Guitar Packages

The Coffee Shop
1

I am pretty convinced that I want to learn to play the guitar. Its been something in the back of my mind for years and now that I am getting old, figure what the hell. I have no musical talent that I am aware of. Vocally I can’t carry a tune in a bucket. But hopefully that is not an indication of my potential on the guitar.

Acoustic vs Electric:
99% sure I am going electric. I listen to more rock and would love to be able to play. That and I am just not excited about acoustic and hell, I wanna be like Nickelback, lol.

Budget:
I figure I have about $300 to spend on a package. I know that this will limit me to pretty much the beginner stuff, but then again, that is what I am.

Selection:
I have browsed the guitar center website just to get a feel for what’s available in my price range. However I haven’t a clue which package is my best bet. If any of you players would care to help an idiot out and give me some feedback on these, it would be mucho appreciated.

Ibanez http://www.guitarcenter.com/Ibanez-IJX40-Guitar-Jumpstart-751392-i1168526.gc

Fender Squire http://www.guitarcenter.com/Fender-Affinity-Special-Strat-and-Frontman-15G-Amp-Value-Pack-104487442-i1175988.gc

Yamaha http://www.guitarcenter.com/Yamaha-GigMaker-EG-Electric-Guitar-Pack-104508114-i1372111.gc

Epiphone http://www.guitarcenter.com/Epiphone-Special-II-Performance-Pack-104506159-i1501344.gc

Epiphone Les Paul http://www.guitarcenter.com/Epiphone-Les-Paul-Special-II-Electric-Guitar-and-All-Access-Amp-Pack-774713-i1320789.gc

Any other advice would also be appreciated.

2

I did the exact same thing a couple of years ago, I got the epiphone “les pauls” one, Luckily I work about a mile from a guitar center so I could go in and ask around, see which one felt right to hold and all of that. Most of the guys there also recommended the les paul epiphone, one thought I should get a telecaster, another a fender strat.

I’m very happy with what I got, a couple of friends of mine that play very well were actually impressed by it also, even more so when I showed them the price for the package.

once you get it, keep it somewhere visible, so if you are just sitting around you can just pick it up and play a little. Also there are quite a few sites on the web that offer great video lessons for free, music etc

3

I know it’s probably not what you want to hear at this stage, but as someone who also “listens more to rock” and plays it (at my level) my recommendation is to start out with an acoustic guitar. An electric guitar is in a sense way too easy (as far as the tension you need to use to fret the strings and form chords and get some noise to come out) - things will seem to progress rapidly at first but you may develop relatively sloppy technique and suffer from a lack of strength and precision, which could become a major hindrance as you try to develop your skills. There is a learning curve and a certain amount of frustration to overcome either way. I’m trying to think of a suitable analogy…maybe learning to swim in a wetsuit, or learning to mountain bike by starting with a DH rig and coasting down hills, then wondering later on why you aren’t very good at climbing on technical single track or cornering.

Generally, once you learn how to play on an acoustic, you can play an electric. But not every kid at Guitar Center who can seemingly shred a metal solo on an electric can actually play guitar.

Nickelback themselves have nothing against acoustic guitars:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S58DZCqfZZo&feature=related

One nice thing about an acoustic is you don’t have to plug it in to practice and then decide between possibly annoyingly loud amplification and headphones, you can play anywhere. Having said all that you don’t want to go too cheap on the guitar - you want something playable, and will probably end up spending $200 or so (for a new instrument). If you get a relatively decent acoustic, then when you do buy an electric, the acoustic will still be useful (campfires, front porch, road trips, playing at parties ).

I’d be interested to see if other guitarists share this view.

4

Hello Locke–
Any of the brands you listed below make a good product. As a beginner, any of them will probably serve you well until you find out what your preferences are.

Another good place to start looking for gear is on craigslist in your area. There are a ton of folks who are “giving up on the dream” and letting their good gear go for a steal.

For $300 you can get a good guitar and amp to get you started. Don’t forget incidentals.

Another place to look is Rondomusic.com. They make a solid instrument. You may need (read: should) get it professionally set up at your local guitar shop to make sure the action is good and it will play well for you. A set up should be within your budget as well.

