There are guitar center and other chains all over the country. You may not want to play metal forever. Compare Fender solid body to Les Paul or other hollow body. It should be obvious which one fits better.
I would stick to major brands. Other brands have necks that do not stand up to decades of playing.
I’m sorry, but I strongly disagree with this reasoning. I’ve got off-brand guitars that are older than I am with straight, true necks. There may be good reasons to only consider name brands*, but neck stability isn’t one I’ve ever heard of.
*E.G. Customer care. When you have a name, you have to protect it.
How about a Death Metal player’s signature guitar? Mike Åkerfeldt of Opeth has one made by PRS. $750
here’s an Opeth solo on the PRS
If you’re into Opath look through the recent music videos of Mike Åkerfeldt playing the PRS. The birds on the fretboard make it easy to spot.
This is the PRS SE. btw. it was released about 5 years ago. I’m not sure what custom mods PRS made for Mike Åkerfeldt. I linked an interview he gave about his talks with PRS for this guitar. The product literature should say if it has custom pickups.
I recently bought a PRS S2. Am really pleased with it.
Ebay has two listings for the PRS. $549 and $509 new. That sounds like model clearance prices. Good deal for a guitar that was $750 and up just months ago. That music store I linked still lists it at $750.
Keeping the cost of whatever guitar is bought under $600 is a good idea. That leaves money to buy the effects pedals and Amp needed to get the sound the OP is looking for.
Uh… say what? A Les Paul isn’t a hollow body guitar. It’s a solid piece of maple glued to a solid piece of mahogany. It’s a guitar that is well known for its rich tones and superior sustain.
There’s no reason for the OP to avoid Les Pauls.
It’s an issue on very cheap guitars, or at least it used to be. The softer wood on cheap off brand Asian guitars wouldn’t hold up very well in the long run and the neck could twist or warp.
The OP isn’t considering a $100 beginner cheapie, so it’s not an issue in this thread. But it is a reason to avoid Asian off-brand guitars.
Not a bad choice. A decent Epiphone is going to be made out of nato wood, which they often call “eastern mahogany”. The sound isn’t quite as good as real mahogany, and it definitely won’t have the rich tones of the real Les Paul’s maple/mahogany combination. That said, with a typical highly distorted doom metal type sound you’re going to have a hard time telling the difference.
Just so you know where I’m coming from, I personally like Ibanez guitars, mostly because of the feel of the necks. I own 3 bass guitars, 3 electric guitars, a 6 string and a 12 string acoustic, and several keyboards. The guitar I play the most is a very old Ibanez that has been beat to hell and back.
As a metal player myself I’ll take the position that the guitar really doesn’t matter THAT much as distortion and other effects get laid on so thick that it’s nearly impossible to distinguish between different types of guitars. Overall gear config makes much more difference to the sound. The most important design parameter of an electric for this style music is that the neck is fast and playable.
The rest is made up with effects. Though active/passive pickups make a difference too, though not as much as players would lead you to believe IMHO.
Some will disagree here I’m sure.
I think this makes total sense. It’s all about the thick layer of saturated, scooped distortion created by the whole rig.
Hmm, I’ve owned many off-brand and name brand guitars from the 60’s-present and though all of them have issues eventually, neck issues have been rare in both. I know that neck warping was a bigger problem for all guitar manufacturers back in the day, but people have more incentive to fix a 60’s Gibson or Martin with a warped neck vs. a 60’s Tiesco.
Today, I think it’s pretty much a non-issue unless the guitar is being stored in a wet environment. My $115 Chinese tele copy has a nice straight maple neck after a couple of years with heavy strings. It’s not perfect, but the $350 Squier Bass VI has similar shortcomings. Granted, my pricier guitars wouldn’t have been bought or would have been sent back for the same shortcomings.
If I were to recommend avoiding a mfr. due to neck issues, it’d be Gibson. They are prone to breaking in falls. But I love their guitars, and I still say people should buy them. If they fall, get them fixed. I have one that was snapped and repaired before I bought it, and it still plays beautifully.
Yeah, that’s pretty much what my first meandering post was getting at. When you get to that level of distortion, the guitar’s actual wood/electronics almost doesn’t matter. Buy a distortion that you like, and maybe get an e.q. pedal if the distortion and your amp doesn’t have enough tone control for you. For the scooped metal sound, being able to control where that scoop happens, and how much it scoops is part of the key.
If you’re looking for concrete recommendations on how to spend $1000, if I were about to join a metal band, had to buy new, and weren’t already running out of places to store guitars without getting yelled at, I’d buy:
An SGJ 2014 (I like medium to thin profile necks). It’s the stripped-down Gibson SG,( soft case, no neck binding, no pick guards or pickup covers, and it has dot inlays instead of block ones ) but it’s got what you need to rock, and a Gibson at under $500 is a great deal, IMHO.
And a Mastotron Fuzz ($149). I have one of these, and so does one of my guitarists. I tried several before I bought it, but it was the one that could get sounds ranging from a mild distortion to the pan-galactic gargle blaster of a SuperFuzz I mentioned up-thread.
