Music Guitar Advice: Budget Electric Guitars - [GOT ME ONE!]

I've had bad experiences with that model (Well the action was high and the neck was set up badly) but for 35 quid you can't go wrong.

 

Weird, the best bit about my Strat was the neck!

 

What the hell is wrong with sound control?! They sell cheap instruments to beginners and they do it well. I've advised many people to check them out and they've never had any problems. You get what you pay for. As for thomann i've had 3 guitars off them and the delivery has been brilliant, when I ordered the 1820x two days later it was on my doorstep from germany. I've ordered stuff from scan that took longer than that and they're 15 miles down the road!

 

Sound Control have notoriously terrible staff, generally they're the equivelant of car salesmen, can explain it's attributes but ****ed if they have to open the bonnet

anyway if you're lookin in the 300 market already i'd say you should just spring a bit more for a low-end Fender. Thats just general advice though, a lot of guitar ability is from specifically knowing what you want your sound to be so you should try out some single coil stuff like a telecaster/strat and some medium/high end epiphones like les paul/sg. Without getting into a debate over sounds, generally Epiphone/Gibson types work well for starting out learning rhythm and Fender is good for starting out lead guitar.


Don't touch any squiers, they are 100% wastes of money-

Atually I'd recommend this too, the pacificas are top notch balance of quality for cost. They're never going to be played on a serious stage but they'll flat out beat most any budget guitar in build/sound quality.

 

Pacifica... i haven't seen one of those in such a long time that i forgot about them - but yeah. They're good guitars (or- they were, last i checked, which must've been 10 years ago or so). Worth a whirl.

Things to note, though - your sound requirements should determine your guitar choice. I for one hardly ever play blues/jazz/etc. I'm a purebreed metalhead when it comes to guitaring, and my major influences include in flames, COB, Arch Enenmy and Lamb of god. As such, anything with a single coil has a single coil too many for my liking.

Humbuckers (i.e. fat "double" pickups) generally have a warmer more rounded sound, where Single coils have a sharper, twangier sound.
If i had the money, the single coil guitar off choice for me would be a Fender Telecaster (a vintage '67 - don't ask me any more specifics than that)... it's quite possibly the most evil sounding instrument i've ever played... a friend of mine has one, and i've since offered him >15K (in N$, i.e. around 1000GBP) for it, and he still refused...

as for leads/rhythm - a mid range epiphone should be able to do both with ease, provided the amplification is up to it...

I'm really not a big fender fan, and am a firm believer that the only people allowed to play fenders are SRV, Clapton, and the Maiden cast...

 

Well I have an Affinity Strat (tobacco sunburst) and its great but my cousin's one, which is the basic one (was red) has serious problems. It could be a one off and it's certainly serviceable though.

My guitar teacher was telling me good things about the Vintage PRS100 (that's probably not the right name but it should be fairly obvious being the only PRS copy Vintage do.)

 

Ibanez Gio are great, was my first guitar, but you just can't get away from the fact that *anything* cheap is going to sound gash.

My Ibanez (GRG170, can be had for £170) has lasted me 3 years as first my main, then backup guitar, if set up perfectly it is very nice to play, and very durable, I've knocked it, had it tuned down to Drop A# on many occasions (it now lives in Drop C), and the sound quality is not to bad at all (don't forget you really need a good soundcard and simulation software, guitars really don't often sound good plugged in to laptops, the cards really aren't designed for that kind of work).

 

Personally I picked up a Squier Strat Affinity for my first guitar and I still have it, it's a perfectly decent beginners guitar. It doesn't really sound the shizzle compared to my Ibanez RG, but that's understandable, what matters though is doesn't feel budgety to play, in many respects if you were deaf it's almost identical to playing a genuine strat.

So yeah, +1 for Squier Strat.

