Choosing a Best beginner electric guitar

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Which beginner electric guitar?

Choosing a best beginner electric guitar can be a daunting task, especially if you know nothing about electric guitars.

Obviously different guitars will suit your music preference while others will suit your budget.

And sometimes you can get both.

There's also children we have to consider, but for the sake of making this page shorter, there's another webpage you may want to consider visiting as well: Kids electric guitars 

What I'm going to do here is give you as much information on electric guitars as I can, as well as the strong points and weak points of each type of guitar.

To be perfectly honest, I can't say I've played every guitar I mention, but when I have either played or owned one, I'll let you know.

One thing I know for sure is that beginner electric guitars have improved radically in quality since I first started to learn guitar back in the seventies.

Two types of electric guitar to consider

The Gibson Les Paul and Fender Stratocaster are the two main guitars that have dominated electric guitar music since they first came out in the mid 50's.

Each has a distinctly different sound, and for the most part are better suited to different styles of music.

When buying an electric guitar for a beginner it's important to pay attention to this, especially seeing as getting the right sound out of your guitar is a big thing for a guitarist.

Just to set your mind at ease, I'm not saying you should buy a Gibson Les Paul or Fender Stratocaster. These aren't beginner guitars and they're priced to show it.

Fortunately there are cheap electric guitars that serve as great alternatives for the beginner guitarist or even the musician on a budget.

I'm always on a budget so I would know. I buy cheap quality guitars mostly.

There is also a third type of electric guitar for beginners suited more to those interested in playing Metal guitar, but for the most part, these would fall under the rock category. Let's start with Gibson Les Paul copies and similar sounding beginner electric guitars

Firstly, what does a Gibson Les Paul sound like?

Perhaps the best way to describe the sound is to point to some bands and guitarists that have a typically Les Paul type sound, like Boston, Led Zeppelin, Gary Moore on his Still got the blues album and on every version of Parisian Walkways he ever played.

Anyway, I'm sure you get the idea. It's a heavier rock sound like Guns n Roses or Kiss.

Giving my age away here, I know.

The 3 things that make a Les Paul guitar sound like it does are:

  1. The pickups (These are what convert the vibration of the string into an electrical signal that gets fed to an amplifier)
  2. The wood, including the type of wood and the density (Les Pauls are notoriously heavy) and
  3. The way it's constructed, meaning that it has a set in (glued in) neck. Some people may argue that this is a minor factor.

Of these three factors, the pickups have the most effect on the sound.

There are 3 basic types of guitar pickup used on electric guitars:

  1. Single coil pickups
  2. Humbucker pickups and
  3. Active pickups

The standard Gibson Les Paul uses humbucker pickups, which are basically two single coil pickups wired in series and out of phase with each other, all in one neat little housing.

This has the effect of eliminating any outside interference from radio signals, flourescent lights, TV screens and old computer monitors.

Sounds like a good idea right? Well mostly it is, but this also has the effect of reducing the treble response of the pickup whilst at the same time creating a larger magnetic field for the guitar string to pass through.

This is essentially a more powerful sound.

If all this information is getting too much like a home study course on how to buy an electric guitar, you can just scroll down past everything to my recommended beginner electric guitars section, but I do think it's important to understand a little on how electric guitars work so that whether you buy a guitar I recommend or decide to look at other alternatives, you'll at least be well informed.

Gibson Les Paul
gibson-les-paul-guitar-parts.jpg
The Gibson Les Paul in this picture is a fake made in China - Buyer beware

Beginner Les Paul guitars by Epiphone, Agile, SX and Douglas

Gibson own a sub brand of guitars for the lower end of the market, meaning beginners and budget concious musicians, like me. This is their Epiphone range.

I have owned and gigged with an Epiphone Les Paul, but that was about 10 years ago, and it was a slightly higher end Epiphone from their standard.

Going from my own memory and the Epiphone Les Paul Standards that I have played on, as well as the feedback from other guitarists that I know, they're very well built guitars and sound good as well.

The cheapest Epiphone Les Paul is the Les Paul Special 2

Epiphone Les Paul Special II (2) Video demo

Four things I like about this guitar:

  1. I'm glad that the humbucker pickups are wax potted. Wax potting is a process whereby the coils surrounding the magnets of the pickup are soaked in wax to prevent the coil wire from vibrating.
    This prevents microphonic feedback when the amplifier is turned up loud.
    This happens even more when the amplifier is overdriven or a distortion effect is used.
    So no microphonic feedback is a good thing, especially when you want to play rock music.

  2. It's cheap and still has that Les Paul sound, although there are many degrees of good when it comes to a Les Paul sound, this one does a decent job of it.