Yeah, that’d leave you with $350 left over. I’m a little bit of a cheapskate. If you want a bigger amp, that can get you a variety of decent used ones. 
As an eleectric guitarist, the best thing that ever happened to me (according to my housemate at the time, a bass player a couple levels above me – he’s actually had a European tour) was when I got a Fender with single coil pickups and set aside my Les Paul copy, playing blues rather than trying to play heavy metal. It was a '65 Jazzmaster; I’d got it only to make a deal go through involving the guitarist in my band (buying it from the guy who wanted money to buy my guitarist’s amp so he could get a mesa boogie …). That was 1983 and it’s still my favorite electric.
If you really want to keep playing death metal, go with a Les Paul.
If you’re interesed in branching out, look into a strat or tele. It’ll change you. There are tons of variations on these; what I suggest is fiddle with ones in the shop until one calls out to you, paying no attention to what it says on the headstock.
BTW, cheap electric guitars are incredibly good these days. The biggest limitation on many of them is the pickups, which you can replace later. For $1K you can get a killer guitar. The biggest problem for guitar buyers is the really talented guys who want vintage instruments and really know why they want them. For those poor souls, the modern replacements aren’t quite the same, and meanwhile, collectors who can’t hear the difference between a single-coil and a humbucker buy them and drive the prices up.
Fortunately, I’m not in that crowd. I have vintage guitars (ones I bought when they were merely “used”) but no collectors’ items. I like 'em for what they are but would also be happy with a new MIM strat with texas specials or a number of other pups. Actually, if I had a strat with texas specials, I’d need another strat without 'em. As it is, I’ve never owned a strat or a tele.
I disagree on the flying v non-recommendation. I helped my son set up his Jackson V and he works wonders with it playing stuff like Children of Bodom and As I Lay Dying. We did put a set of SD Invaders, a FR trem to replace the licence copy, and he’s running that through a Marshall MG100HFX into a 1/2 cab. Not doom metal precisely, but don’t write off any particular design.
Jim Root from Slip Knot has played a variety of guitars, so the best recommendation I can give is go to the music store and see what feels good. And as noted, save some money for pedals and maybe an effects box.
Hmm… though I’ve played for a long time I’m definitely a leisure player at this point and wouldn’t categorize myself as an expert at any of this but I’d think anyone who has played an electric guitar for a year or more would easily be able to identify a single coil vs. humbucker in a blind test. A crappy humbucker sounds totally different than a SC even with layers of effects on top.
I don’t think it’s possible to play chunky metal with a single coil pickup with all the effects in the world.
Yes. The only important parameters on a DOOM metal guitar are that the action is low, you can get around on the fretboard fairly quickly, and that the thing looks badass. The raw sound is meaningless.
Also, my main guitar is a PRS SE. Think I paid $500 for it new almost a decade ago. Love that thing and it sounds awesome.
Also #2. It may just be personal preference, but I refuse to play anything other than a fixed bridge now. No whammy needed or wanted, particularly a Floyd Rose style dive bomb floating system. They are godawful to keep in tune for any period of time, a pain in the ass to replace strings on (IMHO) and no body has used a WHAMMY bar since the late 90’s so f it. Floaters are hell to deal with in alternate tunings as the springs get all out of balance and shit, even for simple things like Drop D.
Oh yeah, I forgot earlier to weigh in on this subject. I’ll do so now:
Fuck tremolos.
I realize there’s not a lot of nuance there, but if anyone has any questions about my position, I’ll be happy to answer them, prolly with a blank stare or an expression of obvious disbelief.
Why do you think I’m a Tele Guy? No whammies for me. I can barely manage the basic guitar and twiddling the volume and tone controls, which I do a bit of.
A hard tail bridge was a requirement when I bought my PRS S2 Mira last month.
My Strat has a tremolo and I’ve never used it.
Ditto. I love my Strat, but I’m with Clapton on this one. I haven’t blocked mine like he does, but wouldn’t miss it much if I did.
Strat style tremelos I can live with if I have to but Floyd Rose floaters are way more trouble than they are worth, especially in heavily detuned metal. Once you get down more than a half step you’re going to need a guitar slave standing off stage to attempt to tune your shit between every song.
My first “new” guitar was an Ibanez something or other back in the late 90’s. I bought it because it was black, every metal band in the world was playing them at the time, and it had a Floyd dive bomber. Once I got over the novelty of bombing on the thing I highly regretted buying it. I wanted to get it blocked but those types of tremelos are more complex to lock because of the 2 way “spring tension” between the springs/strings and it just wasn’t worth it.
I gave it some more thought and the Bich might be the ticket here. I had one given to me that was literally left on the woodpile and fixed it up for my son when he was just starting to play. It was a really versatile little guitar and the looks are definitely in the right vein. Playwise I found it tight and responsive when it was tuned “normally” (That is when I was using it), and had no problems staying in dropped tunings (when the Princeling of Darkness had it in his shredding hands).
It was equally comfortable sitting or standing, and fairly light which is something a LP generally isn’t.
Aaand, theprice is right on the money. You probably want a local dealer just to get the setup right. That goes for anything you buy, though.