FWIW, I do have both a Xaviere guitar - that LP Special clone - and a Squier, my son’s old guitar - a Jagmaster, like this - so I think I’ve got a baseline for each company’s guitars.
Yeah, I knew from upthread you had experience with each company, but I couldn’t resist having some fun. If Xaviere has some discounts, I’ll give 'em a look. As to why I don’t just buy one now, well, the less I need to pay for the guitar, the more I have for other things. Bear in mind I have NO guitar-related gear - not so much as a pick.
The most important thing about a guitar to me is how it feels (how it feels just slightly edges out how it sounds). Does it feel comfortable in your lap? How does the neck feel? Does your right hand fall to the sweet spot for strumming?
Now I haven’t owned a solid body electric in over 35 years and I did not play that one very much (did not feel right), so I don’t have much in the way of specific advice on models. When you go to look, however, make sure you try it in a comfortable chair (not a stool with your legs hanging). I know you want to put a strap on it and go stand in front of the mirror, but you are not going to be playing it like that for a while.
It’s hard enough to learn guitar. If you don’t love the way it feels in your lap and look forward to putting it there, don’t even bother.
I’m going to go against everyone here and tell you just to buy the cheapest POS you can find, and start learning to see if you like playing or not, because if you find it’s not really your thing, you’re going to regret spending hundreds of dollars on what will still likely be a POS that you’re never going to get your money back out of.
Guitar players love to give advice about all kinds of minutiae that may be important to experienced players, but for someone who has yet to play a single note looking for their first instrument it’s all meaningless. While there’s something to be said about finding an instrument that “feels” right, you’re not going to know what’s right or wrong until you actually learn to play the thing. There are a million variations on a million different parts, and you’re not going to know what you like until you know what you like.
I would suggest you first take a lesson or two from someone who can lend you a guitar to learn on before you commit to an instrument of your own.
I like your last suggestion better than I like your first. I think that buying the cheapest POS you can find will likely doom you to never playing guitar. I think that playing guitar is a goal worth investing in, both in time and money, even though, as you point out, the odds are long. It also makes a difference how old the OP is. I think a young kid could indeed learn on a POS, but as you get older, the odds get longer and one way to shorten them is by getting a quality instrument.
Okay. My mileage definitely varies.
My advice about finding a guitar that takes a set-up well - yep, you’re right, a noobie barely knows which part to strum. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to suggest that you either: a) try to identify someone who plays and seems to know their stuff who could go with you; or b) take a few lessons, see if you feel comfortable with your teacher, and ask them to help you.
A guitar can be cheap as hell, or really pricey - but the better it plays and sounds to your ear, the more likely you will keep picking it up. Just basic common sense applied to starting a new habit.
ETA: or find out who is well-regarded for set-ups in your area - could be an independent shop, a one-off guitar tech in town or even Guitar Center. And pay the $50 - $75 for a setup.
What DCnDC said (above). You should first get a nylon string acoustic guitar. Something with strings that are easy to press down completely. Practice with it just to see if you have the aptitude to continue. Heck, just go to guitar center and spend some hours ‘playing’ the demos.
Thanks for your thoughts and ideas.
Regarding buying the cheapest piece of crap, here’s the thing:
On one hand, complete crap pisses you off and discourages you. On the other, I don’t have the money for a nice guitar that everyone gathers 'round and says, “Ooooh!” at, and my (in)ability won’t really get that much more out of a pricy guitar for years, if ever. I sense a middle ground here - one where I get a guitar that pretty much functions as it should & doesn’t make me want to wrap it around a tree, and yet I’m not arrested for robbery. Where opinion seems to vary is where complete crap stops and reasonable quality starts.
Nylon string acoustic. Yeahhhh. . . no. Wait, let me rephrase that: HELL no. No offense meant.
I’ve read that learning to play on an acoustic is a good foundation upon which to build your playing, but I don’t have that kind of patience anymore. I’m getting too old for delayed gratification - which, to my great regret, has often turned into NO gratification anyway - and so, I’m adjusting my philosophy and moving into a GRATIFICATION NOW mindset. I’m not a kid anymore, and I don’t want to spend a year or three on a guitar I don’t have any interest in just to improve my playing on a different guitar. The return on that time investment is quite a bit lower at my age. I accept that I am missing out on learning subtleties that are best learned on an acoustic, but I want to have fun, and I want to have it with an electric guitar. I’ll have trouble with the strings at first, but as I practice and develop calluses, I’m sure it will pass.
I’ll see about the setup when the time comes. If something’s out of whack that I can’t reasonably handle, off it goes to get set-up or taken back, depending. I’m not gonna start hacking at the frets and such.
The advice to start on an acoustic doesn’t make sense to me, anyway. The notes are all in the same place, the chords identical regardless of whether it’s acoustic or electric. And the strings are easier to press down on electrics, because they’re thinner strings at lower tension. Things like bends and heavy vibrato, staple techniques of the sort of music that the OP aspires to play, are difficult to do on an acoustic.
Some good detailed advice here. I endorse finding either a good Bullet or Affinity or Xaviere. It’s best to bring an experienced player with you just to look over the instrument for glaring flaws. Doublecheck those frets; I’ve seen some serious fretwear on guitars that have been hanging in the store for too long. If you see any flaws that you can fix at home you might be able to negotiate a discount, feigning the need for an additional setup.
Obviously you will want a guitar that feels right to you but being a novice your preference in certain aspects of guitar construction will not emerge immediately. Over time you’ll get a better appreciation for your preference in neck profile, pickups, string action, etc.
