Common Dean Guitar Company Mistakes to Avoid

I've spent enough weekends in second-hand shops to see the same regrets crop up again and again, and instruments from the Dean Guitar Company seem to attract a particular set of them — mostly because the shapes are so striking that people stop thinking about anything else. Here are the mistakes I see most often, and how to sidestep every one of them.

Mistake One: Buying the Shape, Not the Sound

The ML, V, Z and Cadillac silhouettes are genuinely eye-catching, and there's nothing wrong with wanting one for how it looks. The mistake is stopping there. Pickups, bridge type and scale length shape how the guitar actually sounds and feels far more than the body outline does, and plenty of buyers only work that out once they've already paid.

Mistake Two: Assuming Every Dean Is a Metal Guitar

The brand's reputation is tied closely to hard rock and metal through players like Dimebag Darrell and Dave Mustaine, and it's an easy leap to assume the whole catalogue follows suit. It doesn't. There are more conventional superstrat-style electrics, plus dedicated acoustic and acoustic-electric lines built for entirely different jobs. Don't let the badge talk you out of a genuinely good fit.

Mistake Three: Treating Every Tier as Equal

This is the one that catches out buyers comparing prices online without reading closely. A guitar carrying the same body shape can be a USA Custom Shop instrument or an entry-level import, and those two things are not remotely the same product. Always check the series name — Select, Classic or X Series versus USA Custom Shop — rather than assuming the shape tells you everything.

Mistake Four: Ignoring Scale Length Until It's Too Late

If you play in drop tunings, scale length genuinely matters. A shorter, Gibson-style 24.75-inch scale and a longer, Fender-style 25.5-inch scale behave differently under lower tuning, affecting string tension and feel. Buyers who skip this detail sometimes end up fighting a guitar that was never quite set up for the tuning they actually want to play in.

Mistake Five: Choosing a Locking Tremolo Without Knowing What You're Signing Up For

A Floyd Rose-style bridge looks brilliant and lets you dive-bomb to your heart's content, but changing a single string means rebalancing the whole system, not just replacing one string and tuning up. If you're not prepared for that extra fifteen minutes every time a string breaks, a simpler fixed bridge will make your life considerably easier.

Mistake Six: Skipping the Case Question

Several shapes across the Dean Guitar Company catalogue are genuinely unusual, and a generic gig bag simply won't fit some of them properly. Buyers who don't check case compatibility before purchasing sometimes end up with an expensive guitar and nowhere safe to actually keep it between gigs.

Mistake Seven: Buying a Signature Model for the Wrong Reason

Loving Dave Mustaine or Michael Schenker's playing doesn't automatically mean their signature model suits your own hands or style. These instruments are frequently configured around one specific player's technique — a particular neck profile, a specific pickup voicing — rather than being general-purpose guitars. Admire the artist, but check the spec sheet against your own playing before you buy on name alone.

Mistake Eight: Skipping the Setup After Purchase

Even a well-made guitar can arrive with fret buzz, high action or intonation that's slightly off. Budgeting for a professional setup after you buy, rather than assuming the factory settings are final, fixes more "this guitar feels wrong" moments than people expect.

Mistake Nine: Forgetting About Weight and Neck Feel

Some of the larger, more elaborate body shapes are noticeably heavier than a typical guitar, and neck profiles vary across the range too — a slim, fast neck suits one style of playing, while a chunkier profile suits another. Neither is objectively better, but buying online without ever holding the actual model means guessing at two things that are genuinely personal. If you can, try before you buy, or at least check the specific dimensions rather than assuming every guitar in a given shape feels the same in your hands.

How to Avoid Repeating Any of This

Slow down, play the actual instrument rather than trusting the model name alone, and match the specs to how you actually play rather than to how the guitar looks on a stand. If you want the full picture before you shop, our complete buyer's guide to the Dean Guitar Company walks through choosing by playing style properly, and our overview of the brand covers the shapes and tiers in more depth than we have room for here.

The Bottom Line

None of these mistakes are really about the Dean Guitar Company being a bad brand — they're about buyers moving too fast past the details that actually matter day to day. Slow down at the right moments, and a Dean can be exactly the guitar you were hoping for rather than a beautiful regret sitting in the corner of your room. If a Dean will be your very first guitar rather than an upgrade, our beginner's guide is worth reading before any of this.

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