Nothing worse for a beginning guitarist then saving & buying your first pedal, riding your bike home really fast and realizing you only got one cable. 😖
well my first thing for guitar was the look after i saw SLASH play for the first time back in 92-93 I loved the Les Paul and in my mind was the only guitar I needed boy was I wrong pushing ahead now after playing 11 years and still learning new tricks I now like other style of guitars like the STRAT style but not so much on the TELLI in fact to this day I have not played a TELLI, I do own 1 Les Paul style guitar it's a AUSTIN and 2 STRAT style guitar first one is a EART EXPLOYER -1 very high end guitar plays like butter frets are perfect and then STRAT style #2 is a ACADEMY low end guitar, crap to play on feels like crap but it's my MOD GUITAR I will put everything I want in it. My EART guitar is my go too guitar now and I play on it a lot I call him COSMO.
WOW !!! 👌 ...but first: "Hi" ...and ... Sorry for my desolate English! 😉 I'm a 64 years old GERMAN, and i could'nt even understand 100% of Your Words (perhaps 80-%?)... but ...this Video is so full, of such a lot, verry important Feelings and verry helpfull Tipps, to make it possible, to enjoy playing Music, first with a cheap Guitar, and that it's amazing, to grow up, and to go better and better, without having a ROLLS-ROYCE-Modell from the first Time!!! THIS VIDEO SCHOULD BE THE FIRST VIDEO FOR EVERYBODY ... ...who wants to play Music .. ...who wants to be a Photograph ... ...who wants to paint Pictures ... ...and so on!!! ...NOBODY needs the BEST Material, to have Fun, and to grow up, and get better!!! THANKS A LOT for this awesome and true Video!!!👍Greetings Gerd🎸( ...still a bad playing Hobby-Guitar-Player 😂)🎶
I’ve been playing this less than 200 buck minion Rhoads, but I can say that this is easily my fav guitar:) gear doesn’t really matter as long as it’s playable
@Myke Fuller he's 40 something and commenter said he looks like he's in his 20s...how is that weird. Its a compliment. maybe you see it as weird because you never get compliments but they're generally a polite thing to say
The cool thing about gear today is that there is a ton of really nice gear available at very affordable prices. Back in the 80's when I started cheap gear literally was crap. Today you can get a decent guitar (one that stays in tune, intonates well, and has decent frets) for a few hundred dollars. This is the golden age of gear for guitar players.
My first guitar was crap, the high E string kept getting stuck under the fret edge, only now do I know the fix was superglue! Hendrix used CBS Strats because they weren’t great, but they were consistent; you could say the same about modern Squiers.
The difference in the quality of even a Squier Bullet from when I first saw them coming into the store I worked at in the 90's and early 2000's, and what they are now, is beyond night & day, and for not that much of a price increase.
This is all a bad idea. Learn how to make crap sound respectable. Then you can really know if you have a passion worth investing in the good stuff. The good stuff you cant truly utilize to its potential if youre a noobie.
@@richardwhite6062 i get what you’re saying but you can’t progress if your gear, especially your guitar, is fighting against you and not letting you play the best you can
@@allendean9807 home made guitars are a whole other can of worms, and something I’ll do before i ever spend 1000$ on an electric guitar. But i wont make an acoustic... that scares me...
@@DeliriumXM Wait. I'm interested to know if your opinion on this has changed at all in the last 3 years? Why would you sooner build an electric guitar rather than pay $1000 for one?? Is their benefits to doing do??
Hey, Mike! My dad used to say “a bad workman blames his tools” and I think it’s a very applicable little saying for guitar. My main guitar is a strat my granny bought me nearly 11 years ago - shortly before I put the guitar down for a decade. So when I picked it up again 4 months ago I resolved to never blame it for not sounding amazing - that’s on me, I have to improve. In a way being a relative beginner on a nice guitar feels good because I know with certainty that the guitar isn’t the issue with my playing, and it makes addressing gaps in my playing easier that way. Plus I really wanna feel worthy of such an amazing bit of kit!
