Why do big name players tour with budget instruments?
When musicians tour, things (instruments) get manhandled, battered, dropped, lost and sometimes stolen. Imagine your studio instrument is a priceless vintage strat, or similar, and it gets half-inched. It happens. Steve Morse's Prized Custom Buscarino Electric Acoustic Guitar Stolen in Washington, D.C. Steve Morse's Prized Custom Buscarino Electric Acoustic Guitar Stolen in Washington, D.C. | Guitar World https://www.guitarworld.com/artists/steve-morse-prized-custom-buscarino-electric-acoustic-guitar-stolen-in-washington-dc That’s one point to make. The other point to make is twofold. Firstly, professional musicians can make cheap, budget, limited instruments sound really good, and secondly, many budget instruments are actually pretty good anyway, so it makes no sense at all to take the priceless museum piece on the road. Twisted Sister's Jay Jay French on Epiphones versus Gibsons: "I think that for the money, Epiphones are fantastic" Twisted Sister guitarist Jay ...