Good luck. Have fun with it.
Tom

5

I would go acoustic for a couple of (additional) reasons.

  1. Your entire $300 would go for the guitar, with electric it is split between the guitar and the amp. When you start, just like exercise, so much of it has to do how well you stick with it. And how well you stick with it, is due to how (realtively) easy it is. And with guitar, much of that has to do with the action, etc. In essence, the more you spend on the guitar, the more success you’ll have. (That’s a generalization.)
  2. It’s so easy just to pick up and play. No wires, no plugging in and it looks like a piece of furniture. You wife will make you hide the electric set-up. Out of sight . . . out of mind.

But if you are going with those electric packages, I’d say, essentially they are all probably similar. I’d get the package that has the least knobs (the least number of things to FU). Once again, the less the mfg spends on “knobs” the more they can spend on the neck, etc. I wouldn’t get that strat thing with the tremelo bar, just another thing to break and make your guitar harder to keep in tune. The epi/lp is a good choice.

6

Honestly, I would consider renting for a bit then when you start to know what you might want to get later on.
You could also buy a slightly nicer guitar and then forgo the amp. For me the funny thing about amps is that half the time I don’t practice with them anyway. This also would help if you decide you want to sell it later and upgrade. In that case a cheaper Fender Strat would be better than a Squire.
I will also say that Epiphones are actually pretty nice and far better than their budget price implies.
A bit more advice would be to take some lessons. When shopping around for a teacher, be really honest what you want out of it. Do you want to learn how to read music, pick up a few tunes, learn some basic technique etc… Avoid using any of those videos where your favorite guitarist teaches you their most well known tunes—most of them are all but impossible to learn anything from. They move too fast, leave out a million steps to learning it, and you find yourself frustrated thinking “I am not talented” or “the must be god on the guitar and they make it looks so easy therefore I must be dirt because I don’t get what they are saying.”
Have fun, learning guitar was one of the most fulfilling things I have done—frustrating but worth it! In music persistence and consistency counts a lot more than talent—the problem is that over time people mistake that persistence for talent.

7

I agree with the others that you not dismiss an acoustic too quickly.

I suggest you find a friend that has a guitar and have him teach you a few chords that you can practice for a week or two – maybe he’lll let you borrow a guitar for that time too. Then you’ll have something that you can play when you go to the store and try out several guitars – you won’t know much of what’s what if you don’t even know how to hold a guitar or play basics.

And having borrowed a guitar, you’ll have something to compare against.

As long as it’s not too busy, I’ve found the salespeole at Guitar Center and Sam Ash to be pretty good about hooking you up with an instrument that’s right for you.

8

I’ve owned a Squire, an Epiphone LP and a Yamaha and all are good entry-level, well-made guitars. Still, I’d recommend you start with something like an acoustic-electric and a small 10 to 50 watt amplifier. As others here have said, an electric is very easy on the fretting hand and fingertips (the neck is thin and narrow and the strings are also thin and easily fretted) but learning to play guitar on one is kind of like skipping the fundamentals or rudiments of playing the instrument.

An acoustic-electric is a good compromise, as well. The strings can be slightly thinner than what one would see on a standard acoustic and the neck is also a bit thinner and narrower. And it can be amplified. I own a rare Strat-style Kramer electric and several Fenders and Gibsons and I love playing them but I also make sure to keep up on my acoustic-electric (especially if I’m playing music from Neil Young, America etc.).

Don’t neglect Ebay and the Buy it Now gear. A nice new Washburn acoustic-electric with a built-in digital tuner can be had for about $195 with free shipping. You can get a good 40 or 50 watt new amp at Ebay (Buy it Now) as well for about $75 and free shipping included. Go to your local Craigslist for incidentals (a nice case, picks, extra strings, strap, capo etc.).

You don’t need to learn to read music to play a guitar and the basics (folk chords on the first 3 frets plus barre chords everywhere else) can be taught in several days. After that it’s just a matter of practice, developing an ear and letting your inner Chad Kroeger free :wink:

Here’s a good example of a Washburn acoustic-electric:

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-WASHBURN-OG10CE-ACOUSTIC-ELECTRIC-GUITAR-BLACK-/260610944678?cmd=ViewItem&pt=Guitar&hash=item3cad9f6ea6

9

epiphone les paul.

