elastic capo does have a great price at just under $4!

So this is a guitar crapo! 4/10.

Shubb GC-20EB Electric Guitar Capo in Brass

What else can we say about the Shubb GC-20EB Electric Guitar Capo? This is the beast we use the most and have done for a few years now. This thing is basically indestructible!

One of the best things about the Shubb Capo is that small adjustable wheel that enables you to tighten the capo up if you start to hear any buzzing at all. This means that wherever you move this capo up or down the neck, you can tighten it accordingly.

We also love the rubber pads that are used to clamp the strings down, as well as make sure the back of the guitar neck is protected. I am yet to see any dents or nicks from using one of these capos.

For us, this Shubb guitar capo rocks our world on any fret for just $25!

This is a guitar capo! 10/10!

That’s it for this post! Keep the comments and feedback coming!

We saw this news article on Wired.com today, and just had to share it with you all.

It seems that guitarist and unique custom amp builder Robert Brenne, is taking amp design and building to new levels of coolness! This guy is building custom guitar amps out of things as small as beer cans.

Each amp has it’s own theme and sound(which is outstanding) depending on what Robert uses as it’s base. But it all started with the Beer can amp in the video above.

This is the original project that led to the creation of Artistic Amplification.

In fact the original beer can amp design was so successful, that it led in 2011 to the formation of his Artistic Amplification company. If you visit the website you will probably be as shocked as we are to see what Robert can build guitar amps from.

Amp To The Stars

We heard that Robert Brenne is a big Metallica fan, and had the idea to build and send Metallica guitarist Kirk Hemmett a Ouija board amp to further promote his brand!

White Stripes singer and guitarist Jack White has also been on the receiving end of one of these truly one-in-a-million guitar amp creations. Can you imagine the surprise to get an amp like this sent to you?

Artistic Amplifications Guitar Amp Product Range

If you head on over to the Artistic Amplification website, check out the Guitar Amp Gallery to see what products are on offer for you to buy today. It’s on this page that you really get to see the vast amount of items Robert has turned into working guitar amps!

A Duck Guitar Amp!!! Really?;)

We thought that such personal handmade amps would cost at least a few hundred dollars. But actually, right now on the website you can pick up some of the amps for as little as $50!

More Than Just An Amp

Robert has not only created a fantastic range of guitar amps, but he has also created unique iPod and MP3 related designs that will play music directly from your devices. All with the same custom look as the guitar amps! Even a Super Nintendo!

Please check out Roberts website, and find out more about his company Artistic Amplification.

This is true talent!!

It’s time to get some hands-on education in this weeks top 3 guitar riffs edition! Take a look at the three videos below and learn your way through each of the tutorials so you can play along with the songs.

#1: Beat it – Michael Jackson

This is a classic instantly recognizable riff that is actually not that hard to learn. A cool fact to learn is that Eddie Van Halen played the guitar solo on this song, but MJ’s touring guitarist was Jennifer Batter who held this riff and solo down in the live shows.

We love the sound of the Gibson Les Paul Custom in this tutorial!

#2 Eye of The Tiger – Survivor

Another classic riff from Survivor. Which will probably remind you of the Rocky movies?

This is a really cool video lesson that explains everything you need to know about this classic song. You get to follow along at super slow speed just so you can learn the individual notes and strokes at your own pace.

#3 Wanted Dead or Alive – Bon Jovi

This song might take a little more practice than the other songs, but it is well worth the perseverance to go over this lesson a few times to really get this song down.

The best thing we can recommend is to play along with the real song when you get the basics shapes of this tune remembered. It really helps you learn the tune and the timing when you play along with the actual track.

Try and try again!

Big Riffin Thanks!

Before we end this post we want to say a big huge thanks to the creators of the great video tutorials above! Without guitarists like this sharing knowledge and tips, learning the guitar would be made a lot less fun than it is!

Check out more lessons from the guys above at….

• http://www.ClassicRockRiffs.com
• http://www.guitarjamz.com/
• http://www.FullDistortion.com

Now get practicing!;)