It's a common saying, but if you have really bad tools you can probably get good results with them, but it will take longer and you have to be really patient and talented. If you have good tools, you can often get good results faster and with less ability
@@adrianscarlett doesn’t really apply that way other than a good setup... also personal preference is another big thing, for example on any guitar with shallow frets I sound like a dying monkey doing bends. Or maybe you have to have a whammy bar, locking tuners or whatever else, but a well setup cheap guitar (unless the nut is badly carved; again any competent tech know that and can swap it if need be) is going to outclass a badly intonated expensive guitar any day
I’m kinda in the same boat. I’ve owned a guitar since I was 9. I’m 22 now and I’m just picking it up again for the first time in about a year or so. I go through phases where I’ll play a lot, but I’ll also go through phases when I don’t even touch the guitar (mainly because of school, work, etc.). Right now I’m back in my playing phase
I started out on a cheap acoustic guitar my dad bought me. The problem was that it had buzzing frets, so basically half of the frets weren't playing properly at all. My learning kinda stagnated because of that: It wasn't fun to play, I couldn't learn a lot of songs. We eventually repaired the guitar, at the cost of a higher action. It is really hard to play fast, and your hand hurts after playing barre chords. I remember i went to a guitar shop and picked up a low-action shredder Ibanez, and it was just magically easier to play. Didn't even know I was that much better than I thought. Point is - don't let the price stop you, slow you down and make it difficult and not fun to play.
This!!! Its true that bad guitars can "help" you evolve ONLY if youre a diehard rock/guitar guy BUT a easy playing guitar (set up, quality, neat tone etc.) will make you pick it up more guaranteed. Less of a chore hah. When fun becomes a chore, its no fun no more
A quote that comes to mind "all the gear and no idea". I know people can easily get pulled into that and I can certainly be one of them, so I made sure to get a decent starter pack by Squier/ Fender, instead of breaking the bank getting some expensive gear when starting out. I'd rather have had something cheaper to learn on rightaway instead of waiting even longer to get something at a higher price point to start learning. I'm so glad i did that. I then saved up my money for just over a year to buy my SG.
@@louaguado995 mine is a 2005 model, previous owner had it for 10 ish years but barely played it so it was basically brand new, I just had it setup and it's all shiny and new, sounds amazing 🙂
@@Impassion it's a good one, I'll sometimes say it to myself if I feel I'm getting carried away with buying new stuff or even thinking about buying new stuff. Just gotta focus on practice and playing what you already have.
Mike is exactly right. My first guitar cost $100.00's. It had one humbucker, it was all flat black with a "strat" style body. No tremolo. I don't even remember what it was. I didn't even have an amp for like 2 months. I had to play it unplugged except when I was at my lessons. This actually made me really want to practice because I wanted to get back to the lesson each week so I could plug it in. This made me take baby steps and made me focus.
Expensive gear will not help you to get good, the only way is practicing :-) I think there is even an advantage of using bad gear: If you can play something on a bad guitar with high action you you can play it then with ease on a better guitar.
My first bass was $100 no-name P/J knockoff, action was almost 1/2" at the 12(!). I still prefer the buttery smoothness of my Schecter, but a bad setup is going to slow me down.
Or U get tendinitis for working for working with shitty gear. Using cheap gear is sometimes depressing, I spend a year busking with a Bad amp with a lot of problems, and now that I got a Roland I feel morè comfortable, progress faster and play better. U don't need expensive instruments, but functional ones, and sometime its not possible to fix It with a fre bucks
@@thepagnaet6361 half an inch! And you never dropped it at all? Thats some dedication, and on a bass no less! Im in love with my schecter and its like low action too though,
@@geronimosilveira7349 exactly, if you dont have gear that can produce the style/tone you want to some degree, it can be a huge blow to motivation and make you feel like your not good since your not getting the sounds you want to be hearing. But you also dont need to spend 700$ on tube amp if your brand new, its completely pointless; if you can’t discern the difference in tone it makes
That is exactly the way i see it, thats exactly why I’ll always recommend a decent modeling amp for a couple hundred and to get on with your day, sure its not the purest sound but it gets the job done pretty darn well
From my guitar experience: I got my first guitar about 11-12 years ago. It was cheap accoustic guitar (for about 25-30$) which wasn't really staying in tune. The second one I got was 2 years later - Takamine G340, I got it for around 100$. However, I always wanted to have an electric gutiar and I wasn't excited to play it. So 10 years passed, I could play some basic chords, nothing special. I got my first electric guitar (it was 1 and a half years ago) - it was ~800$ japanese 1990/1991 Burny Les Paul Custom (black). Since then I made pretty good progress - much bigger than through 10 years with accoustic guitar. This guitar really inspired me to play, I love it so much. And now I can see that I wasted 10 years with the guitar I didn't really want to play. Excuses, excuses, but that's how it goes. So yes. You can make cheap gear sound good. But better gear can also inspire you and make your life easier. The most stupid advice you can give to beginner guitarist is "buy the cheap guitar first". If someone can afford more expensive guitar, it's better to buy more expensive guitar, even at the beginning.
