The Ultimate Beginner Buying Experience......

Consistently lower prices on Fender® Strat® Packs versus the Big Box stores.

Added value: All Guitar packages purchased from Fat Sound come out of the box 100% setup and ready to play; something our competition can't say. Please read my article below for full details.

Why Fat Sound Guitars is The Only Place in The Triangle Worth Considering for your entry level to intermediate guitar needs:

If you are considering buying a first guitar or amplifier for yourself or your child, the article below contains quite a bit of valuable information that, if read through completely, will go a long way towards steering you in the right direction.

Fat Sound Guitars opened in 1993 with one goal: to provide the absolute best in both high-end and entry level guitar gear to the local community and to do so with a level of knowledge and service not previously found in the industry.

In 1996 we launched one of the world's first guitar, retail websites and today operate not only our original walk-in location in Cary, NC, but also one of the world's leading online guitar shops with literally thousands of clients all over the globe.

In the years since the founding of Fat Sound Guitars we have added many of The Best product lines, opened on-site teaching studios and created one of the finest set-up and repair shops on the East Coast headed by master luthier Mark Kane.

So why not just go to a Mega-Store?

Many Mega-Stores have entered the market in recent years, but Fat Sound has continued to thrive because we have always offered a higher level of knowledge, service and experience as well as the unique ability to develop long-term relationships with our clients both here in The Triangle and throughout the world. And The Best part is that you, as a Fat Sound Guitars' customer, get all of this without paying a dime more for the products you purchase from us.

The idea of a nationwide Mega-Store having the best prices may hold true for Wal-Mart, but this is a different industry. The only financial difference between the music instrument Mega-Stores and the locally owned shops like ours is overhead. Frankly, our overhead is considerably lower which allows us to be extremely competitive when it comes to pricing.

If you have a son or daughter who is considering learning to play guitar, whether acoustic or electric, there is no better place in The Triangle area for you and your family to establish a relationship than Fat Sound Guitars.

While our competitors are merely interested in selling guitars, we are concerned with creating guitarists. This is part of our long-term approach to building our business as well as serving the local community.

How does this translate in to a better experience for you or your child?

Well, first of all, we refuse to carry *any* guitar brand that doesn't offer well-built, extremely playable instruments. We have very high standards and we refuse to carry "toy guitars" or poorly made, super-low-priced guitars just to hit a price point.

While we firmly believe that a beginning guitarist or parent of a child who wants to learn to play guitar shouldn't spend a ton of money on a guitar just to find out if they or their child has a real interest in becoming a guitarist, we believe it is vital that a beginner's first guitar play correctly (i.e. "easily"), play in tune and not in and of itself be a discouraging factor.

To this end, we only carry brands that have proven to build the highest quality instruments in a given price range. Some of these guitars, mainly our entry-level acoustic selection, are built in Canada with similar construction methods to the most expensive guitars we carry and others like Fender® Standard Stratocasters® and Telecasters® are built in Mexico with quality that easily approaches their US-made bretheran at about 1/3 the cost. Fender® Squier (sic) series guitars (not to be confused with the Starcaster guitars available via non-authorized Fender® dealers such as chain electronics stores) and PRS SE models are built in decades old Asian facilities by highly-trained craftsmen.

These guitars are beautifully built, but there is one problem, they ship via container half way around the world before finding their way to local dealers for sale to the end user. Guitars are made of wood and are, of course, susceptible to changes in climate. Temperature and humidity changes that occur during their journey from manufacturing facilities in Asia, Mexico and Canada result in guitars that need a considerable amount of set-up/adjustment work once they arrive at the retail store.

I don't know of any other shop in this area that addresses this situation before re-selling these guitars.

So, in many cases, without knowing what to look for in a properly setup instrument, you can buy one of these well made guitars from a Mega-Store for the exact same price for which we sell them only to discover soon after that $50.00 worth of setup work is required to make them play the way they are supposed to.

At Fat Sound Guitars, every guitar we sell goes across our repair bench for a complete setup. In the case of an electric guitar this is actually a 19 point adjustment.

We have never charged extra for this service because we know it can make the difference between a beginner guitarist loving his or her new instrument, having fun playing it and ultimately becoming a guitarist or becoming frustrated, often for reasons they don't even understand, and putting the guitar in a closet never to be played again.

Before buying a first guitar for yourself, your son or your daughter, stop by Fat Sound Guitars and speak with Mike Ayers whose been with my company for 10 years and has 16 years experience in the industry, Mike Gallo, an 8 year Fat Sound veteran or myself, Stuart Carter, owner and local family man with two guitar playing daughters ages 11 and 14 and allow us to give you more information as to why buying a guitar anywhere else ultimately costs you more and can lead to frustration and dissapointment.

Our environment is as low pressure as you could possibly imagine. We offer more of an educational approach and less of a sales-based experience. At Fat Sound Guitars we love what we do, thoroughly enjoy educating the market place and will treat you like family.

We look forward to meeting you, working hard to educate you on the process of buying a quality, infinitely playable yet affordable instrument that you or your child will love and seeing you around the shop on a regular basis.

Thanks!
Stu Carter, Owner Fat Sound Guitars
est. 1993