  3. The neck and body on this guitar are made of mahogany, which is the standard tone wood for Les Pauls.

  4. The neck on this guitar is a slimtaper neck, which means it's thinner than a standard Les Paul neck. This is a plus point because a slimmer neck is actually easier to play on for most people, and for a young kid this may just be the perfect guitar to start on.

Two things I don't like about this guitar:

  1. This may not concern everyone, but when I buy a guitar, I like to think in terms of the future and what a guitar will do for me then.

    As well made as the guitar might be, and despite some of the glowing reviews you might read elsewhere, I don't see this guitar as having any potential beyond a beginner guitar.

  2. For a little more money you can get a Les Paul style guitar that you'll be proud of for its sound, good looks, playability and quality of construction well into the future, And for less you can get something that's a lot more guitar value for the money.

In the bedroom it may be fine to learn on, but when you get on stage eventually you want to feel proud of your instrument too.

There is one instance where I think this guitar beats all the competition as a best value beginner electric guitar, and that's in the Epiphone Special II Electric Guitar Player Pack

Mostly because the value of everything combined, added to the truly excellent guitar instruction from Gibson's Learn and Master guitar [included] means you won't need another thing for at least the next two years to learn and play electric guitar [Apart from a new set of strings occasionally].

I just need to make something clear: This is a special version of the Epiphone Special II player pack as it's the only one that comes bundled with Gibson's Learn and Master guitar. The others you see on the net don't, even though they have some instructional DVD.

This is what I call landing on your feet!

I own a copy of Learn and Master guitar and I recommend it highly.

Here are some other Beginner Les Paul guitar options worth considering

For a little more money:

The SX Callisto Custom is about 20 bucks more than the Epiphone Les Paul Special II and a whole lot more guitar for the small difference in price.

It's available from Rondo Music in their electric guitars section usually at about page 6, seeing as they start with their cheapest guitars on page 1 and work their way up from there.

SX Custom beginner Les Paul

3 things I like about this guitar:

  1. It's built the same way as a Gibson Les Paul, meaning that it's neck is glued in. This is referred to as a set neck. The main advantage of a set neck is the improved sustain and overall tone enhancement which comes from a better neck to body connection.

  2. It's made from mahogany wood. Even though there are different grades and types of mahogany, they are all similar sounding. Gibson Les Pauls are made from mahogany.

  3. It's just plain beautiful. While I don't own one of these guitars, I have seen them in person and was sorely tempted to buy one myself. I may still do that, in which case I'll post a video here.

2 things I don't like about this guitar:

  1. The nut on this guitar may be made of plastic, although this isn't a big concern seeing as a well cut plastic nut actually works fine. One just doesn't know beforehand if the strings might get slightly caught up in the nut, making it a bit more difficult to tune.

    From what I've read of other peoples reviews of this guitar, there doesn't seem to be an issue with this.

  2. I also don't know if the pickups have been wax potted, however, a humbucker pickup is far less likely to squeel with microphonic feedback than a single coil, and if it does, it's only when the guitar amp is really cranked way up.

    Back in the late 50's the first humbuckers that went into Les Paul guitars weren't wax potted.
    Still, I prefer to know that they've been wax potted.

We still haven't come to the best beginner guitar in a Les Paul style, but for those on a serious budget, here's a fairly decent beginner electric guitar that's considerably cheaper than the Epiphone Les Paul Special II.

The Douglas Shadow Les Paul copy

Although not made from mahogany, but rather an alder wood body and bolt on maple neck, this is still a very good combination of tone woods for an electric guitar Douglas Shadow Les Paul copy Douglas Shadow rear view showing bolt on neck

This guitar and its full specifications are available here and even with its thicker body and being an arch top it is still about 40 dollars cheaper than the Epiphone Les Paul Special 2

I'm going to leave the likes and dislikes aside for this one. For the price of this guitar there's only a whole lot to like about it. You may want to upgrade the pickups later when you start playing really loudly in a full band, but even that may not be the case.

Here's a short review of this guitar at the harmony central website forum - Douglas shadow review, as well as a user review at ultimate-guitar.com

My top choices for a best beginner electric guitar in a Les Paul style

The SX Deimos and Agile AL 2000 are two top quality electric guitars that are both very affordable, while at the same time having features that make them a great choice for both the short term as a beginner guitar and the long term as guitars you'll keep playing on, even when the word "beginner" doesn't apply to you.

Let's start with Top Choice No2, the SX Deimos

Blue and Amber SX Deimos Les Paul type electric guitars

The SX Deimos features a mahogany body and "set in" maple neck. This is an excellent combination of woods to use, seeing as the resonance of maple is about an octave higher than mahogany (Twice the frequency).

In practical terms, this will give you a good treble response from the maple combined with a good low end "thump" and upper midrange "bite" from the mahogany. If the words "Thump" and "Bite" are confusing, think of it as a full bodied sound with enough treble to match.

