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You can get a good and cheap guitar. Don't let people tell you you can't. Name brand Gibson's and Fender's are very expensive. You don't need that as your first guitar...but you can get similar quality with Epiphone, Yamaha, Peavy, PRS. Even Gibson and Fender has it's beginner brands. The one thing you have to be careful of on the market is Chinese fakes - yes, China even makes fake epi's, copies of a copy.
My advice is to go with an inexpensive used guitar at first, see if you catch on to it. For $300 you should be able to get a very good used guitar. Maybe a Yamaha Pacifica strat design (my first guitar, 40 years ago, and I still have it, and it's still in production) - 3 pickups give you a variety of musical genres to play out of it. Then if you really start getting into it, with your band, then go expensive. Find out what style you like - metal, country, rock. The pickup placements will make a difference in sound, as does the wood, etc. There are tele's, strats, les pauls, hollowbodies, semi-hollow, SG's. That's just electric, then you have accoustic and other hybrids. But don't dwell on those differences. Like I said get something like the pacifica that is able to play all genres. Pick up a guitar make sure it's comfortable to use for YOU. Comfortable to hold and play. Then also get it properly set up. Very important. I have 5 guitars (including one bass and one accoustic). Many bought used. Not one cost me more than $600.
Does not compute with guitars (or Basses, Drums, or any musical instrument).
(snip)
Music is big business and you pay a premium, even used, if someone has a good cheapass guitar (and by good I mean tone, tuning stability, build quality) its going to sell for at minimum 5% under MSRP new, unless you find an idiot, but they haven't a clue and you won't know its good until you have it a month or so.
Then there's lessons, theyre running at about $150/hr for someone who doesn't just spend an hour showing you licks, and teaching you nothing (I typically charge based on how well I like the student, if you're a douche, you can't afford me, if you're cool, I'll do it for gas and a pack of strings), but my entry point is typically $150. You won't be band ready, unless you're called the Ramones or Milli Vanilli, in a year without professional training, in fact the typical rule is it takes a year for your picking hand to not suck.
LOL. Awesome. I was young once and not too clever, as were we all, for awhile at least. Oh, and 'broke', too. By the time I was wiser and wealthier, who wanted to form a rock band? A Cosmic joke, that paradigm.
By the time I figured out, via a friend of mine who has a Martin acoustic (about a thousand bucks in that case) and a couple custom built electrics ($3K and up each) what "good" equipment sounded like, was a bit too old for me to learn so I honed my singing instead. That only costs me time and (so far) one set of lessons at $80/hour. I may turn that up a notch one of these days since it really helped, despite that my instructor wasn't very good.
OP will get some trashed out, thrashed out guitar and the band will sound like what it is, some bunch of guys in a garage and lots of feedback whine. That will drown out the cat-tail-under-the-rocker singing and mediocre playing. Power to 'em.
Weight is very important to the sound of a guitar. When buying and you have the choice always pick the heaviest guitar of the bunch. I have always done this myself solely by ear of the way it sounded. Many years later with the internet and availability of information I found out this is common. I also read where Eric Clapton and many other guitarists do this too. Lucky me, I didn't know that at the time. I just knew it sounded better
Weight is very important to the sound of a guitar. When buying and you have the choice always pick the heaviest guitar of the bunch. I have always done this myself solely by ear of the way it sounded. Many years later with the internet and availability of information I found out this is common. I also read where Eric Clapton and many other guitarists do this too. Lucky me, I didn't know that at the time. I just knew it sounded better
Les Paul's are heavy mothers. Yeah that's part of the secret of the sound but it's not fun playing it for hours. The strat copy I have is so much lighter and much more enjoyable to play.
You have females that also have trouble with these heavier guitars. St. Vincent for one actually designed a lighter guitar to fit her stature. Nothing wrong with a lighter guitar unless you absolutely must have an LP.
Guitarists like Eric Clapton can pick up any POS guitar and sound like, well, a guitar god. That's why I tell guitarists not to focus to much on the best, because as a beginner you are not going to be able to coax all the nuances out an expensive guitar. Jack White purposely plays these old fiberglass POS guitar like the old Montgomery Ward Airline, just as a challenge. And he rocks.
Les Paul's are heavy mothers. Yeah that's part of the secret of the sound but it's not fun playing it for hours. The strat copy I have is so much lighter and much more enjoyable to play.
You have females that also have trouble with these heavier guitars. St. Vincent for one actually designed a lighter guitar to fit her stature. Nothing wrong with a lighter guitar unless you absolutely must have an LP.
Guitarists like Eric Clapton can pick up any POS guitar and sound like, well, a guitar god. That's why I tell guitarists not to focus to much on the best, because as a beginner you are not going to be able to coax all the nuances out an expensive guitar. Jack White purposely plays these old fiberglass POS guitar like the old Montgomery Ward Airline, just as a challenge. And he rocks.
If you like Les Pauls you would appreciate a good SG too!
Guitarists like Eric Clapton can pick up any POS guitar and sound like, well, a guitar god. That's why I tell guitarists not to focus to much on the best, because as a beginner you are not going to be able to coax all the nuances out an expensive guitar. Jack White purposely plays these old fiberglass POS guitar like the old Montgomery Ward Airline, just as a challenge. And he rocks.
From an interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, c. 1970:
"Yoko has made me feel cocky about my guitar. You see, one part of me says yes, of course I can play because I can make a rock move, you know. But the other part of me says well, I wish I could just do like B. B. King. If you would put me with B. B. King, I would feel real silly. I’m an artist, and if you give me a tuba, I’ll bring you something out of it."
From an interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, c. 1970:
"Yoko has made me feel cocky about my guitar. You see, one part of me says yes, of course I can play because I can make a rock move, you know. But the other part of me says well, I wish I could just do like B. B. King. If you would put me with B. B. King, I would feel real silly. I’m an artist, and if you give me a tuba, I’ll bring you something out of it."
Remember when George Harrison and The Beatles started get HeAvY? George had a secret........
If you like Les Pauls you would appreciate a good SG too!
Yeah SG's. I don't own one but i heard they are not only heavy but balanced all wrong. All the weights in the neck. However, what Angus can do with it, all with limited effects, is amazing. Angus don't need pedals, just his SG and Marshall amps turned up to max.
Pete Townsend is a big SG user as well (he likes LP's as well). You can see it in use in Woodstock film, he played the crap out of it then threw it into the audience. Better yet, he used it as a club to knock Abbie Hoffman off the stage when he started spouting political crap in the middle of the Who set.
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