Best cheap starter guitar to fool around with?

morf · #1 04-01-2006, 09:30 AM

I'm looking for a playable, decent sounding electric quitar mostly to have fun on, do tapping, cool bends like jimi, etc. I've looked around a bit but to the few guitarists or people that know anything about guitars here, what would you recommend, say, at 200 bucks max?

steve21 · #2 04-01-2006, 01:02 PM

http://www.rondomusic.net/e1ambq.html

http://www.rondomusic.net/al2000te.html

http://www.rondomusic.net/al2000hsbf.html

Rondo's pretty cool.

Tsal · #3 04-01-2006, 01:18 PM

Japanese Telecaster. MIJ Squiers are quite nice for the price - certain 80's models tend to be bit pricy these days, but the 90's models are dirt cheap.

tplyons · #4 04-01-2006, 06:43 PM

Get yourself a used Mexican Fender. It's my #1 and only electric guitar and is wonderful. I throw on a few bucks in better parts every once in a while, but it's a quality instrument as is.

Minger · #5 04-01-2006, 07:27 PM

Agile AL-2000.

I've got one with a 3TS spalted top...a bit heavy, but sounds great...a bit bassy too on the neck pup.

morf · #6 04-02-2006, 04:25 AM

I'll look all those up, thanks for the ideas, my guitarist of a brother showed me some funky stuff and I just have to get good at it now

CrazyArcher · #7 04-02-2006, 11:29 AM

Cort make pretty decent starter guitars...

Bard2dbone · #8 04-02-2006, 09:59 PM

One of these sounds like a possible winner.

Turock · #9 04-02-2006, 10:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Minger

Agile AL-2000.

I'm with Minger.

flatwoundfender · #10 04-02-2006, 11:22 PM

Pawn shops are great places to hit up. I recently found an Alvarez telecaster copy for $150 that's a lot better than any sort of squire would be, probably better than a mexican fender, it also has the three pickup configuration. Alvarez doesn't have the fender name so as nice of a guitar as it is, they can't be sold for much. For a few years they made strats and teles. The main things to look for is are the frets worn, does the neck have any significant bends in it, does it sound like there are any ground problems, do the tuning machines seem to hold the tension, and the stuff you probably know from looking at basses. For tapping and stuff you might want to look at a strat copy rather than a tele, those are more popular as far as that stuff goes. Used is the way I'd go.