Since you’re looking at Strats, here’s a few things to note. Some don’t like where the controls are on the guitar - they bang into them when they play. Some don’t like the middle pickup because they keep hitting it - some lower the mid pup as far as it will go to get it out of the way. Also, assuming you don’t wind up with a hardtail Strat you will have to deal a bit with the whammy bar. Some players like using a whammy bar, others hate it. Whammy bars are fun but keeping the guitar in tune can be a challenge and assuming the bridge is floating, breaking a string will put the whole guitar out of tune. So you have a choice between maintaining a floating trem bar or blocking or decking it. There’s lots of info on this on the net and it’s easy to go back and forth if you change your mind. Just something to think about when you get your instrument home.
I’ve been wanting to buy a cheap ‘beater’ guitar for a while because I want to paint some art on a guitar and possibly play it on stage. An Affinity or Bullet was on my list of possibilities. I’ll be curious to hear what you come up with in your hunt.
Good luck!
Thanks again for all the advice. The die is cast! Well, somewhat. I bought an amp. The Fender Mustang I was on sale on Best Buy’s website for $78.99 with free shipping. Even with tax, that’s still over $12 off the cheapest price I’ve seen elsewhere. Since I know I want that amp, I bit.
Still not sure about the guitar. Leaning strongly towards the Squier Bullet, but still reading reviews and checking sale prices. A dark horse has entered the race: The legendary MONOPRICE guitar!
So I finally got over to GC and spent time on a couple of Bullets. They were both SSS and the store had no HSS models. I played each through a Fender Blues Junior, since I have both a Strat and that amp at home. FYI, Face Intentionally Left Blank, the voodoo you reported about serial number prefixes = origin seemed unnecessary: both of the Bullets I played had the origin clearly stamped on the back of the headstock above the serial number. The two models I handled were from Indonesia (prefix ICS) and China (prefix COS).
I played the Indonesian model first, and my impressions were very mixed. The biggest problem was what you often see with a cheap guitars: it wouldn’t stay in tune. I played this guitar for about 20 minutes, and was constantly tuning it, over and over. The tuners felt cheap and ineffective, and it was not a good experience. Setting tuning aside, the Indonesian guitar sounded fine if uninspiring. The controls worked as I’d expect, the neck had no major issues except the fret edges were rough at the ends.
Next I played the China model, and my impression was much better. It felt much better set up, and it seemed to stay in tune, not perfectly but much better than the Indonesian model. Overall this instrument felt much solider, much more playable than the Indonesian one. The difference wasn’t night and day, but it really felt kind of fun to play, where the Indonesian one was a bit dead and frustrating to work with.
Other impressions:
[ul][li]As I said before, the tuning machines were crap; worse on the Indonesian one, but not really good on the Chinese one.[/li][li]The controls on both were “vintage” style, with the tone control disabled in position 1 when using only the bridge pickup. You’ll want to fix that when rewiring. Surprisingly, the shielding seemed okay. I didn’t get a bunch of buzzing and interference from either, no more than you’d expect with single coil pickups.[/li][li]Pickups. I’ve had worse, but mediocre is the best thing I can say about them. Playing clean, they sounded thin to tinny. Playing dirty was better, with that sarcastic, edgy tone you’d expect from a strat, though the low end was pretty weak.[/li][li]The frets were dressed fairly okay. There were some sharp edges on the ends of the frets that polishing with steel wool would take care of. I didn’t find any buzzy frets, fret-outs when bending, etc. on either guitar.[/li][li]The setup wasn’t wonderful, but good enough as a start. The one from China was set up better than the Indonesian axe, but it wasn’t a huge difference.[/ul][/li]Overall I had a mixed impression but I feel like a good Bullet, like the Chinese one I played, would make an okay starter guitar for a beginner. The problem is figuring out if you have a good one.
Your time and efforts are GREATLY appreciated. I doubt you normally spend much time with the low end guitars, but hopefully you found it somewhat interesting.
The tuners have been my big concern about the Bullets, because they seem to be everyone’s concern when they talk about them. I’m decidedly lacking in music stores within a 90-minute drive, so I was going to buy the guitar online, so no playtime touchy-feely for me. We’ve got some pawn-shops, but as an example, the Mustang I just bought new for under $90 was on sale, used, for $149.99.
Now if I were a Chinese-made Bullet, where would I be hiding on-line. . .
So is the “bring a friend who knows how to play guitar” scenario really dead for you? A second choice could be “find a good guitar teacher and have him/her help you purchase an instrument” or something like that. You are going to need instruction at some point, either self-applied or from a third party.
I’m gonna need INSTRUCTION? Those rock biographies NEVER talk about lessons and instruction. I thought it was all needles, coke-fueled orgies and infighting. Hell, I just kicked my Chihuahua-mix “Fuzzy” out of the band, setting up the tearful reunion concert and the triumphant last segment in our eventual, “VH1: Behind the Scenes” episode. Don’t tell me I put poor Fuzz in the dog-house, literally, for naught!
The “have a friend who plays guitar help me out with buying one” fails on both relevant points - the musician friend and the music shop. Fuzz would help if she could, she’s always game, but as she’s still working on growing thumbs she’s mostly limited to background vocals. I tried to fit her for a harp rack, but she can’t single-note pucker for shit. Just as well - she’s hung up in a Howard Levy phase, and I just couldn’t stand to hear her slobbering her way through yet another Flecktones medley.
I thought the internet was for instruction. Or porn. Or porn instruction.
Here. Note the pic of the backside of the headstock.
This one also appears to be Chinese, but it’s hard to read the writing on the back of the neck.
Also this one, definitely Chinese.
I hadn’t considered using Ebay. I’ve used it before, but it’s generally my merchant of last resort. I’ve put a couple Bullets on watch.
Thanks for taking the time to find them. I appreciate it.