Metal Reviews

So yeah, I'm thinking I'm gonna get a guitar for Christmas from my 'rents. I know a lot of people here play guitar, so I figured I'd ask for some advice...any recommendations on good guitars/amps to start with, or any other general advice on getting started? Thanks...

Price range?

Er, I honestly have no idea what I'm really getting into yet--I've yet to talk to some friends of mine who will hopefully fill me in on the basic stuff. But as of now, I'm thinking nothing too expensive, but not something that sucks either >_>. Like low end of the quality stuff.

Learn chords/scales/arpeggios. They are vitally important.

Good luck. I've had a guitar for over two years now, and I still suck at bar chords and pentatonic scales.

Maybe if I dedicated more time to it...

This one's better, for real:

Ibanez make some stuff that's cheap n' good.

try to get something good from the used-market. An Epiphone Custom is good for starters. Not to cheap nor to expensive. For amps you should check out Roland Cube.

My first guitar was a Hondo. Go with a Hondo.

Agreed on Epihpone and Ibanez. They make some less-expensive, but still quality stuff.

avoid cheap ibanez with tremolo though... they fuck up the tuning and the neck

I'll vote for a Squier. Cheap and it's an all rounder. But you gotta watch out. Squiers are inconsistent in their production. Out of five guitars (of the same model), only one will be really good. The rest can range from mediocre to shitty. You have to really try all of them out PROPERLY to see if any of it is good. I suggest you take an experienced guitar player along with you when buying.

Squiers are pretty good guitars for beginners. Very affordable. On another note, some people rather buy an expensive one so that they will put a lot of effort in learning to play. You'll definitely feel guilty if you spend so much and the poor piece of wood and strings is just left lying to rot after barely a few months. It depends on you. What type of guitarist do you plan to be? Just a casual play-for-fun or serious Van Halen-material?

squire? c'mon... Most of the squire stuff you get today is equal to shit. There is always something wring with them.

Er, well it turns out that one of my friends has been nice enough to basically give me one of his old guitars...so I'm just going to learn on that and see if I really want to be serious about it, and then I'll decide what kind of guitar I want to actually spend money on. Thanks for all the advice, though...it'll help me when I actually buy one.

yes, do not ever get a cheap guitar. It will be discouraging, hard to play and sound like shit. Don't plan on doing any ear traing with these things.

Honestly, If you want to learn how to play, wait until you can worka little and save up around 800 bucks for something that you will use forever instead of a guitar that may be useful for a couple months when you realize the action is just BAD.

Amps? go with a Roland Micro cube. It's 15 watts can put out some good volume for its size and it includes every sound you could want. The Recitifer setting is awesome on these things. They run around 150 bucks and they are useful forever, especially if you ever plan on getting a difital recorder to record with. This thing is portable and can be battery operated.

The theme I'm going with is to buy stuff that will last a lifetime rather than a couple years. If you can't afford anything but a cheap guitar and amp package, My best suggestion is to just wait. Your patience will result in better habits later on that will make you better rather than having to unlearn bad habits when you do step up your gear to the level everyone wants.

practice practice practice. play along to records for a while, just mess around, learn the three or four standard heavy metal power chords. Play along and try to find the notes on the guitar they are using, sooner or later, you'll start hitting the right notes on time and it will all come together. After you have a decent grasp of where certain sounds can be found on the guitar, you'll be able to fake your way fairly easily through even the most difficult prog metal songs. If you get this far, then seek out proper instruction, then you will be unstopable.

My mom is a drummer and timing is very natural to me, but focus solely on the rhythm of your playing at first and don't be too concerned over what key it is in. Just get the rhythm and feel right, then you can naturally play the tune and only worry about fretting the correct notes.

I hope this was helpful and good luck.

I owned a 1970's Hondo flying V.

Here's the thing about Hondo (who is not in business anymore)

They were like Ibanez in the 70's. A japanese manufacturer making Gibson knockoffs that were just as good as the original, sometimes better. as the years went on, Ibanez started moving away from Gibson models and Hondo cheapened production.

If you can find a Hondo that has decent action and perfect intoation, jump all over it. You will never know what model or year it is because Hondo never used serial numbers, a major contributing factor to them being very cheap used guitars.

I'll put it this way, If you find the right Hondo, you'll essentially end up paying 200 bucks for a near-vintage gibson quality instrument.

kind of agree with you...but you can get a descent guitar for under 800 bucks...an Epiphone would be perfect for starters...what if he figures after a while that guitar isn't his thing?

Well Ive used a lot of very high end guitars and cheap guitars over the years, and 800 is about what it takes to get something that will be playable forever regardless of what you buy later on.

And with good solid guitars they can ALWAYS be sold for what you paid for them if they are taken care of, if you really get a good one, you'll profit from the sale.

Well I won't say that all of them are good, but as I mentioned you have to go through the whole rack and there might be one that is actually good. This is the problem with Squiers, they're imitations of Fenders but the quality is far from what Fender offers. BUT(!), the good ones that you get (or can find) are REALLYx2 fucking good. My friend has a Squier and he actually prefers and uses it more than his Jackson Warrior. And my bass, is a Squier as well. Everybody including me, was very surprised with the quality of the sound it produced. I dare say my Squier bass beats most Ibanez's.

A good tip when buying Squier's: Don't go for the 'Made in China' ones. Get the ones that were made in Indonesia. The wood makes a lot of difference. That's probably why mine sounds very good and has a fucking good sustain, especially on powerchords. Freakin heavy!