What guitar should I buy? - General

Hey Facepunch. I've been playing guitar for a few years now, but my old Fender Squire model is in a very bad condition. I've decided to get a new one. My current budget is set at £80. Not much, but it's just enough. I'd rather have a Fender model or copy over a Gibson or Ibanez. What guitar do you think I should get?

Ok so that's about $120? That's not very much. Ideally you wanna double your budget. I don't even see how you have any other choice than going for another low-end Squier. They are the only guitars at that price range that aren't absolute garbage.

for that kind of money you're gonna get a guitar worse than your current one. if it's in a bad shape repair it for the money instead.

If that's your budget i'd start looking for used guitars on your local craigslist or something.

1) Save your money. Trust me. You will regret trying to find a cheap guitar. 2)What music are you into playing?

[QUOTE=da bloop;34787065]1) Save your money. Trust me. You will regret trying to find a cheap guitar. 2)What music are you into playing?[/QUOTE] Generally older music. I like artists such as Syd Barrett, Jimmy Page, Hendrix, etc.

Like the others have said you are gonna need a bigger budget. Yeah you can buy a guitar for that much but it will be no better than what you have now. You could get a used guitar but my experience with that is you end up with a guitar that needs to be set up which if you can't do it yourself will cost you more. I would save up at least £200 For that kind of money you could buy yourself a guitar that will be what you want. for £80 you would be able to get a REALLY cheap fender copy which I know can be set up to play good but yeah your gonna be more than £80 in any case. Could you describe the problems with your current guitar?

[QUOTE=Nazereth666;34789555]Like the others have said you are gonna need a bigger budget. Yeah you can buy a guitar for that much but it will be no better than what you have now. You could get a used guitar but my experience with that is you end up with a guitar that needs to be set up which if you can't do it yourself will cost you more. I would save up at least £200 For that kind of money you could buy yourself a guitar that will be what you want. for £80 you would be able to get a REALLY cheap fender copy which I know can be set up to play good but yeah your gonna be more than £80 in any case. Could you describe the problems with your current guitar?[/QUOTE] Pickup problems and general issues with using an amp. There's not much point going into detail as I have my heart set on a new guitar.

You're getting another Squier with that kind of money. Period.

[QUOTE=jakeabbott96;34802590]Pickup problems and general issues with using an amp. There's not much point going into detail as I have my heart set on a new guitar.[/QUOTE] If you have your heart set on that go with it but you will need to save more money. Trust me I know the feeling but if you save more and get a good guitar it will be worth the wait.

£80 is only going to buy you another squire or a cheap copy. None of which would be worth the money once you finally get it, I have learned that mistake a few times. I could only suggest either: hanging on until your budget is more reasonable Buying a second hand one, which on that budget for the models your after would more than likely leave you with a guitar in a similar condition to your current one OR Trying buying just a fender neck and fitting it to your squire body, sure the body will still be in the same condition however it will feel fresh to play with Just on a side note [IMG]http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d78/Angus513/S-Guitars.jpg[/IMG] Left: Squire Strat - cost me £60 Middle: Ibanez SA260 (fairly low in the Ibanez range) Right: Stagg Les Paul - cost me £90 Strat and Les Paul were absolute garbage compared to the Ibanez, the Ibanez is so much nice to play, the guitar is lighter, the neck thinner and the action is so much better. I would at least consider on if I was you

[QUOTE=Angus513;34804976]£80 is only going to buy you another squire or a cheap copy. None of which would be worth the money once you finally get it, I have learned that mistake a few times. I could only suggest either: hanging on until your budget is more reasonable Buying a second hand one, which on that budget for the models your after would more than likely leave you with a guitar in a similar condition to your current one OR Trying buying just a fender neck and fitting it to your squire body, sure the body will still be in the same condition however it will feel fresh to play with Just on a side note [IMG]http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d78/Angus513/S-Guitars.jpg[/IMG] Left: Squire Strat - cost me £60 Middle: Ibanez SA260 (fairly low in the Ibanez range) Right: Stagg Les Paul - cost me £90 Strat and Les Paul were absolute garbage compared to the Ibanez, the Ibanez is so much nice to play, the guitar is lighter, the neck thinner and the action is so much better. I would at least consider on if I was you[/QUOTE] I agree I love the sound that comes out of my Ibanez, and this is a $200 RG120. I changed the pickups among other various things and added switches for coil splitting on both pickups, I can go from the strat twang to the metal crunch if I want to. It isn't spot on but damn close. I agree check out an Ibanez, and no. Ibanez guitars are not just for metal.

£80 is not enough. Nowhere near. You want to have £200 MINIMUM when buying a guitar, especially if you're serious. Don't be afraid to shop around with different brands. Considering you just want a Strat style guitar, you've got a wide market as it is. But then there's the different brands with different options. For a standard Strat, look at the Squier Vintage Modified series (3 single coils). For a beefier one, you might want to check out the Jackson JS22R (2 humbuckers). For a more modern looking Strat style, look at the DBZ Barchetta LT (2 humbuckers), or the Kramer S-211 Striker (humbucker, single, single). However, nothing beats going into a music shop and testing guitars for yourself. That is what your first option should be, then turning to the internet when you can't find something you like, or there isn't a store near you.

The first guitar I ever bought was 200, It was a B.C. Rich Warlock. It wasn't expensive and its a nice sounding guitar. I bought it back in 08 & it still works.