As long as your guitar doesn't cut your fingers, doesn't buzz on every fret and holds its tuning, guitar's fine. But nice tube amp with a quality speaker will make all your mistakes quite a bit more noticeable. Even cheap one. Cheap transistor amps got this quality of smoothing bad technique.
Starting out I would recommend no amp. It's just a distraction in the very early days of learning. You will find your tone your sound. Beginners don't need to obsess about tone learn the basics you don't need an amp for that.
@@spiderfan1974 I don't think this is good advice, tbh. You need an amp to learn how to mute your strings properly. I started with a classical guitar, then I got my first electric and I was in for a really rude awakening - the amplifier did its job well enough. It amplified all my mistakes.
@@spiderfan1974 Playing without an amp is a very bad idea. You won't hear your mistakes as well, also take into account what Alex above me said about string muting.
This is exactly what happened with me. I started off playing on a classical guitar, which is way harder to play especially for a beginner, i was playing for a year enjoying the classical but i wanted a electric so bad. and then the day came when i went to a guitar lesson and my teacher told me I'm ready to have an electric guitar. I had to earn the electric guitar and it made the experience of playing guitar in general more fun and challenging.
Ever have a singer come in, and they have all the PA gear, but can’t sing for shit? Gear is meaningless. Willie Nelson’s guitar has literal holes all over it. Brian May still plays the guitar he and his father built from a tabletop. My first guitar cost 75 dollars, my first amp 40 dollars. It’s about learning your instrument. If you want to ‘sound’ amazing, practice. Learn to train your ear. This is a great video for beginners. Beat the hell out of that Squier!
a singer with his own PA is actually quite a gem ! Most singers I met usually don't have any gear at all (not even a cheap mike) and rely on other's gear.
As a 3rd year player I'll say this... In the beginning I always tried to replace failure with gear. My first guitar was a Washburn strat copy with a 10w amp for 100$. I ended up spending 600$ buying a thr10c and a partscaster. I forced myself to learn on that gear and always wanted more distortion because I was sloppy. I assumed my cheap guitar and amp was to blame. Fact is I was trying to do hard rock on a strat bridge and with an amp specifically designed for cleans it just didn't work. I bought a roland GP8 and that was my first experience pressing a pedal and hearing a difference. I now own an acoustic, that same strat but with texas specials, a spark amp, a ts9, a wah and a sugar drive. Now the sound that comes out of my guitar is exactly the one I have in my head. Everytone I want to get out of my strat I can get with my gear. By being limited financially I only bought what I needed and made the most out of what I had. Most of the issues I had with my gear went away when I practiced more. I don't often get the urge to play acoustic but everyday I get an urge to pick that strat up...
That's funny cos I've had it the other way so far - avoiding distortion when playing for others (just a few videos) cos I couldn't (and still can't but started working on it) mute properly and well, then it's the real hot unlistenable mess. 🤣 Otherwise I love metal and distortion but for those videos I chose things that can be played (or are meant to be played) without distortion. And I have a decent amp and decent guitars, so I know if it doesn't sound good, it's ME. Be it bad setups (either on amp or guitar (I set up my guitars myself)) or just my sloppy beginner playing. Or very possibly both at the same time. 🤣
Distortion won't cover up sloppiness it makes it stand out front and centre !!! Usually this thinking comes from non players , the "oh they use so much distortion because they can't play " myth . I remember reading a story about Hendrix's guitar tech /roadie saying he used so much gain he could get nothing but noise and feedback from his setup as he wasn't good enough to mute every string but the ones that were being played !
The people who have asked me this same question, I've always given the same answer. Buy gear that makes you want to play. A huge thing for me was buying a guitar that just looking at it, made me excited to pick it up. Almost like I wanted to be worthy of how cool it looked.
If you can afford it, I suggest starting on a mid-priced instrument. By that, I mean a Made In Mexico Fender or something similar. You can get one for $400-500 used, and it's good enough to last you forever if you want it to.
Get a MiM and deck it out - sperzel locking tuners, upgraded pickups, upgraded bridge and saddles, new nut... you’ll have a guitar that’s miles ahead of anything you could pick up off the shelf and half the price of something with equivalent components. Phillip McKnight is particularly knowledgable in this area.
