Ok, my turn:
Gonso's List of Stuff to Look For in a Beginner's Electric Guitar:
1) Get a guitar with a pair of humbucking pickups, or that at least has one in the bridge. One of the properties of humbuckers is that they cancel out what's called 60-cycle-hum, which is often a problem with single coil pickups especially if you have a lot of interference. Your standard humbucker looks like a double-pickup, which is all it is.
Compare here with this photo.
Single coils tend to have a different sound than humbuckers and fit different styles of players, but on your first guitar I wouldn't worry so much about that. There's time to learn about all that. From my experience you'd be happier starting out with noiseless pickups and not dealing with a bunch of hum driving you nuts.
2) Don't get a guitar that comes with a whammy bar. On cheaper guitars you'll have all kinds of tuning problems, and the thing can be a distraction besides. If you know how to jerk off you've already half mastered the whammy bar, so work on your chords and picking and the rest of your fundamentals.
3) Use standard strings for a while, not too heavy. For beginners I suggest a common .009-.042 is gauge leaning to the light side, it's a little easier on your fingers. Buy a 3-pack of
these or
these.
4) Invest $50 in a basic professional setup. That's enough to get someone to set up your instrument properly. Typically they will adjust the neck relief a bit, perhaps slot the nut a little better, and adjust intonation so that your guitar is in tune everywhere on the fretboard. None of these things are recommended by me if you're just starting out and don't have tools. It's not a dummy proof process. And give them the type of strings you have to set them up with!
5) If you're on a budget, don't sweat the wood type of the guitar so much. Agathis is common and works fine, though some are put off because it happens to be cheap & plentiful where the overseas factories are. It's fine. So is basswood, and poplar, and alder especially. If you want a little heavier sound, mahogany will help a bit.
6) Used guitars are fine, and it's a great market to buy them in. But there are a lot of products out there ranging from great values to crappy pieces of junk. Get help, or ask on a forum with people who know what they're looking at.
7) For a new guitar, I'd budget at least $250. Used is all over the place and you can often find a perfectly good used instrument for half that or less. A Squire Tele Custom fits the bill and that's $250. Maybe the ESP LTD Viper-100FM, or ESP LTD H-101 at the same price.
8) Read #4 again.
9) A little solid state amp is fine. Usually it will have treble, bass, volume and maybe distortion. It will sound like ass compared to anything good, but when you're starting out your playing sound like ass too. Ass through a $1,200 Fender Twin will still sound like ass. You could also take advantage of technology and get a little
iRig or something similar. That's not the best idea necessarily, as like the whammy bar you'll probably spend an inordinate amount of practice time playing with effects and making noises. I recommend practicing in the clean channel most of the time when you're new to it. Effects hide mistakes and develop bad habits.
Last edited by Gonzirra; 01-28-2012 at 06:47 AM.