Quality Control

What Do We Check For When We Receive A Guitar?


When we receive a guitar from any of our suppliers, before it goes on the wall or out the back into our storage area, it goes upstairs to our Guitar Lab – the office where our dedicated guitar technicians weave their magic. There, the instrument is subjected to a number of routine checks and tests to make sure there’s nothing wrong with the instrument, and if we find something wrong that they can’t fix, it goes back to the supplier. Period.

Here's what our local wizards are looking for when they inspect a newly arrived guitar:

  • They closely examine the neck of the guitar to eliminate faults such as warping, twisting, or other deformation in the wood of the neck. Neck deformation can cause varying levels of playability issues like high/uneven action, fret buzz and poor intonation.

  • They carry out an in-depth inspection of the finish on the full neck and body of the guitar, ensuring there are no chips, dents, swirls or other finish faults like overspray or paint factory faults. Finish issues don’t affect how a guitar plays, but if we don’t check for them, they can really ruin the excitement of opening that brand new guitar. We want you to be stoked on your new instrument, so guitars with finish problems don’t make it past this point.

  • They check through and test all the electronic aspects of the instrument, confirming that everything is working and sounding the way the builder intended. Faulty electronics can dramatically affect the sound of an instrument, with issues ranging from buzzing, humming and crackling through to changing the tone of the pickups and even sometimes resulting in no sound output at all. How are you going to flood the local speakeasy with soaring riffs if your guitar isn’t making any sound? You’re not, that’s how!

  • Similarly, they will test the functionality of all the hardware elements of the instrument, including machine heads, bridges, and saddles. Faulty hardware can cause myriad problems on a guitar, including issues with tuning stability, string action, intonation, fret and saddle buzz and all sorts of other woes.

  • And finally, they will closely inspect the frets, making sure that they are properly seated, as well as ensuring that they are cleaned and polished. Poorly seated frets will result in buzzing, muted or ‘dead’ notes, and a thinner, less resonant sound. Dirty frets will affect the sound of your guitar by dulling the tone and potentially causing string buzz, and they will affect the playability of the guitar by introducing friction and scratchiness to the movement of the strings across the frets – nobody wants dirt getting in the way of their huge deep vibrato!

What Are Some Common Reasons We Reject Guitars?


It may surprise you to learn that we reject guitars from every brand we carry from time to time. Whether this is due to factory/batch issues, or damage sustained in handling, packing and shipping before it gets to us, these issues are more common than you might think! That’s because, when you buy from Modern Musician, we put in a tonne of effort behind the scenes to make sure that these sub-par guitars never make it into your hands.

Here are a few of the common reasons we send guitars back from whence they came:

  • Swirl marks, scratches, dents, marks or other finish flaws on the neck and body finish.

  • Neck twists, bends, warps or other deformations that can’t be fixed with a simple setup.

  • Substandard fretwork that exceeds our capacity to fix in-house.

  • Hardware that’s either misaligned, poorly installed, damaged or otherwise substandard in it’s fit, finish, or functionality.

  • Faulty electronics.

What Pre-Delivery Work Do We Do When You Buy A Guitar?


Even after it’s passed the initial incoming Quality Control process mentioned above, when you buy a new guitar from the Modern Musician Hobart store, the guitar goes back upstairs to see the techs once more for one final check and what we call a ‘Pre-Delivery Setup’. This final check is to make sure that nothing funky or unexpected has happened to the guitar since the original QC process, and the Pre-Delivery Setup simply ensures that the instrument arrives in your hands sounding, feeling, and playing it’s absolute best.

Here’s what the Pre-Delivery Setup on your guitar looks like:

  • Guitar is set up to play and function to factory specifications.

  • Truss rod is adjusted to set the neck action to factory standard.

  • Nut slot is adjusted to ensure the string height and string seating is correct.

  • Saddle is adjusted to ensure tuning stability and intonation are correct.

  • For guitars over $1,200, a fret dressing might be carried out as required.

  • And lastly, every guitar is lovingly played by one of our technicians to make sure you’re getting what you paid for.