Good Electric Guitar Packages?
I’ve been playing accoustic guitar for about 3 years, and i want an electric guitar. I don’t want to spend $300 or more on a guitar then even more on an amp and other things like that. I don’t have that kind of money laying around. So i want to buy a cheep guitar package, but i don’t want to get ripped off and waste money on “crappy” things. so what package should i buy?
You are best off going with popular brands that are not “high-end” such as Fender or Gibson. Both of them have sub-brands targeted for budget audiences. Fender has Squier and Gibson has Epiphone. Also other brands exist but those I don’t know so well.
I’ve had an Epiphone Les Paul Standard for about ten years now, and it has served me well. Actually, I once read a review that Epiphones have a better price-to-quality ratio than Gibsons, because Gibsons have so much “brand premium” in their price. I could assume that goes for Fender vs. Squier too.
I picked up one example of an Epiphone Les Paul package from Guitarcenter.com. Feel free to browse other Value packs (that’s how they call them there) if they suit you better. The price seems okay.
I’d go either with Stratocaster or Les Paul models, because they are the classics and trusted. Stratocaster is maybe a little more all-round whereas Les Paul is more rock/blues oriented with a little more rich sound with two humbucker mics (humbucker = dual coil) compared to three single coils with Stratocaster. Stratocaster also has a whammy bar, but I’d suggest not getting too caught with that because it has very little usage outside of surf music and “shredding”. These things depend entirely on what kind of music you intend to play. If you are unsure, go with the Stratocaster, it’s an all time classic, can’t go wrong!
As with the amp, I’d mainly select the package with the guitar as the main focus, as you will most certainly want to buy a bigger amp if you decide to start doing gigs, none of those package amps are any good on gigs anyway, they just aren’t meant for that.
Comment by ladyhots — October 8, 2009 @ 2:48 am