Of course, the sound of an electric guitar is only as good as the pickups will allow. The pickups on the SX Deimos are made by EMG. While EMG make some of the most highly regarded pickups in the world, the EMG's on this guitar are their economy range, called EMG "Select".

They are however wax potted, so technically speaking there shouldn't be any unwanted microphonic feedback at higher volumes. They're not fantastic pickups but they do give a good sound on this guitar.

It's also good to keep in mind that a guitar can only sound as good as the amplifier it's plugged into.

The tuners on this guitar are Grover die cast tuners. Grover tuners are known to be reliable so you can expect this guitar to stay in tune well.

This guitar is also available from Rondo Music.

No 1: My personal top choice for a best beginner Les Paul style electric guitar

The Agile AL 2000

Agile AL 2000 best beginner electric guitar Les Paul style

Before I even get started on the specs of this guitar, I'd like you to watch this youtube video. This fellow is demonstrating his Agile AL 2000 that has a black flame finish. The Agile I own is an AL 3100 which is a more expensive guitar than the 2000, so this video will give you a better idea of the look and sound of the AL 2000.

The Agile AL 2000 features a mahogany body and set in maple neck, pretty much like the SX Deimos. It has Grover tuners which are renowned for their ability to keep your guitar in tune.

The pickups are wax potted humbuckers which use ceramic magnets. Ceramic pickups have a much brighter sound than the traditional Les Paul humbuckers. This is part of what gives this guitar its chimey tone as well as good solid rock guitar bite, great for screaming lead solos.

These guitars are about half the price of the Epiphone Les Paul Standard, have more colors and better finishes to choose from, have three different neck profile options - Regular, wide or Slim, plus they both sound and feel better. I used to own an Epiphone Les Paul Classic (Limited edition) and 5 years later, for less money than I payed then, my Agile is way better.

Two places to buy an Agile AL 2000

Agile guitars can only be bought online, either from Amazon.com where there are at least user reviews but a limited range.

Or directly from Rondo Music , where you can see the full range of Agiles, as well as what other extremely well priced guitars are available.

Here is a video review on the Agile AL 2000 you may find helpful.

A quick heart to heart on beginner electric guitars

You may be concerned that a beginner electric guitar will be of inferior quality, and that if you buy something too cheap it may just be junk. Firstly, I want to set your mind at ease about the quality of beginner electric guitars available these days, and secondly, I would like to show you just how easy it is to take something that's built for beginners and turn it into a professional gig worthy guitar.

Before I go on though, you should know that the Agile AL 2000 mentioned above is already a gig worthy guitar.

The reason I'm writing this is to show you that you don't need to go outside your budget for a decent beginners electric guitar if you keep in mind that with a little more money spent further down the line, and I mean very little, you can swap out a few parts for better ones.

The quality of workmanship on a lot of today's beginner electric guitars is staggeringly good, not just for a beginner guitar but as a guitar in general, as the next guitar I want to show you has conclusively proved to me.

Fender Stratocaster copy beginner electric guitars

The sound of a Fender Stratocaster has a lot more treble content, and while this is good for a clean sound, with overdrive it can become just a little too bright in some pickup positions.

The kind of music that works best with a Stratocaster sound is usually country music, or any music that needs mostly a clean to slightly overdriven sound.

There are some guitarists who get a decent rock guitar sound out of a Stratocaster, but these are usually people who know how to tailor their sound to exactly what they want.
As a general consideration though, the single coil pickups used on a Strat, especially in the bridge position, tend to be too bright to get a decent rock sound.

Typical Fender Stratocaster sounds:
The first band that comes to mind is Dire Straits, especially on their song "Sultans of swing", the legendary Stevie Ray Vaughan, Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple, Jimi Hendrix.

While some of these musicians get some great rock sounds, the average beginner guitarist will get a lot closer to the rock sound he wants with a lot less effort using humbucker pickups instead.
That being said, there is one type of Stratocaster that fits the bill all round.


Here is what a typical Stratocaster guitar looks like:

Fender Stratocaster copy




















































This is my own personal guitar which I've used on occasion in the studio whenever I needed a genuine sounding Stratocaster guitar.

The Squier Bullet Strat, Fender's Cheapest beginner electric guitar.

The first thing that really impressed me about the Squier bullet strat, apart from the fact that it's built as well as any Fender Stratocaster, is the sound of the guitar even when it's unplugged.
Unfortunately I can't demonstrate the unplugged sound, but a good sign of a guitars tonal quality is what it sounds like without an amplifier.

The second thing that impressed me was the fret work on this guitar. Most guitars that come straight out of the factory will have a few slightly uneven frets, requiring you to have a fret level done if you want the strings to get as close to the fretboard as possible.