10

Epiphone makes a good product, even though it is the bastard stepchild to Gibson. Kind of like DuraAce and Ultegra.

But my question is why Guitar Center? Have you looked into Musicians Friend?
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/epiphone

11

Epiphone makes a good product, even though it is the bastard stepchild to Gibson. Kind of like DuraAce and Ultegra.

But my question is why Guitar Center? Have you looked into Musicians Friend?
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/epiphone

GC bought MF a few years ago.

12

E
But my question is why Guitar Center? Have you looked into Musicians Friend?

Just as a point of annoying trivia - they are owned by the same company (or more accurately, GC bought MF 10 years ago) and there usually won’t be much difference between the two. Having said that, I do order from MF.

Edit: I knew I spent way too long typing that.

13

I only have one word of advice for you–Esteban!

14

Go acoustic. Seriously. You’ll develop better technique, and you really aren’t going to get anything that you really want to listen to for very long for $300 with an electric set unless you really know what you are looking for (look up Seasick Steve for an example of what you can do with cheap-ass equipment) The acoustic will be cheap, but it will likely serve you for years… get it set up with nastily high action and play in open G with the slide, blues can sound awesome on a cheap acoustic.

15

I went through the same thing late last year and decided that after a 20 year haitus I wanted to pick up the guitar again. For all intents and purposes I was starting from scratch and like you wanted to go for the electric guitar since the guitar I had as a kid was an acoustic. My wife got me a very similar package to the Fender link you have listed below which I recently returned after buying a separate amp and guitar. After talking with a friend who is a great musician I found my way to this guitar: http://www.guitarcenter.com/Ibanez-ART2EX1-Electric-Guitar-105312839-i1460047.gc. He recommended the Ibanez line and I picked the model after holding it and playing a bit at GC. It has a single tone control and two volume controls, as someone else said, less crap to mess with.

I had this amp for awhile: http://www.guitarcenter.com/Peavey-Vypyr-15-15W-1x8-Guitar-Combo-Amp-104922851-i1413605.gc. I thought it would be fun to experiment with the different effects, but in the end I spent more time looking for a clean sound through all the effects than I did ever really playing. I took it back and got this amp: http://www.guitarcenter.com/Fender-25R-Frontman-Series-II-Guitar-Combo-480669-i1543478.gc. Very simple and stays on the same settings all the time. I did end up getting a Boss distortion pedal which is nice for some of the heavier stuff I like to “play” (AC/DC, Nirvana, Type O Negative, Hole). My next addition will be a blues driver pedal, I have really gravitated towards the blues for some reason.

I found myself wanting to learn acoustic as well which I thougt was rather ironic since I never really thought I would be interested in it again. But as others have said, it is highly portable and nice to take with me when I travel for school and work. This is the guitar I ended up with: http://www.guitarcenter.com/Yamaha-FG730S-Solid-Top-Acoustic-Guitar-103366639-i1150361.gc. It is a great guitar and sounds great to me, and oddly enough most of the songs that I have been playing on my electric sound pretty cool on the acoustic too. Even Lenny Kravitz. :slight_smile: The cool thing about the blues is that they are easily played on either electric or acoustic so if I find or try something new on either, I can immediately try it out on the other. When you start to listen for them, there are a lot of great songs out there that are acoustic-based, Sister Hazel comes to mind as well as some of the folkier songs like Bobby McGhee. I like a wide range of music and have found myself listening more closely to songs since I started playing again.

When you add it up, I have spent well more than the original package that I started with, but far less than even the lowest entry tri bike. :wink: I don’t think I will ever need to buy another guitar again, but of course I have already had my eye on a semi-hollow electric - again, the blues influence. I can’t tell you that learning on one over the other will make you a better player, had never heard or read that until this thread, but I do find it interesting and the reasons seem to make sense. I just know that I enjoy both and have had a great time picking up the guitar again. As someone mentioned, my guitars are close by, right next to my desk so that if I have a few spare minutes I pick one up and play for a few and then go back to work. The biggest challenge I have had since starting up again is not finding enough time. Between work, the family, and school there is not a lot of time left to play, but it is great when I do find it.

