Which electric guitar would you recommend for a beginner? Budget £300

Jimbo said:
well my guitar is perfect and it stay in tune no problem. Like I say if its an EE your sound.
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But you do understand that the cheapest Epis from Quingdao, the ones you've heard about having sloppy binding and popping out frets also have EE serials, right?
 
maybes thats so, but mine cost me £300 and its perfect for what I paid, absolutely spot on. I really cant fault it.
 
My epi lp standard is an EE, cost me £236. I expect owners of this guitar are going to stick up for it having spent their money on one, but with no agenda I cannot fault it. If they quality control is suspect, I must have got lucky.
 
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Jimbo said:
Sigh... Epiphone does not suck. The EE ser no, chinese guitars are absolute quality, please dont spread rubbish rumours.
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its not a rumour, its a fact.

and anyway, its all relative. It might not suck to you, but play my beautifully setup Jem7V, then go abck to your epiphone, and you will agree it sucks

:)
 
Zefan said:
Yamaha Pacifica.

You stole my sig. I keep getting confused when I see it, thinking "Hang on, I did NOT post in this thread..." why do you use it :p?
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Agreed.

I believe Bellamy from MUSE owned one himself and toured with it (I think you told me this Zefan!) :)

In terms of "MUSE" sound its probs the clostest possible at that budget.
 
Toryglen-boy said:
its not a rumour, its a fact.

and anyway, its all relative. It might not suck to you, but play my beautifully setup Jem7V, then go abck to your epiphone, and you will agree it sucks

:)
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Isn't it like saying your Smart car sport isn't as nice as my Audi R8, the OP's looking for a guitar for around £300, a Jem7v costs five times that!
 
Going to Cali said:
Isn't it like saying your Smart car sport isn't as nice as my Audi R8, the OP's looking for a guitar for around £300, a Jem7v costs five times that!
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ok, you got me there guv,

but someone said earlier about how 'Chinese' Epiphones are great. i rest my case, no good guitar, budget or otherwise ever came out of China.

now then, make or price,but that cant be argued with

;)
 
I would go with a mexican strat I had 2, nice guitars that will cost you in the region of 300 pounds new but its a fine guitar, as for guiars from the far east, I have A korean Strat and a american, and although the korean is fine I would say the mexi strats were better built, although they are not as good a USA version, dont get the cheapest epi les paul they are total crap, the standards or customs are nice, as are the korean built PRS SE,s
 
A beginner wont even know what a good neck is.

Go to a guitar shop... They will know your a n00b but they will want your business AND your repeat business.

Tell em your thinking of something around the £170 mark as an upper limit ( as long as your not a cack hander like me).

They should have some good Washburns or Ibanez's for around that price.

But really you should ask yourself... "Are you going to spend a fortune on an axe just for it to end up on ebay or collecting dust in the corner of your bedroom"?

Only YOU know how determined you are at something.
 
I find it surprising when people compare US and Mexican strats, they say "not as well build". I mean, yeah, in terms of sound, there is huge difference between proper pickups in US models and cheap stuff in MIM strats, but as far as build quality goes - both US and MIM necks are from the same factory - from Corona, made on the same machines, going through the same quality control, just the stamp at printers is different. Hardware is pretty much the same, you'll find MIM strats with fender stamped sadles (flimsy and horrible design to begin with, but hey - if Eric can play it, so can you). Bodies is slightly different story - MIMs will have 5, 6 chunks of the same type of wood, often sandwiched together on top and bottom, but to be honest, Fender bodies in general are the cheapest junk on the market - US strats with solid colours are made of 3 to 4 pieces glued together as well - so yeah - it might be american ash, but they're more of a IKEA left overs than you would expect for the money. There is less glue and more quality sounding wood in korean lite ash Strat than there is in most of the sub $1000 MIA Fender bodies.
Effectively, if mid and top range MIM Fenders arrived in shops set up properly and with better choice of pickups, you would probably be surprised how little gap there is between your £400 MIM fender and £800 MIA Fender.

Washburn X-50 is a good shout, Seymour Duncan pickups in those are worth £80 alone, surprisingly well put together as well. Some limited editions, like spalted maple are just stunning. Sound suits heavier, perhaps even detuned clientelle though - sort of SE Tremonti, or Ibanez SZ kind of vibe. Perhaps it's slightly too specific sounding as a first guitar
 
I actually own both a American Ash Hss strat and a Korean lite ash and as far as im concerned the MIA is miles better the frets are horrible on the Lite ash badly finished not the case with the MIA, the MIA has a better 2 point trem and saddles IMO rolled edges on the neck, as you say better pups, but as I already said the MIM in a fine guitar.
 
Ok, well I went for the Yamaha 112V Old Violin Sunburst and Roland Cube 30X and was very impressed. One slight problem: :o, I broke one of the strings when tuning it and am now trying to find a replacement. I'm embarrassed and gutted to be honest :o but I guess it's a noob mistake and can assure you, I'll never let it happen again. It was simply down to me not understanding how to tune it in properly and get the amp to understand what note I was playing.

Annnnnnywaaaayyyyy, can anyone spec me a suitable replacement (I think it was the fourth string, from top to bottom). I'm back at uni and have decided to leave the guitar back in Belfast for the mean time as I need to do some work, so I cannot check what string it is exactly. But I don't think it really matters when buying replacements as they tend to come in packs. I'm not sure about the thickness of the string either but I have noticed that you can buy packets of strings of varying thickness for relatively little money. Question is, what to replace it with? Ideally I'd be looking for a direct replacement of what I broke, so question is: what thickness of string and manifacturer was it that I broke on my Yamaha Pacifica 112V and where is the best place to find a replacement?

Thanks. ;)

Whappers.
 
Congrats on the new equipment, as for the strings I couldnt find the spec, I would say they are 9, 42,s maybe 9, 46,s, as they are easier to bend than 10,s so they tend to use thinner gauge strins on cheaper guitars, next I would put a set of D,addario xxl,s on nickel plated, they are colour coded on the ball end making it easier to identify, also I would personally change every string, one at as time starting with the thickest strng and working down, taking them all off can shift the neck or worse allow the bridge to it the body and damaged the paintwork because its under strain from the trem springs. As for the strings I would buy three sets off an auction site for around 9.99 a shop will change 5 to 6 pound a set, and I broke a lot of string when I first started playing.

Good luck The information is general information as I dont own or have never played the Pacifica guitars.
 
I've just noticed that Fender strings are the same price as the other ones and I would assume overall better as they are a more well known brand:confused: I can easily pick up 3 sets of these for just under a tenner.

Another thing, so is there general consensus or not that if I am going to replace one string I would be better replacing them all? as I might inadvertently be installing a new string of different thickness and therefore producing a note out of tune with the rest of the unbroken strings?

Thanks.

Whappers.
 
It'll be good practice for you to change all the strings. If I was you I'd buy in a couple of sets of new strings just incase you have any more breakages.

You might want to buy an electronic guitar tuner (should be quite cheap)... Although it is always good to learn to tune by ear it will initially stop you from breaking the high E again untill you get a feel for tuning.

When you buy a guitar its always good to put new strings on as you don't know how long the old ones have been on there for. If you are a complete beginner I wouldn't worry too much about mixing and matching strings. Obviously try to make sure they are all of the same make/gauge etc. but having a combination of old and new strings won't matter too much as long as they stay in tune it should be ok.
 
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