Definitely!!! I had a cheap Ibanez roadstar 2 and peavey practice Amp and I believe it made me better cause to get a decent sound out of it my picking and palm muting etc. Was top notch. When I'd get on good gear I turned heads. The owner running over to grab there guitar back lol. Actually happened several times. That cheap Ibanez I eventually I put a Duncan distortion and that guitar was instantly awesome
To me, it’s not abt if your gear is cheap or expensive but more like getting the correct guitar teacher to teach the right way, hence watching your videos is the right thing to do 😂 I had to learn to play guitar the correct way even before if I can make my cheap guitar sing!
You can spend thousands of dollars on gear, but if you have no talent the gear will still sound like junk. I have seen people that can make a rubber band, and a paper clip sound like a Spanish guitar
Over the span of 3 years I went from "Bedroom Nirvana learning beginner" to "album releasing, singer songwriting performer" this was all with the same white fender squire that was at most $120
I have had many students who are able to buy very nice instruments and they stop progressing as much just like you said. I told them to keep the one they had and focus on practicing and every time they didn't listen.
In my personal opinion I love the sounds and tones that you get from cheaper gear much more than what a lot of the more expensive stuff gives you. To me, the emotion just comes out through the music better than it does with the more expensive stuff.
With guitar you'll only knew what you considered enough when you skimmed trough tons of em. Honestly tho for beginners just buy anything "enough" with your own budget. Buying a bad gear never was a mistake. A mistake is not knowing what fits yourself.
Develop your ear, then focus on gear. One other point for beginners -- learning on a cheap acoustic can be really brutal. It will tear up your fingers. You can definitely learn more with a cheap electric. I'd suggest starting with a used, $300 electric and them moving into more expensive gear and better-built acoustics.
learning on a cheap acoustic gets really frustrated as well...almost gave up when I was learning Paranoid solo on a $30 acoustic. Then I got a $40 electric and that solo became so easy
I find myself bored with nicer guitars, I started on a secondhand Silvertone Strat copy and modded the guitar so many different ways, started as a SSS with a 6 point trem ended up as a single EMG 81 with a hardtail (permanently blocked the trem) I learned to work on frets, how to solder, had an HH set up with push pulls at one point, all about set up. Now “good” guitars bore me and I’m starting to look at pawn shops and Craigslist for cheap beat up guitars just to work on
This is a good point, you don’t need amazing gear, I bought my first squier for $75 at a pawn shop, that got me through about a year and a half. I think everyone should start with a decent guitar (not crappy) but decent, a $200 guitar can be bought for $100 or cheaper at a pawn shop or in the used market. Once I got my fender I had an amazing appreciation for the instrument and my playing greatly improved once I had the drive to play for hours, I was able to put it to use and get my money’s worth. Pro tip: BUY USED, I spent $75 for my squier and $380 for my fender, I even got my amp used (but relatively new) for about %75 of retail
I had a fellow guitar teacher that got so sick of his students saying, or inferring, that the only reason why he was good was because of the quality of the guitar he was playing. He went out and bought a really cheap Squier Strat to use for lessons and the students could no longer say that he was only good because of his gear.
Dude, I love your perspective. You're so earnest and passionate. Even though I don't play anymore, I take joy and even maybe some pride in being able to still love the instrument through people like you. Keep up the good work!
My Hondo II LP copy I got in 1977 was holy grail of guitars for me at 13. I made the biggest strides on that instrument out of all my gear throughout the years.
It’s true about ‘your’ sound - I feel like I sound the same now as when I had crappy guitars with crappy pickups - I still sound like ‘me’. I’m sure everyone here knows the feeling
I got a gretsche I was playing for a while and I spent so much time tuning it. Never stayed in tune for more than like 5 minutes. Then I started playing my sisters PRS since she wasn’t really using it and because the Gretsche had a broken string (I didn’t have an extra to put on). Now I am using the PRS exclusively because it always stays in tune. I obviously have to tune it but compared to the other guitar it’s great. Maybe the Gretsche is broken or it’s the tremelo bar but I am selling it. Never again..
