Good electric guitars for beginners

Bill Gate$

I'm looking to purchase my first electric guitar (have an acoustic) though I want something cheap..around 100-150 UK pound sterling...any body willing to help me?

http://www.dv247.com/invt/37104/

This seems to be too good to be true, it's an Epiphone Les Paul..but its only 100 quid.

Sir Carcass

Epiphone is generally Gibson's "value" brand (though there are some great Epiphones for great prices), so it's not too good to be true. It's a cheap guitar, but perfectly fine for a beginner. You'll hear a lot of different opinions, but mine (I've been playing guitar for 17 years) is for your first, mainly just get something that you think looks good. You're not going to notice the difference in playability or tone from a great guitar. Upgrade when you find out you're going to stick with it.

Richard M. Nixon

I'd recommend shopping around pawn shops in your area and see what they've got. The benefits of that is being able to play before you buy (as opposed to buying on the internet). I got a rather nice Squier Strat for a pretty good price from a shop just down the way from my office.

JohnnyCache

my guitar playing homies all stand by Rondo for 1st guitars. They are korean and thus very cheap, but supposedly the guitars themselves are ok and it's the electronics that are the value components, so as you figure out what you are doing you can upgrade a few things and get good longevity out of one.

Dark_Side

Be wary of bargain brand guitars, most of them are made in the same factories overseas with different names stamped in the headstock. I usually tell people to try and stick with a known brand, Ibanez, Epiphone, Yahama, Gibson. Most of these makers have relatively good quality guitars on the low end of the price range, though I usually try to find used ones from the early to mid 90's, the manufacturing quality has gone way down in recent years. Be very wary of Fender's Squire series, they used to make them in Japan, and the quality was as good as American strats, but now they are made in places like Mexico and Korea and the quality is utter shit.

The cardinal error most people make is buying a dirt cheap guitar when they start out, which will warp, never stay in tune, have, or eventually develop, terrible action, and generally are just awful to play. If you spend a little more money, you'll end up with something that will last and be much more fun to play.

Edit: Something like this would be perfect for you: LINK

Pheezer

Peavey's making some of the highest quality budget guitars around right now. Friend of mine got a used HP Signature Series EX for $200, and it plays better than her $700 Ibanez. Gives a warm, middle of the road tone. Humbuckers are pretty quiet, nice fretboard, sets up with a lower action without fret buzz very easily.
http://peavey.com/products/browse.cfm?action=detail&item=113565

Jimmy King

The Rondo/Agile stuff, as already recommended, I have heard nothing but good about. The Dean XM/X/XP (listed in order of cost there. the XM and X being very similar, and the XP being like the X series but with a mahogany body instead of basswood) are pretty decent for the price, too. I've got a Dean ML X and have no complaints... decent humbuckers for a cheap guitar (although I replaced mine with DiMarzio Evolutions), nice flat neck, grover tuners.

romanqwerty

Obligatory "What kind of music do you play?"

A epi LP will sound alot differant from a strat.

Epiphone guitars seem to be hit or miss. Some are great, some are awful.

When buying any cheap guitar make sure to try it out first. Ensure that it doesn't have any dead frets (play each fret and make sure it rings clearly, w/o it plugged in). Also check that the neck is bent properly (place fingers on the first and last fret and there should be a gap of about a credit cards width between the string and 7th fret).

I would also buy a decentish amp. A good guitar will still sound horrible through a really cheap amp.

i'd reccomend spending about 1/3 of your budget on a good amp.

Pheezer

The thing about Epiphone (off brand Gibsons) and Sqiers (off brand Fenders) is that unless you know a lot about guitar hardware and you're willing to thoroughly inspect a handful of guitars before selecting one, you're probably going to end up getting a sub-standard instrument with at least a minor failing, if not something major.

I'd recommend brands that don't rely so much on image/brand recognition. I haven't used a Rondo or Dean personally but I'd be willing to believe the recommendations made in this thread regarding them, though my personal pick for value is still the Peavey I linked. Worth seeking one out to give it a test run.

ElJeffe

To expand the conversation ever-so-slightly, what sort of things should one look for when deciding whether it's time to upgrade from low-end to something that doesn't suck? How does one distinguish between poor playing due to the player and poor playing due to the guitar?

flatlinegraphics

rondo/agile are good first guitars, in that they mostly skimp on things you aren't going to notice until you get better and gain an ear for tone. and once that happens, some hardware swaps and new pickups and you have a decent to good guitar.

not sure if they ship international tho. but the same advice goes over there as over here: go to a shop and play everything. if you have experience with acoustic, then you are already a step up, and can probably tell a shoddy instrument from a decent one. plus, if they deal in used, you can get waaay better deals than new. guitars take a bigger hit driving off the lot than cars do. and don;t be dazzled by brand names. peaveys and ibanez are really decent low and mid level guitars.

Jimmy King

Pheezer wrote: »

The thing about Epiphone (off brand Gibsons) and Sqiers (off brand Fenders) is that unless you know a lot about guitar hardware and you're willing to thoroughly inspect a handful of guitars before selecting one, you're probably going to end up getting a sub-standard instrument with at least a minor failing, if not something major.

