First Electric Guitar

My suggestions...

1. Get the guitar you REALLY want, not the one you can afford necessarily.

David Ellefson's Dad told him this when he was a kid. He mentioned there is no sense in buying something you don't want because its more affordable because you will end up spending way more buying other gear you don't want before finally buying what you wanted in the first place. Don't look at the price tag. Go for how it feels in your hands, the features, company reputation, and which one makes you excited to pick it up.

2. Stay away from Epiphone/Gibson/Peavey unless you have long alien hands.

These brands have huge clunky necks and for people with average to small hands it can cause lots of cramping, bad technique, and early carpal tunnel syndrome. Ibanez, Rickenbacher, and SOME Fenders have smaller "fast" necks. Pretty much anything made for Japanese players is going to have a smaller neck which I prefer. LUNA guitars are designed for women's hands and SX guitars are designed for childrens' hands. Both of these will be amazingly small necks.

3. Country of Origin/Quality

Personal politics and family patriotism should not play a role in what guitar you get. American made guitars CAN be really well made depending on the company and quality control, but they usually come with higher price tags. Japanese, Thaliand, Ukraine, and Germany make some of the best guitars on the planet. Japanese Ibanez Guitars, especially certain models and ones from the 90's are excellent quality.

4. Tone

Being a beginner, you aren't going to know what tone you really want. You'll be able to say the name of a guitarist whose tone you LIKE, but it won't likely be the tone that defines you. I spent many years playing other bands' material with THEIR settings and over time matured my ear a lot. I have the tone I use and seek after when looking at gear. It took me close to 15 years to know for certain what I liked. As a beginner, you should try to get a guitar with different pickup styles to get an ear for their differences and which pickups you prefer. The newer EMG pickups and preamp systems are nice because they are solder free installs. That means you can hot swap pickups in a matter of seconds and try out different ones. They also sound quite good I think and they make so many different models for different tones you can really get what your achieving after quickly.

5. Suggestion #1, again

GET THE ONE THAT FEELS GOOD IN YOUR HANDS. I can't stress this enough. Never buy a guitar you aren't familiar with or from a stranger online without playing on it first. I bought a bass once because of it's tone and when I got it in my hands I hated it. String spacing was huge, the neck was super thick, and the body didn't fit up against my body the way other basses did. Pick it up and give it a go. Have a friend take you to a guitar store and blind fold you. Have him put random guitars in your hands and play them unplugged at first. Get an idea of what you like the feel to be. If your choices are A. A great sounding instrument you don't like to play B. A crappy sounding instrument you love to jam on

B is the obvious choice. You can upgrade an instrument to sound different but its more more complicated and expensive to change the way it feels.

6 BODY STYLE

Don't get a V shaped guitar for your first. They require a very particular way to be held and played. You wont something thing will balance great whether you are standing or sitting. V's don't do this.

All this being said. the guitars I would have wanted as my first guitar are as follows.

1. Takamine 1984-1986 Solid Body Electrics They are a little rare and can run anywhere from 150-600 bucks if you aren't going for the super sought after models. The Takamine GX-100 and GX-200 Are great. I've owned both. The pickups are strong and bright, the neck is super slim, the body is lightweight, and the wood having aged 30 years will sound sooo much better than some hogwash made last year in Mexico in a hurry. These are JAPANESE instruments as well.

2. Jackson Chris Broderick Pro Series Soloist 6 Yeeees it has a tremolo and that might not be your thing. Learning how to properly utilize and maintain nut locks is a HUGE pain in the butt, however, you can put a block on the tremolo. This way it would work as a fixed bridge 6 string but you have the FREE option to remove the block later if you want to learn how to dive bomb and such.

3. Ibanez S771PB 24 frets, good quality control, fast neck, 3 pickups good for later swapping out, only 2 knobs to fuss with. If you can find an Ibanez that's actually made in Japan you win. Ibanez GR or RG ... something like that is a good series. Half of all the best products I've owned have been Ibanez.

The Takamine GX-100 is an explorer style body. It doesnt look goo don everyone. The GX-200 however has a more strat style to it, so its ambiguous as far as what style it has.

Here's one I just found for 300. TAKAMINE

Both Ibanez and Fender have a very distinct sound to the discerning ear.