im learning to play on a 200$ ibanez with a cheap amp, im making progress and if im getting much better, i stay playing on this guitar. Its you that have to play indeed
A good setup on any guitar makes all the difference, even a squier bullet or any offbrand guitars can be setup to be an enjoyable instrument. I'm still using my 200$ bass I got when I started a few years ago and I love it. I traded in my 15w practice amp for a fender LT25 amp a few months after I started because I wanted to have some digital effects and the ability to save multiple different tones and i havent thought about upgrading anything else since. My recommendation to anybody thinking about upgrading their gear. bump up your amp to an affordable amp like Fenders lt25/lt25rumble for
My first was a cast iron and plastic red strat no brand. I did buy it pure fore looks en because no idea. Couple years later i got my self a second hand Gibson Marauder, because no idea, but that one turned out right afcourse. I still used a crap Marlboro transistor amp. (I had it fore give away in 2018, zero entries). Anyway i play some mid range guitars now a days. Fore me the game changers where teechers who managed to spark me!
That was fun trying to guess what you were trying to write ! Lol still haven't a clue what afcourse means or is about ....here's a tip if you can't spell any better than a four year old child try using the spell checker and predictive text features .
In my opinion, a reasonably high monetary expense can really boost your motivation to practice because if you don't practice then you would've paid that money for nothing.
I disagree, sorry. Cheap crap “beginner” guitars can really make it not motivating to play when it is so difficult to do so because the guitar is crap and plays awful. Better start and average gear. I definitely agree with not starting out with the very best as you won’t even know what you have and would appreciate it much more as you work your way up to it. But to start on cheap gear is the worst thing you can do for your self confidence as playing on it is so difficult and is just a terrible experience all together. Start on average to pretty decent gear for sure! You will appreciate it more and will learn a lot faster. And you can always sell it if things do not go according to plan 👍
Thanks for your insights, Mike. Most of us, at least those who have enough money to fuel their hobby, will probably go through this gear-fixed phase you mentioned at least once. So we cannot blame each other, as it probably seems easy on paper: Better Guitar is better to play (maybe a less could only could be missing just a proper setup instead, but that's not the topic here), theoretically learning easier and faster to fret notes, a more lovely sound inspires you to play more. If it wasn't the fact the sound still is made out of your fingers ... Shit in, shit out ;) My two cents: Still, the easiest method to decide if you should really go through more expensive guitars (or any related stuff) the first time probably is, if you already feel motivated to do this already, and you are not one of those people having a fully working guitar in their closet sitting for years and just hoping, that super duper custom shop pro axe waiting in the basket of your musician's store website since so long will suddenly bring back the magic to go to the ever life-learning guitar stage again. Might work, or might not. I am not entitled to judge this in any way, of course. I went that route and awarded myself with a new axe (Ibanez S Prestige) last december. So the thing is, already having an Ibanez metal axe before and liking it as well, I wanted something more versatile. I always tell myself I want to use the full potential of that thing, also having a tremolo which is so nice, even with the cons a trem system has. And that doesn't mean to compare to any pro players who played for decades their life for many hours will still be better. I do not know enough how much talent affects the learning rate. Like, if someone gifted with learning guitar faster could do as good as someone else in half the time? All assuming both pratice the same efficent way and the age difference is not too big. Don't know. Luckily there are so many hobbies out there, where people splash ridicolous amounts of money as well. We should ne be too shy compared to other hobbies, when awarding us with lovely gear if this is our wish, while being no BB King, Gilmour, Satriani and others. Just enjoy making music. Nothing else matters, like a certain band had a song with this title :P
Nothing worse than fighting against a cheap guitar - no idea what cheap guitars are like now but back when I started, you knew WHY they were cheap as soon as you picked them up.
Thanks for reminding me about my original guitar, I haven't played it in years and years. Cheap (at the time, 30 years ago ) three different paint jobs and a pick up upgrade until the better guitar came along. Time to break it out and relive some great times.
I still have my first electric. And it is a pain in the ass. I tried to play Van Halen but its just impossible to get harmonics out of that guitar, also the action is very high. I didnt gave up but it is really frustrating and quitting is much closer with shitty gear. But these days you can get a decent guitar with 100-200$. if someone gets Van Halen kind harmonics out of that old Strato of mine I will make a statue of him/her. BTW. why you advice beginners buy pedals when you can buy a whole effects board with the price of one pedal, or justs use free internet amps.
a way i like to view gear is like crayons: if you give someone a box of crayons with every color they'll have huge options to go wild but if you give a professional artist just like green and yellow they'll make amazing art with just the two colors. If you can master using bad gear you'll be amazing on better gear
I managed a record store that sold a selection of inexpensive guitars. My advice for customers was to spend the $75 on a professional set up at a reputable shop. They skip this process on cheaper guitars at the factory. Almost any guitar can be made to play pretty well.
