Why do drums cost less than guitars?

At the lower end, you can get a cheap guitar and amp combo for $150, or an acoustic for $100. A cheap drum set with crappy cymbals will be $250 (on special) and up.

I had always thought of drums and guitar as being roughly equal, as you can drop about $2000-3000 on a decent guitar and about $1500 on an amp--and about the same on a shell pack and then cymbals, a throne, a bodyguard to keep the groupies away, etc...
 
Okay, okay, I guess I was wrong, but at least now my question was cleared up. Thanks everyone!
 
At the lower end, you can get a cheap guitar and amp combo for $150, or an acoustic for $100. A cheap drum set with crappy cymbals will be $250 (on special) and up.

I had always thought of drums and guitar as being roughly equal, as you can drop about $2000-3000 on a decent guitar and about $1500 on an amp--and about the same on a shell pack and then cymbals, a throne, a bodyguard to keep the groupies away, etc...

Keep the groupies away, are you kidding??...Or maybe you're talking about guy groupies?
This I don't get.
 
Demand:

There are more guitarists in the world.

Most guitarists have several guitars, while most drummers have one or two drum sets.

It's not unheard of for a guitar collector to have 20, 30 or even 100 guitars.

For a drum collector, 10 or 15 kits is a lot of drums to have in the house.

And thus, there are many, many more people willing to pay top dollar for a high end collectible guitar.
 
Drums definitely cost more. An intermediate drum kit is somewhere in the $900-$1400 range, whereas a guitar is under $1000. I challenge you to find a guitar that costs more than a 10pc SQ2 with a wide variety of cymbals/hardware. This excludes signed/collectors items.

Some guitars are pretty expensive. Not sure how much a Sonor SQ2 10 piece and cymbals would be but here's some guitars. I have hard time though finding guitars over $20 K

http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/product/Gibson-Custom-Shop-L5-CES-Guitar?sku=517483

http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/product/Gibson-Acoustic-J250-Monarch?sku=518946

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/FlyABvxPL/

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/FlyMojoLTDW/

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/TeleMHsig/
 
I once read in a magazine that Gene Simmons ( Bassist for Kiss for those of you who don't know) bass only costs about 200-300 dollars to make over seas in china. But when you include labor and all that other fun stuff it jacks the price up to 3,000 which is just sick if you ask me.
 
I see super-expensive guitars for hundreds of thousands of dollars
What you see is "collectable" vintage guitars up for sale. Watch any, or all of those auctions...and see how many, if any, actually sell.
 
I'm just saying that a really nice guitar can be $100,000, when a really nice drum set is only about $20,000. Why is that? I mean, even with the electronics or wood, how is there such a huge price difference? And obviously, there are more expensive drum sets out there, and less expensive guitars, but I'm talking about in these cases.

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick here (as usual). A guitar that is not only a super nice vintage collectable such as a 58 les paul in perfect original condition and add to that it being played by a famous person such as Jimmy Page, then suddenly you've got a guitar worth $100,000. Very few guitars actually sell for that sort of money and it's not to do with their actual craftsmanship or what materials were used or it's use as a decive. It's about it's history. The reason you don't see drums go for that much is simply because drummers aren't as famous. If we stop talking about record breaking sales and concentrate on NORMAL instruments that people actually buy to play, you will find that drums tend to be quite a bit more expensive. I can pick up a brand new guitar for £50 that will be perfectly playable and good. Compare that to the drums which for a new starter set would be at least probably 3 times as much, and that's just with the bent pieces of brass they call "cymbals". If we talk about really high end stuff, before we start to go custom i would say that a professional rockstar would probably spend about 2-3 thousand on a nice guitar, compare that to the drums where you could probably spend that on just the shells alone, before buying the hardware (we're talking like 1-2 hundred for one cymbal stand here) and cymbals. If you play a big set, that's a hell of a lot more than even the best guitar rig that you could buy off a shelf.
 
I think you've got the wrong end of the stick here (as usual). A guitar that is not only a super nice vintage collectable such as a 58 les paul in perfect original condition and add to that it being played by a famous person such as Jimmy Page, then suddenly you've got a guitar worth $100,000. Very few guitars actually sell for that sort of money and it's not to do with their actual craftsmanship or what materials were used or it's use as a decive. It's about it's history. The reason you don't see drums go for that much is simply because drummers aren't as famous. If we stop talking about record breaking sales and concentrate on NORMAL instruments that people actually buy to play, you will find that drums tend to be quite a bit more expensive. I can pick up a brand new guitar for £50 that will be perfectly playable and good. Compare that to the drums which for a new starter set would be at least probably 3 times as much, and that's just with the bent pieces of brass they call "cymbals". If we talk about really high end stuff, before we start to go custom i would say that a professional rockstar would probably spend about 2-3 thousand on a nice guitar, compare that to the drums where you could probably spend that on just the shells alone, before buying the hardware (we're talking like 1-2 hundred for one cymbal stand here) and cymbals. If you play a big set, that's a hell of a lot more than even the best guitar rig that you could buy off a shelf.

Okay, now I understand. Very helpful!
 
I'd like to see a fifty-pound guitar that's well made, easy to play, reliable and good sounding.

The local record I've come across is a £90 guitar that was rather good. That was a new one as well. My acoustic was a £200 job and that's a lovely guitar - but a fluke amongst many others that were mediocre. That's what I love about guitar buying; you go looking for the special one of the batch and often find it.

Saw a Danelectro Pro 58 in a shop window for £199 yesterday. Sorely tempted. Can't afford it.
 
I'd like to see a fifty-pound guitar that's well made, easy to play, reliable and good sounding.

Well funny you should say that because i think you'd be surprised at what you can pick up for £50-60 these days in terms of guitars. They're not the best made or the best playable or the best intonated or anything but they're fine. Okay i mean so are beginner drums if you have the right heads and tunings but as for the cymbals, they just suck.
 
Higher supply. It's much easier to make a set of cymbals than to make a single guitar, so there are more good cymbals out there.

Lower demand, probably, too. The drums aren't as popular an instrument as the guitar.
 
maybe drummers are smarter than guitarists....

...or maybe we're just cheap.
 
I'd like to see a fifty-pound guitar that's well made, easy to play, reliable and good sounding.

I'm going to go ahead and respond as if you're saying that the guitar would weigh fifty pounds:
Bahahahahahhahaha.
 
I'm going to go ahead and respond as if you're saying that the guitar would weigh fifty pounds:
Bahahahahahhahaha.

giant-acoustic-guitar.jpg


And yes in England we still actually use GBP as currency!
 
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