For lessons I would recommend checking out Marty Schwartz on youtube. He has two pages that I have subscribed to: http://www.youtube.com/user/martyzsongs#p/u and http://www.youtube.com/user/guitarjamzdotcom. He has well over 500 lessons between the two pages, most are very popular songs that he has developed step by step instructions for. I like the fact that he covers things throroughly and slowly, he is a great teacher. He has a pretty cool story as well, you can check out his site from the youtube links above. There are a ton of great resources available online so when you get stuck you can usually find a link, a post to a forum, or a video to help get you past your hurdle. This has been a rather long reply, but I recently went through this myself and thought I would share how things have turned out for me. To your OP - If you are not 100% sure about buying individual guitar and amp then I would go with a package, and of the ones that you posted I like the Epiphone LP the best.

Good luck, and have fun!!

16

*Go acoustic. Seriously. You’ll develop better technique, and you really aren’t going to get anything that you really want to listen to for very long for $300 with an electric set unless you really know what you are looking for (look up Seasick Steve for an example of what you can do with cheap-ass equipment) *The acoustic will be cheap, but it will likely serve you for years… get it set up with nastily high action and play in open G with the slide, blues can sound awesome on a cheap acoustic.

Hound Dog Taylor, great American bluesman, played cheap Silvertones and Teiscos he bought at his local Sears department store. The man was a blues god.

http://www.furious.com/perfect/graphics/hounddog.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hound_Dog_Taylor

17

Oh yeah, if you are dead set on getting an electric and amp, don’t get one of the starter package thingies. The amps are nasty solid state things with horrible speakers.

Instead, get yourself either a squier solidbody in your price range, and an Epiphone valve jr. or fender vibro champ xd. the fender is a little more expensive than the epi, but either one will blow a cheap SS amp out of the water, since they use actual tubes.

I tried Ibanez, and got rid of it after about 2 weeks. The necks are super thin, which might work fine if you want to be a shredder, but to actually play chords and stuff I like a neck with more meat. Yamaha makes good value instruments as well as Squier and Epiphone. I would be tempted to go with something a little offbeat, like the Hello Kitty Squiers -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txCxAJhdqBY&feature=related

18

I’m with you. I like the old tube amps better. I’ve got a Supro Royal Reverb that my father gave me (he bought it at Sears in 1966) that still has the original tubes and it delivers a sound that can’t be beat. I also have a Fender reissue (from 1984) tube amp with reverb that sounds great as well.

A good Squire Strat can often sound as nice as a lower-line CBS-era standard Strat, plus it won’t cost an arm and a leg to get. Nice, low action and a five-position selector switch with a hard tail and it’s hard to quibble over. Ibanez used to be made at Fujigen Gakki or Matsumoku, like almost every other entry-level or mid-level guitar out of Japan for some time. Great guitars all.

19

I wanna be like Nickelback, lol.

http://www.videoclix.tv/watch?v=z8ptnjvz4091 (Ignore the weird opening - it only makes sense if you’re familiar with the show)

Your lack of musical taste aside, I went through this about a year ago and got some really great advice here.

20

Thanks to everybody for the input. A friend has kindly loaned me a guitar to fiddle around with before I actually go and pull the trigger. Its an acoustic Takamine. It needs to be tuned so I just purchased a tuner and some picks so I can start trying to learn.

After reading through everything, I am thinking I may shy away from the package deals and go for the guitar and amp seperately. I will still be forced by budget constraints to stay in the beginner / low end range though. So I have no idea what I will end up with at this point. But I do have an amp question. I kind of understand the difference twixt the tube amp and the solid state. However, I stumbled upon what GC calls a hybrid.

http://www.guitarcenter.com/Kustom-KG110-10W-1x10-Guitar-Combo-Amp-423630-i1517544.gc

http://www.guitarcenter.com/Kustom-Tube-12A-Practice-Amp-481230-i1145535.gc

Is this the best of both worlds?