I'd recommend brands that don't rely so much on image/brand recognition. I haven't used a Rondo or Dean personally but I'd be willing to believe the recommendations made in this thread regarding them, though my personal pick for value is still the Peavey I linked. Worth seeking one out to give it a test run.

I have talked to a few people who have nothing but bad to say about the cheaper Dean guitars, but I know I love mine... stays in tune with hours of playing each day, no cheapo trem to throw the thing out of tune, and it seems relatively solidly built. The only shitty thing about it is that if I tighten my output jack all the way, it causes a short when I plug the cable in. I believe my guitar was also made at the old Chinese factory and Dean has since started using a new factory in China due to the quality issues with the old one and word on the street is that things are better.

Pheezer

ElJeffe wrote: »

To expand the conversation ever-so-slightly, what sort of things should one look for when deciding whether it's time to upgrade from low-end to something that doesn't suck? How does one distinguish between poor playing due to the player and poor playing due to the guitar?

It depends on what you play/want to play, but the things I find are always worth considering are:
Neck - How comfortable is it? Is it wide enough? Narrow enough? Thick enough? Thin enough? How does it feel playing scales on it at the bottom and top ends of the fret board? Does the wood have a finish that feels good under your fingers?

Sustain - Heavier guitars will ring out longer. Buy a heavy guitar. This feeds into materials used, harder, denser woods tend to cost a lot more, but again, sustain. Set necks are better than bolt on necks for this reason as well. More is better, always.

Additional features like whether or not it has a tremolo system or a locking bridge will also add to or detract from the price.

Not too many people actually make use of their tremolos either, and these will reduce sustain and cause strings to lose tune faster. Again, probably not necessarily a good investment.

A locking bridge like the Floyd Rose system will help strings stay in tune longer, but make it significantly more time consuming to replace and correctly tune a string in the event of one breaking. Personally, unless you use your trem aggressively or bend strings a LOT and will have a spare guitar nearby and in tune at all times, I don't think a locking bridge is a good investment.

Aside from that, it's mostly tone that you're hunting. Electric guitars will derive a lot of their tone characteristics from the pickup configuration and the model of pickups installed, and from the type of wood used as a secondary source. Acoustics will primarily get it from the wood used. An electric guitar with a decent, single piece body, even made of cheaper wood can be easily upgraded by installing better pickups. Acoustics force you to invest in better wood.

Oh, that's the other thing. Body construction. They'll either be made of multiple pieces of wood glued together or one single piece. Some high end body designs utilize composite body construction, layering different types of wood for specific reasons, and these will not be subject to the problem I'm about to mention. Cheaply made guitars with composite bodies are made that way to utilize smaller, cheaper pieces of the same type of wood and are significantly more vulnerable to warping over time. Sqiers are notorious for this. Unless you take exceptionally good care of a Sqier, it will eventually warp. That's what you get when you glue two pieces of wood together.

Single piece construction is going to be what you want in the majority of cases. It's going to be less vulnerable to warping, and it's going to have better sustain.

Khavall

One note is that that is in fact not a real Epi Les Paul. The specials in addition to only having one Tone+volume knob have a flat body. I have a special that sits in the corner of my room that I keep in drop D for when I want to practice something in drop without going through the hassle of retuning my main guitar.

The good is that it is a guitar, it does all of the functions of a guitar, and it does them ok. The bads are that it goes out of tune like there's no tomorrow, the action along the fret board is a little clunky and slow, and the quality control was terrible. My high E string constantly snagged on my 23rd fret 'till I filed it down and hammered it in a little more. Also you'll need to adjust the neck and action immediately upon getting it.

Basically think of the Epi specials like the Squier strats. Not bad for learning, but you'll quickly outgrow them. Then again, if you're only spending a hundred or so on a guitar, that's pretty much what you'll get anyways.

Also, go to guitar shop places, and talk to them and play guitars. When I started actually performing more and had to move a step up from my dinky Epi, I was considering a few models, but basically didn't really know what to go for for the next step up, so I went into a guitar shop in town and asked them. After going through what I was using it for, what I was looking for, and what I play, they handed me a Hagstrom Ultra Swede. It was fucking perfect, exactly what I was looking for. Hell, it has some features I will never, ever, be able to go back from, like its amazingly thin neck, and the holy grail of awesome, a coil tap switch. Plus it just looks so pretty. In general, the people at guitar shops know what they're doing, and you won't get the guitar only to find out that there's some huge manufacturing defect you didn't notice and have to send it in or some shit like that. Also sometimes they have great deals, or do things like taking a guitar that is good in every way but, say, its pickups, and replacing them with better pickups. Hell, I used to have an old crate Bass amp and a Sears Silvertone bass amp, which I never, ever, ever used, and I went into a guitar shop down the road a bit, traded them in for a slightly used but still in pretty much perfect condition Crate guitar amp with its own effects board, some fun and nice amp emulation, as a straight up trade. Guitar shops are always places to go for things like this.

