OT: Electric guitar
 

OK guys, this is way off topic.

I've been playing acoustic guitar for a couple of years and I've decided I want to take the plunge and get an electric. I'm hoping with the eclectic community here that you guys will have some suggestions for decent intro-level equipment.

My budget is probably $400. There might be a little flexibility with that, but certainly no more than $500.

The one trick to this is my wife, who is not going to be keen on me having anything that might remotely be described as a "jam session". Most of my playing will probably be with a nice set of headphones, which will have to be included in my budget. For an amp I can probably get by with really low end equipment as I will never be performing with this, at least not in the foreseeable future.

Any suggestions would be most appreciated. Peace.

Buy a Fender Squire, go to Musician's friend and check them out...and then you can by a nice practice amp like the Nifty 50 from Danelectro (I think the Nifty 50 has a headphone jack).

dola...

I have found that if you like the way it sounds, it doesn't matter concerning the price. It could be beat to hell and sing sweet. Squires are cheap and durable...it's a Fender after all, I got a American Deluxe, but I'd be hard pressed to tell you how much of a difference it would make in tone.

I will just echo Qwikshots thoughts. If you are looking for a low end electirc guitar the Fender Squires are a very good hoice. They have a very good tone. Also if you are looking for a good sounding reasonably priced amp you should be able to find a Crate in your price range that would sound very good.

Thanks guys, sounds like a plan. Thanks for your advice.

vaguely on topic here:

I've been starting to pick up the guitar recently, using online resources to help me learn/practice. Anyone have any good ideas on any good sites that I've been unable to find yet? Or perhaps a good practice book that I could use to get better? Or advice in general?

I've played trumpet for about six years and sang for about four so I can read music/have a basic idea of beginning music theory, so that's not the problem, its more the guitar.

TIA

ShagVT - The Squire is great - I am thrilled with mine. It's a tele that is made in asia (or is it Mexico?). Either way they close to as good as the real Tele at a much lower price.

Amp: A buddy of mine uses a "Jam-man" (something like that) which looks like a walkman but he plugs his guitar into it. It has a ton of settings and can be great for private practising. Something to look into perhaps anyway, I've never tried it myself.



The good news is that guitar is not hard to learn, and it's much easier IMO if you can sing too - your singing can cover up your awful playing early on:). In this day and age of free net stuff I would not bother with a book, there are tons of free how to play guitar sites on the net, many are better than any book I have ever seen. Lyrics with guitar chords are not tough to find either on the net, and they are free free free!

Advice - I have taught 2 people how to play guitar from scratch with this method: Teach them how to play 3 of their favorite songs. Unless they are into dumbass electro beat stuff (or any music that cannot be even played on a guitar) this method can work. For me this meant a lot of hands on teaching early on: 1-2 hours every few days. After a week or two they were both able to get through these songs and were able to do a ton on their own - just playing the crap outta these tunes. Over the next weeks I taught them a few other songs and after about 10 songs or so they were trying to learn songs on their own. One of them is in a totally kickass band now and plays much better than I ever could:(.

I dunno how helpful that is but the idea of the songs you like is that practising them over & over is far less lame than playing "She'll Be Comin' Round The Mountain" and BS like that. Guitar can be fun very early on with this strategy - good luck.

to ronnie dobbs:

To RonnieDobbs, I think we have guitar players onboard, SkyDog (of course), mckerney & Ksyrup if I remember well...

I am a newbie guitarist myself

This makes me sad for you. You can't just play into headphones dude!