My first guitar lacked the stick-thing inside its neck, which made the whole thing a bit crooked, so the action was messed up. It was generally really high but even higher on the G, B and E strings. So my muting abilities got pretty bad because I hardly had to do anything to mute. Luckily, I got a new guitar two years later, so it worked out. The point is, cheap guitars isn't a bad thing, but a bad guitar is. And some people might struggle with seeing the difference.
I think nice more expensive gear won't make you better, but it might make the workload and process smoother. Maybe you have this really cool riff you wrote, but it's damn near impossible to play on your cheap guitar (maybe the way it's set up) so you don't pursue that riff any more since it's impractical, but on a nicer guitar, that riff could come out much easier, meaning you actually could spend more time on it not thinking it's impossible to play
My favourite part of starting on cheaper gear was that I used my brothers old acoustic to learn and had no idea it played terrible and the action was way too high so when I eventually got my own guitar it was a surprise how easy it was to play
Thank you so much!!!!!! I’ve been wanting to buy a electric guitar but I have an acoustic and I don’t have the money to buy a really good one I started saving for one already I was starting to shy away from my dream cause I thought I wouldn’t be good enough but now I feel like I can still reach my dreams!!!!!!
Im of the opinion that your first guitar should be at least $200 but preferably $300-500. Then just use a cheap digital amp. At this price point you can get some amazing playability in guitars and get close to almost any tone you want. Will take you way into your intermediate years.
Oh god I don't miss my first guitar at all back in the day I was so young, still in middle school I used to play like 8 hours daily. Not the best pravtice sessions but learning songs. Still I got so much done with it but the pick ups were muddy, it would go out of tune just by laying eyes on it and the neck was wide like a freeway.
When I first started it was on a couple different guitars, but I remember the acoustic/electric Harmony the most. In the early 90s, a group of us ended up in north Florida on the beach almost homeless and would get a free old beater acoustic from who knows where, and make it work. The action was terrible, and we would usually just use the old strings that were already on it. We were able to keep it in tune for a while. Anyway, Nirvana was very popular at the time, and we would sing and play the songs off of their unplugged album down on the boardwalk, and on the beach. Believe it or not, we would usually draw a crowd of other partiers that would join in and sing with us. We did not need a good guitar to make the magic happen. Those songs sound ok on an old beater anyway. But it did make my fingers compensate for the terrible guitar, and after a while, I could make it sound great. When you only have a bad guitar with terrible action, and you finally get something good, you are in heaven. Not to mention, you earned it!
And now, many, many years later, I have a Marshall JCM 2000 triple super lead head with 1960 lead cabinets. My axe is a Dean Dime Razorback set to Dimebags specs, with a Floyd Rose tremolo. I have several pedals like a crybaby Wah, and a Digitech death metal pedal. My favorite is my multi effects pedals. My Vox valvetronics tone lab se multi effects is awesome. I also have an old school Digitech RP3 multi effects pedal. I do have an acoustic/electric as well. It's a Takamine with a built-in tuner and EQ. I could go on and on about all of my equipment, because I have plenty more, but it just goes to show that you can start out with a beater, and if you are serious enough, end up with a gold mine. Hell, even my cables are made of gold. Expensive, but nice. Thank you truck driving industry. I could not afford it without you!
I started off with a similar cheap imitation Les Paul, played it for over 10 years, and eventually upgraded to an Epiphone Les Paul Studio. Played that for another 10, and only just recently I finally upgraded to the dream: Gibson Les Paul Standard 50s. I still only consider myself an intermediate guitarist, but holy crap is this guitar ever a joy to play! And it's just like you say: I wanted to learn guitar because of Slash, so finally having THE guitar is totally pushing me to learn even more.
A used Mexican strat is perfect for beginners I feel, you can get them reasonably cheap. But while being cheap they are legitimately good guitars, and will even do the job just fine for professionals. They may not feel as fine as a brand new US strat but then again ones a couple hundred used and the others well over a thousand
MIM fender stuff has good bones too. I replace pretty much everything on them accept the body and neck and plastic parts. Great guitar! Just have to spend a few hundred.