80 pounds is worthless. Save your money.

Get an Ibanez. Beautiful necks on them. But, at least double that budget.

I would say just hold on to your cash, if you save up long enough you could probably get a nice mexican strat for around 500 dollars, so like 350 pounds I think? and then check on Ebay if you're desperate, but I always want to play my guitars before I buy, though I bought my les paul studio from someone on ebay, and it's probably one of the best guitars I've played. BTW suggested the strat since you prefer music that is almost all on a strat haha well at least hendrix, but listen, don't buy an epiphone whatever you do unless it's like a "real" one. Gibson-made epiphones are for the most part lacking in quality

ebay

For a fairly cheap one, get a Yamaha Pacifica (one of the newer models). For the price they have a great sound and, although you wouldn't perform or record with it, it's great for practice.

Anything ESP is relatively low price, and high quality (in my opinion). I bought a Viper 200fm while they still made them, absolutely love it. I've acquired other guitars since then but it's still my favorite. Might post pics we'll see Also I can vouch for what zach1193 is saying, back in the day I bought an Gibson-Epiphone Les Paul Student Edition thing and my god was it a piece of junk. Not sure if the one I bought was especially defective, but the pickups sounded like a jet taking off and the frets were all buggered. Couldn't even play past the 15th fret (needless to say the Tom Lee where I bought it got an earful)

My first guitar was a fender squire strat. Loved it to death until it started to die on me. I know how you feel though, having such a tight budget for an instrument you love. The best thing to do is keep searching until you find a decent used one or just save. I saved up my money and got a kit to build my own replica Fender Telecaster. Then I popped in some tonerider classic pickups. That combined with a 300 watt Fender Roc-Pro 1000 tube amp I found on craigslist for 160$ with cab makes for a glorious setup. Moral of the story, search and save, search and save. Sidenote: I love Ibanez guitars but they're mainly for metal and heavier music, strats and teles are more for blues and classic rock, sometimes heavier music. Hollowbodies are mainly for jazz and some blues and country. Or just build a cigar box guitar haha, I built my first cbg for 50$ American and I love it to death, just takes patience and a little know-how.

[QUOTE=SenseMake;34830308]My first guitar was a fender squire strat. Loved it to death until it started to die on me. I know how you feel though, having such a tight budget for an instrument you love. The best thing to do is keep searching until you find a decent used one or just save. I saved up my money and got a kit to build my own replica Fender Telecaster. Then I popped in some tonerider classic pickups. That combined with a 300 watt Fender Roc-Pro 1000 tube amp I found on craigslist for 160$ with cab makes for a glorious setup. Moral of the story, search and save, search and save. Sidenote: [b]I love Ibanez guitars but they're mainly for metal and heavier music, strats and teles are more for blues and classic rock, sometimes heavier music.[/b] Hollowbodies are mainly for jazz and some blues and country. Or just build a cigar box guitar haha, I built my first cbg for 50$ American and I love it to death, just takes patience and a little know-how.[/QUOTE] I hear this all the time but this is a very bad piece of information, not trying to insult you but I can get pretty much any sound out of my Ibanez that I want. And the two reasons I will admit is my choice of pickups and how they are wired as well as the strings I use. I have a Seymour Duncan 59' model in the bridge and a Dimarzio Super 2 in the neck. I had to rewire the Seymour Duncan to be a four conductor pickup but now that I have both pickups are wired to a swtich to coil split. So with the flick of a switch I can split one or both of my pickups and instantly get that single coil twang that we all love. But switch it back and the sound thickens up. Another key thing is the strings to brighten up the sound to more of a maple fretboard sound I used D'addario ProSteels. A lot of Ibanez guitars are made from basswood and most strats from alder and the tonal differences are not very extreme, if anything the basswood gives more in the mid range department.

Oh no worries at all haha. That's why I love music, everything is relative and different for everyone. But those pickups, I'm jealous. My friend Shawn actually uses Dimarzio's in his Ibanez (Not sure of the model but they're expensive haha) you can get all kinds of sounds out of it. It looks like the best advice to be given is just play around and find one you like, go down to a music shop and play a few guitars. But like Nazareth666 said, you can re-wire your pickups or change them out entirely to get a range of sounds. I'd rather take my old squire and change out the pickups than get a whole new guitar. (Albeit it may be expensive to have your guitar re-wired.)

[QUOTE=SenseMake;34850462]Oh no worries at all haha. That's why I love music, everything is relative and different for everyone. But those pickups, I'm jealous. My friend Shawn actually uses Dimarzio's in his Ibanez (Not sure of the model but they're expensive haha) you can get all kinds of sounds out of it. It looks like the best advice to be given is just play around and find one you like, go down to a music shop and play a few guitars. But like Nazareth666 said, you can re-wire your pickups or change them out entirely to get a range of sounds. I'd rather take my old squire and change out the pickups than get a whole new guitar. (Albeit it may be expensive to have your guitar re-wired.)[/QUOTE] Learn to do it yourself, it's not very hard actually. I've saved probably $1000 by doing my own tech work.

Get a guitar made of some nice, dense wood. Looks don't matter as long as the thing uses the right wood. It'll sound consistently like shit no matter what pickups you fit on it if the acoustics of the guitar body itself suck. Really, when buying a guitar, focus on the wood it is made of. The pickups and everything cosmetic about them, you can change it later.

Go for Ibanez or Schecter. Real nice cheap quitars.