 

Yeah mine was an Affinity too and the action felt a lot nicer than some of the more expensive guitars to me- I'm still yet to find a guitar that I can pick up and play as easily as that Strat. Kinda wish I hadn't sold it now

 

I think most people would tend to disagree with you there - there are loads of decent Squires out there, and although they're not as good as the real thing, for most people's needs, they do just fine.

 

I hear neck feel a lot here... note that Fender, Gibson and some others (some jackson's) like using 24.75" necks, whereas some "more metal" brands tend to stick to 25.5" necks (Ibanez, some Jacksons, ESP, etc). The general consensus is that scale length (guitar-talk for neck length) is personal preference. Just like string gauges, pickup configs, etc. HOWEVER, 25.5" offers more detuning potential at lower gauge strings... For example, i can happily detune my Ibanez RG to C# (mostly it's in D, though), without sacrificing attack (how far the strings are from the neck) on 10 gauge strings. If i do the same on my 24.75" neck guitars, i'll have fretbuzz from hell...

So really - the first question that should be asked before suggesting too many guitars and options would be what music you like playing... there's no use buying a BC Rich Warlock with EMG81/85 combination pickups, if you're into jazz and will never ever in your life crank up the gain - you just won't get the desired sound out of it...

 

I want to play metal, and at the moment I'm leaning towards getting an Ibanez of some sort. I like the look and feel of them.

 

I would advise against a Squire Strat, I found they lose their tuning far too easily. I went with a Squire Tele as my first.

 

For metal, you want humbucking pickups... especially in the bridge position.
Ibanez is probably your best bet, unless you can pick up a second hand Epiphone Les Paul Custom or something of that kin... but then, if that's the cas,e you might as well scour around and find yourself a proper non-GIO 'nez.... as i said - i'm an Ibanez Fanboi...

 

Oh, and also check if you do or do not want a floating bridge (aka floyd rose)...
advantages of a floyd rose: Divebombing, inverse whammy action, often better tuning stability.
Disadvantages: Setting up the guitar takes time, not everyone likes/uses whammy bars at all...

 

i would reccomend against floating tremelo's as a first guitar because they do require a lot of knowledge and tlc to get them properly setup, changing strings is a nightmare, and of course the g string flatness issue on pre edge 3 floyd roses which crops up everywhere.

 

Any UK based guitar forums you might recommend - good community and a classified section?

I am now looking mainly at Ibanez guitars, but have a few others earmarked aswell (a couple of Jacksons?).

 

i would recommend a mix of harmony central and of course ultimate guitar, the guys over on the official muse boards know their jazz (im still banned there because of a minor upset between an admin and myself, he didn't agree with me critiquing his advice to buy an mg marshall instead of a cube :/ hence the ban)

 

Well I bought me a guitar on Saturday. It's a Washburn Wr-150, I knew Washburn were a respected brand but I was a little worried it might be tat after an impulsive eBay session. However it seems to be rather well liked when I looked it up at Harmony Central: http://reviews.harmony-central.com/reviews/Guitar/product/Washburn/WR-150/10/1

Anyway, it only cost me sixty notes so it wasn't really much of a gamble - the temptation was there to spend double that on a second hand guitar but I resisted as, as I said in the beginning, it was the cost of a PS3 game (and a bit lol). And it was local so I could pick it up in person. Suffice to say it is/was/is pristine, and after a quick dust of the neck and head it is simply a brand new guitar. Stuck a new set of strings on and it feels really sweet to play and seems well made considering. Anyway, I'm dead chuffed and I've been playing it loads to remember what I've forgotten in the last few years... which seems to be alot lol. Sore finger tips is a good sign though. Unfortunately I haven't a practice amp so I've been running it through the Guitar Rig 3 demo on my MacBook Pro - sounds very nice on headphones but I'm after a small amp anyway as it's not ideal and it has 30minute timer in demo mode.

PIC!



It's a metallic purple. Sorta grey-y purple, bit of a marmite colour but I really like it (photo doesn't do it justice).

 

Washburn make some awesome axes, that looks like a bargain!