I find Fender tones to be "plinky" and very high pitched and thin. I can only compare this sound to single coil pickups. People who play classic rock and folk music seek after them. I find that Fender products are also a bit hit-or-miss when it comes to neck dimensions. You can pick up 2 American standards and somehow the neck is different. Fenders are a bit easier to work on the electronics due to their access point being on the front of the guitar and some models having all the pickup slots routed into each other like a swimming pool. Electronic options can sometimes be limiting because you HAVE to find a pick-guard and control plate that fits YOUR model. On a scale of 1-10 EQ... most stock strats tend to have Bass 2, Mid 8, Treble 10

Ibanez tones are usually fatter and more mellow. More like Bass 4, Mid 6, treble 7. It's a more balanced tone. Ibanez is great about producing the same exact necks as well. The blind feel test on a series of Ibanez guitars would be very hard to distinguish the differences in feel alone. I think this consistency is terrific. Ibanez guitars are a jack of all trades guitar. They can ALMOST sound like a strat but not quite while also being able to mimic other guitar tones. These are used in everything but especially in the rock and metal.

I'd personally go with*Ibanez*. Higher consistency, wider price ranges, and parts are plentiful and not as finicky with different models.

Try to find a lightly used RG that was made in Japan if you can. Don't go too cheap either. I would say 500 is a good range to look at if you want decent quality and not have to upgrade down the road. Make sure to get 24 frets as well. You will be frustrated if you are trying to play a song that requires a bend on the 24th fret (making it like a 28th fret" and your stick with just 22 frets. Try to get one with EMG pickups if possible. I love active pickups but for a beginner, changing a battery can be a deterrent.

Tremolo Bridges-

For some styles of music they can be important. They train you to have a light touch with the guitar as well. If you were to ever play Van Halen, Pantera, or any other band that heavily uses this, it will be a must. It has a learning curve though. Tuning them can be difficult especially if they have a locking nut. There is a new type of bridge you can upgrade to called an EVERTUNE TREMOLO BRIDGE. They are EXCELLENT at keeping your strings in tune and they have some features that can be really good for someone who doesn't want to fuss with the guitar much. At first though, they will require you to learn how to set it up. If you don't plan on using a tremolo in your playing, a fixed bridge is great too. It will limit what you can play slightly but it will be much easier to deal with during restringing and tuning.

Another thing you need to factor in to your budget is a professional setup. Every luthier in your town will claim they do it the best so you may need to research a bit to see who has the best reputation for great guitar setups. It's something you need to learn yourself down the road, but it will make the experience of playing the guitar so much better for you to have your new instrument set up correctly. I would suggest requesting that they set it up with a very low action, a flat neck, and the pickups to be decently high. These usually run on average of 70 bucks.

For your second guitar, go used. You can get a much bigger bang for your buck if you know what to look for. For a first guitar, unless it's a Japanese RG or one of those Takamines I would try and get a brand new guitar with a warranty.

After you have your blind play test, compare local prices to online. If you use an Online source to get your instrument go with Sweetwater.com . Top notch customer service and on some guitars they have a feature where you can actually see the EXACT guitar that you bought, even the serial number of your guitar and you can choose which one out of a couple of them you want.

Don't forget to show us what you get ;)

No question is stupid when it comes to intricate mechanisms like a guitar, and No Problem. There's far too many musicians out there with a stick on their chamber of secrets and are just plane rude to other people trying to get into it. Bass guitarists are usually more of a community towards musicians. You can see the difference looking through a guitar forum and a bass forum. I'm a bass player so I'm not trying to hide the secrets to my tone :D

Right off the wall, it will still need to be set-up because they don't come set-up perfectly from the factory usually and changes in humidity, altitude, and temperature effect how the guitar intonates. If you buy it from GC, see if they can give you a deal on the set-up. I'd still go ahead and call around for set-up prices and try to get an idea of who in town is most trusted with this. GC employees don't have to pass a test to work there and when it comes to setting up a guitar, EVERYONE has a different opinion on what's perfect. GC I think usually does a set-up for 75 bucks. You might have a luthier near you who can do it for 40.

When you get yours, you want the strings to be as close to the straight fret board as possible without buzzing on the frets when you play. This makes it so that very little pressure is needed to make the note play. Some people are going to set it up the way THEY like the strings and in some experiences I've had, they set it up to where it's really uncomfortable to play.

Until you build up calluses on your finger tips, I'd also suggest getting some 9 gauge strings that have low tension. Don't get an 8 because they'll be like loose rubber bands and 10's will not be fun to break your fingers in on as they are going to be high tension and require a lot of pressure to bend. It would be wise to go ahead and buy a couple of fresh sets of strings. 6 string packs are only 4-9 dollars a pack and you may end up breaking a string or two. Whatever strings you have put on for the setup is what the guitar will be set-up to. Changing brands and gauges can change the way it plays so I would buy the same brand. My best friend is purely a guitar player and he swears by Ernie Ball Super Slinky strings.

That's the beauty of learning to do all this stuff yourself later on too. It will save you cash, it's rewarding to know how to fix anything that happens, and you make your guitars play the way YOU like them to. I'm excited for you.