If the kid wants to be like Angus, get him really excited and buy him this.
YES! Please, please, please…start kids out on electric. Parents need to remember the guitar is for the kid, not for the parent.
I amused myself for a while checking out videos and reviews of that guitar. According to some websites it appears to be discontinued or at least out of production so if you have located one, you should probably move quickly.
So we went to the other couple of independent-ish guitar stores. Another guitar which is distinguished from the rest of the pack is the AXL Badwater, which is now exerting an equal gravitational force on Attacklad’s dreams. The main benefit of the AXL would be price, since it would allow more cash to be deployed toward an amp, and, of course style, since the crackled distressed look is fairly nifty.
Once again, any opinions, reviews, comparisons and advice are very much solicited.
Unfortunately, this is somewhat more expensive in Soviet Canuckistan.
Hm. If I had an extra $250 and my birthday were coming up, that Danelectro would be for the parent. I think I’m brewing up a case of Guitar Acquisition Syndrome.
Hmm, there appear to be several AXL Badwater models, some Strat-like, some Les Paul-ish, etc. See here. Can you give more specific info on which model you’re looking at?
The one we were actively playing is a Crackle black SRO ('nother pic). There’s a video review from Guitar World. This guitar lists for a bit over $150, so an amp, gear bag and such could be included in the budget at this time.
Here are some player reviews of AXL Blackwaters from Harmony Central. The reviews seem to be a mix of the different AXL models, including the SRO; sometimes its hard to determine which guitar the player was reviewing. It sounds like its probably a decent instrument, especially for the price. Those EMG pickups may be a bit hotter tone than you might like, but as the guy in your video said, just turn down the guitar volume to clean up the tone.
ETA: do set aside some money to have a tech set the instrument up properly. A good setup is not that expensive and well worth the price.
Well, the decision is made. We got the Danelectro '63, for a variety of reasons:
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great tone, classic styling, and excellent playability for someone with small hands.Ms. Attack fell in love with it upon seeing it as well. Ms. Attack is tall and thin with lots and lots of curly hair, so when she carries the thing its a bit like seeing **Slash’s **twin sister.
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light body, and non-bulky neck, with a relatively small size, which turn out to be important for someone who is only 10.
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good deal - it’s a lot of guitar for the money, which ties into the final point -
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if I wind up inheriting it from Attacklad - he’s only 10, so it’s not like he’s made a permanent life choice here - I’ll be happy enough to take it over.
Thanks everybody, I appreciate all the help and encouragement. I’ll keep you up to speed prior to his first stadium show.
Glad it all worked out! Happy New Guitar Day!
enjoy… I have a Danelectro Hearsay that I purchased for myself (to go along with my classical acoustic) and my 9-year-old son is learning to play… he likes the electric WAY more, and loves the Danelectro…
We’re setting up Attacklad to take lessons - and I just realized that there is a major draw for him in taking lessons at the shop that doesn’t exist with piano or other non-amplified instrument. At lessons he’ll be able to turn it up to eleven the way he doesn’t get to at home.
NGD! NGD!
(that is the TLA - three letter abbreviation - used on The Gear Page when someone is posting about their new guitar!)
Congrats all around - hope Attacklad has a rockin’ time with it.
Now the final phase of the quest. I need to get him a practice amp. I’m looking at:
Amp U plug N play. Pluses are that it is very portable, minuses are that I’d be buying a lot of nine volt batteries.
and the
Danelectro Honeytone. Pluses are the tone, the portability and the fact that it can be plugged in or played on battery. Major minuses are the cable and the fact that it still seems pretty loud.
Both of these are mini-amps, because Attacklad is 10 and doesn’t need more cables and boxes and wires than necessary. Plus his bedroom abuts another apartment of people who are not deaf, and he has difficulty with the concept of not turning it up to eleven. The additional bonus is, if he gets to go to lessons and plug into a stack, that’ll be an incentive to go to lessons.
Any opinion about these amps or other amps is very much appreciated.
Glad to stumble across this thread. My daughter, who is a bit older at 14, and more or less “full sized” already is now interested in learning guitar. She’s pretty natural at musical stuff, even though she’s never had any kind of formal training before. When she was younger I got her an electric keyboard and she was able to teach herself to play a lot of stuff. She’s taking a class offered in her school next year as an elective, and I think she wants to start learning ASAP.
Will take the inputs from folks here and whenever I get back home we may hit the guitar store. FWIW her school just got a bunch of new guitars gifted to them; I assume that they’re acoustic, but don’t really know. Would it be a problem to learn on one kind of guitar at school and practice on a different one at home?
I’m liking the Honeytone. It’s not fantastic, it is pretty loud, but it’ll clip on a belt. It’s lasted for weeks on a single nine volt, too.
The Honeytone is pretty loud for such a small speaker … however … it sounds like what it is; a small, cheap speaker. I bought one a few years ago to use with an Aria AS-100C but haven’t used it since the day I got it. I got a Roland Micro Cube and am happy with it.
Of course, I’m not a rocker, I play classical, and want a clean sound … but I suggest headphones for quiet practice and a (much) bigger speaker (even it is a cheap one … bigger is the key) for making noise.
I’d be very surprised if the school were teaching using electric guitar. Traditional (and in my opinion incorrect) opinion is that beginners should learn on acoustics, and I’d bet the donor and the school subscribe to that view. But what the hell, kids have laptops and phones these days, maybe I’m just behind the times.
I don’t know that attending class using electric guitar and practicing at home on acoustic (or vice-versa) would be “bad”, but I lean that way. I remember learning “piano” on an electric keyboard with unweighted keys, practicing diligently, but then being unable to perform at my piano lessons because the feel was so different. Very frustrating, and I went and bought a cheap piano after a couple of weeks of this.
In any case, your girl is old enough to have some opinions about which kind of guitar tone inspires her. Have her think about what kind of music she wants to play, then take her to the music store and try every class of guitar available – electric, steel string acoustic, classical, 12-string. Heck dobro, bass guitar, baritone, and Chapman Stick, if you really want to go to town 
. Pick the type of instrument with a tone she find compelling (within reason – you can spend a lot of money at a music store). If she’s excited by the tone of the instrument, it’ll keep her coming back to it to practice and learn. If not, maybe not.
I am not sure I have much to add. For the most part, both I (when I was a kid) and my son now played electrics unplugged most of the time. If the tone on the Honeytone sounds rock n’ roll and it is cheap, seems like it would be fine for now and AttackDad and Lad can figure out next steps when the time is right.
I tend to agree with **squeegee **- acoustics are the stick shift of guitars; a bit harder to learn but you are better off if you start there. And I also agree with is points about lining up the right guitar for the music they want to play. Having said that, I am an *alter cocker *(get off my lawn!) and I know of a bunch of kids who are taking lessons exclusively on electrics. As I always say, whatever keeps the person engaged and playing is okay by me…
Actually, we disagree there, but that’s okay. 