Maybe I got lucky, but judging from the other reviews I've read on this guitar, the neck and fretwork on these guitars is excellent.
Anyway, here's my list of likes and dislikes on this guitar.

What I like about this guitar:

  1. The body weight and size is about the same as a regular Fender Stratocaster. This gives the feeling of playing a real Strat as opposed to some skimmed down makeshift wannabe.
  2. The feel of the neck is comfortable in the hand. Neither too thin or too fat. When the neck relief and string height is set up correctly, this has quite a fast neck [meaning you can play fast on it without your hand becoming tired quickly].
  3. The sound, which I've mentioned before is typically a Stratocaster sound, and quite a good one at that. There is a small problem with this, but I'll mention that in the dislikes.
  4. The guitar stays in tune fairly well. There are conditions to this though, which I'll discuss later as well.
  5. The electronics, meaning the volume and tone controls, pickup selector switch and output jack all seem to be of decent quality.

What I don't like about this guitar:

  1. While I've said that I like the sound of these pickups, there is a problem with them when it comes to playing loudly through some kind of distortion device or overdriven amplifier channel.
    What happens is that they begin to feed back, producing a screeching or harsh whistling sound.
    This is due to the fact that they are not wax potted.
    This is fine through a small practice amp but you'll want to swap them out later.
    With the pickup selector switch in positions 2 or 4, the configuration is hum cancelling and also tends to reduce unwanted feedback.
  2. If you look at the picture above of the Squier bullet strat, you'll see on the head I've pointed out some gadjets called "String trees".
    These are necessary to hold the strings down so they sit properly in the nut.
    The problem with these is that they tend to grab the string slightly and cause it to go out of tune when the tremelo is used.
    Very light tremelo use is fine and the guitar holds its tuning quite well then.
    When I say light, I mean just enough to cause a slight fluttering sound.
    This is no different to a regular Fender Stratocaster, but it's a design flaw as far as I'm concerned and even so, there are much better string trees available that don't catch the strings

Here is a video of the Squier Bullet Strat

I searched all over youtube for a decent video of the Squier bullet strat, but eventually I decided to just make one myself.

Buy a Squier Bullet Strat online

The Squier Bullet Strats come in a few different colors, and of course you don't have to buy one online seeing as they're very widely available.
It's always good to get some other opinions though, so here are some places you can either buy or at least read what others have to say about the guitar before you decide on a purchase.



There are also the Bullet Strat guitars that I mention in the video with a humbucker in the bridge position.
These might be a better option for a beginner who wants to play rock music, or even if you just prefer something a little darker sounding in the first position.



There are other bullet strat options, like the all black one with two humbucking pickups, but I don't want this page to start looking like a festival of links to Amazon.
Their navigation is pretty good on the site.

Alternatives to the Squier Bullet Strat as a Stratocaster style beginner electric guitar

A very well known brand of Stratocaster copy are the SX range of guitars. While I don't personally own one, nor have I even played one, I do know a certain guitar technician and professional guitarist who used one for quite a while as his main gigging guitar.

One thing about the SX Stratocasters is that their bodies are made of Alder wood, which is the same wood that some of the best sounding Strats are made of.

Feature wise, they're the same as a regular Stratocaster, however, a big plus point is that some of them are even cheaper than the Squier bullet strat.

The cheapest SX Stratocaster copy available

SX stratocaster electric guitar
As far as likes and dislikes go for this guitar, there's only one thing other than the Bullet Strat, apart from the body wood that I like, and that's the diecast tuners.
Other than that, it comes with a bag as an extra bonus.
 
As you might have guessed by now, this guitar is also available at Rondo Music And while you're there you might want to check out their beginner electric guitar packages and Left handed guitars

Make your electric guitar play like the best

The major difference between a standard guitar and a top of the range guitar is in the minor details and the final preparation
Guitars that leave the production line of major guitar companies like Ibanez, Washburn, Yamaha, Epiphone etc, have only been given the most basic final setup.
Companies like these all use fairly decent wood and hardware, and their paint finishes are generally excellent, but the one area which is sadly neglected, is the final stage of the fretwork.
Many times, the best electric guitar for a beginner can end up as a great guitar for any level of playing ability, let me tell you what I do first to every guitar I buy.
I take it to a guitar luthier
The reason I take my guitar there first, is so that he can level and crown the frets
What do I mean by "Level and crown the frets"?
Firstly, in case you don't know, "Frets" are those metal bars on the neck of the guitar that you place your fingers behind in order to press a chord.
Secondly, the reason you would want to level and crown the frets is because, by doing this, all of the frets will be an equal height above the fretboard, enabeling the strings to be set as low as possible to the fretboard, which makes it so much easier to play.

Internal links

How to play electric guitar dvd

Best beginner electric guitar

Beginner guitar chords

Guitar lessons and recommendations by Andrew Webber, blues rock guitarist

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