SirToasty

ESP has some top notch stuff in the $200-$300 range. Some quality control issues but most are excellent. The F series is especially good. Incredibly comfortable neck and perfect fret access. Pickups are nothing special but those can always be swapped out in the future if you get more serious. Only downside to the F is that their looks will turn a lot of people off to them. They aren't as bad as a B.C. Rich though. Avoid those like the plague.

I really would like to try an Agile. Word is that they are awesome considering their affordability.

Mitsuhide

Ibanez is ok for the low end stuff, but they really start to shine in the $300 and up range. For example, an extremely solid starter guitar is the Ibanez RG321, because it's light, but doesn't feel cheap, and mahogany. Got a great string through bridge, and is strat shaped, and super comfortable. But alas, it's around $300.
Like Toasty said, ESP's low end (actually called LTD) 50 series guitars (M-50, MH-50, etc.) are also very good and can be had for around $100-$300. This is great if you dig the Les Paul style; LTD EC-50

Pheezer

Khavall wrote: »

Hell, I used to have an old crate Bass amp and a Sears Silvertone bass amp, which I never, ever, ever used, and I went into a guitar shop down the road a bit, traded them in for a slightly used but still in pretty much perfect condition Crate guitar amp with its own effects board, some fun and nice amp emulation, as a straight up trade. Guitar shops are always places to go for things like this.

Actually, the Sears Silvertone line, depending heavily on when it was made, might be a really cool vintage find. Sears was re-badging Japanese imports that didn't have brand following in north america in the 60s and into the 70s, and these included the Teisco line of guitars.

I don't know a lot about the amps, but I can talk about the guitars.

These are cheaply made instruments for sure, definitely you'll find defects if you look hard enough, but with a re-wiring job by a qualified tech and new pots (assuming they're matched to the characteristics of the originals) you'll get a really cool, really haunting, hollow tone out of the guitar. Very 50s style tone. I would imagine that with a little work you would be able to achieve some pretty decent results from their amp line. Again, depending on when it was made and by whom.


Also, I swear by Crate for cabinets. I've never used one of their amp heads, but my current bass rig uses a Crate 4x10 capable of 400W power handling at 8 Ohms, with the option of wiring down to 4 Ohms (which is how I run it). The Crate cab has a good, smooth response from bass through treble. The high end tends to be a little bright, but that's easily controlled by the EQ on my head unit. Definitely a small amount of bias towards the lower end of the instrument's range, which means controlling that via the EQ again, but very easily handled. Gives a massive amount of volume, and when I set up my head unit right the mid range carries through the subtleties of the instrument really nicely. Given that Crate is essentially a budget line, their cabinets are a fucking steal.

But that's cabinets, and a beginner doesn't need a head/cab setup, a beginner needs a decent combo unit. So look at Roland, Peavey and Traynor combo units for a practice amp. Marshall will be hideously overpriced for the value you can expect.

Pheezer

Mitsuhide wrote: »

Ibanez is ok for the low end stuff, but they really start to shine in the $300 and up range. For example, an extremely solid starter guitar is the Ibanez RG321, because it's light, but doesn't feel cheap, and mahogany. Got a great string through bridge, and is strat shaped, and super comfortable. But alas, it's around $300.
Like Toasty said, ESP's low end (actually called LTD) 50 series guitars (M-50, MH-50, etc.) are also very good and can be had for around $100-$300. This is great if you dig the Les Paul style; LTD EC-50

My guitarist was trying out that exact ESP, and came very close to buying it before she found the Peavey I linked. The ESP you linked is a good buy and gets decent tone. I was less than thoroughly impressed with how it played, but she really liked it. It's all in how it feels in your hands personally though.

Khavall

Pheezer wrote: »

Khavall wrote: »

Hell, I used to have an old crate Bass amp and a Sears Silvertone bass amp, which I never, ever, ever used, and I went into a guitar shop down the road a bit, traded them in for a slightly used but still in pretty much perfect condition Crate guitar amp with its own effects board, some fun and nice amp emulation, as a straight up trade. Guitar shops are always places to go for things like this.

Actually, the Sears Silvertone line, depending heavily on when it was made, might be a really cool vintage find. Sears was re-badging Japanese imports that didn't have brand following in north america in the 60s and into the 70s, and these included the Teisco line of guitars.

This one was not.

In order to make it even worth trading I had to set the bias lower and even then it wasn't that great.



The amp part wasn't too bad, the speaker was shitty as all fuck. This crate is far, far, far better.

Pheezer

Speaker replacements are the easiest mod you could possibly perform. It's 2 solder points, and the replacement baskets are almost always one of very few standard sizes. In fact, a new speaker can be had for far less than a new amp or cab of comparable size, because you're not paying for the woodworking.

If I ever outgrow my Crate cab, I'll just drop new baskets in her and sell the used baskets. There's a very reasonable market for 10" woofers with huge power handling limits and good efficiency.