I've had both the American and Mexican strats and my by far favorite is one of the Mexicans; much better action than the American, better finish, just a better, top notch guitar that was a whole lot less expensive and sounds great and is a pleasure to play. I didn't change anything on it, it stays in tune forever, the pickups are like custom shop Americans. I also have a Gibson Les Paul, and honestly, the Mexican strat and the Les Paul are my two favs.
After a few years of practicing my ass off on a decent Japan Strat, actually buying a butchered PRS did a lot for me, cause it was way more modern and it was easier develop my technique on a flat fretboard and jumbo frets. A nice entry-level Dean or Washburn guitar might have worked just as well though 🙃
Art Of Guitar, I've had the same guitar (a red Dean Playmate) and the same Ariana AG-10 amplifier for over four years now. I fell in LOVE with this $40 guitar at first sight, even though people say it's just for practice, even though I feel I got my own tone and songs for it though. I'm hoping to get a Fender Mustang amplifier in the upcoming months for $150 though, but even though it would be louder and have more options, I was wondering about how my tone with prescribe to that amp. But maybe I can just set the amp to the guitar tone... I don't know, maybe I should get a feel for it before I go and buy it though... PS: I'm too poor to buy any kinds of pedals or things like that so don't worry, I just want the sound from the guitar hopefully; Also PS: I also suck at guitar, but I do write my own songs, but I know a lot of people that I know can play the guitar WAY better than me but they can only play covers? What's up with that? Thank you for reading though.
For what it's worth, I bought a Fender Mustang to play with my MIM Stratocaster. The clean tones were good but the dirty tones were junk. I sold it and got a Blackstar ID Core 20W combo amp for less than $200. It is great with the strat single coil pickups and gets many cool tones. Just my opinion.
This was a particularly good video. You managed to explain complex matters both thoroughly and precisely. And in a manner that anybody who is actually interested in hearing about such things would be able to understand. That is not an easy thing for a lot of people to do. That is cool because it shows that you care enough about your lessons to make the effort to put everything together ahead of time so that nothing is left out of your lessons. And having huge holes in your music knowledge sucks. Anyways, keep up the good work. Peace.
The best beginner gear: A well set up Squier Bullet or Affinity and a Fender Mustang LT25 amp. It’s a modeling amp, that means: You can use effects. If you want to save money: Buy a Harley Benton from Thomann and a Mooer modeling amp. The Mooer is a modeling amp is great and has many effects, you can use it as a real bASS and and a real acoustic amp! The Harley Benton (TE20) is a great guitar for about 80$, the cheapest guitar on Thomann.
My first guitar was a cheap-o acoustic. Did wonders developing calluses on my fretting hand. Main thing was I had the passion and never thought bad of that guitar. Over time, my parents felt that passion and eventually upgraded me to a beautiful Gibson ES-335.
Nothing worse for a beginning guitarist then saving & buying your first pedal, riding your bike home really fast and realizing you only got one cable. 😖
And then having to explain to your parents that you need that extra cable when they just bought you a $120 metal zone haha nice nostalgia trip
Lol thanks for the nostalgia 🤣
Sweet jesus god bless ya. Or owning an awesome pedal then one of your 2 cables stop working and your broke ugh. Just got out of a rut like that
@@joe1504 my first pedal was a used cry baby wah pedal and I still have it just sitting in the corner waiting for me to play a Kirk Hammett solo on it
@@sportidiots6587 DO IT MAN
well my first thing for guitar was the look after i saw SLASH play for the first time back in 92-93 I loved the Les Paul and in my mind was the only guitar I needed boy was I wrong pushing ahead now after playing 11 years and still learning new tricks I now like other style of guitars like the STRAT style but not so much on the TELLI in fact to this day I have not played a TELLI, I do own 1 Les Paul style guitar it's a AUSTIN and 2 STRAT style guitar first one is a EART EXPLOYER -1 very high end guitar plays like butter frets are perfect and then STRAT style #2 is a ACADEMY low end guitar, crap to play on feels like crap but it's my MOD GUITAR I will put everything I want in it. My EART guitar is my go too guitar now and I play on it a lot I call him COSMO.
WOW !!! 👌 ...but first: "Hi" ...and ...
Sorry for my desolate English! 😉
I'm a 64 years old GERMAN, and i could'nt even understand 100% of Your Words (perhaps 80-%?)...
but ...this Video is so full, of such a lot, verry important Feelings and verry helpfull Tipps, to make it possible, to enjoy playing Music, first with a cheap Guitar, and that it's amazing, to grow up, and to go better and better, without having a ROLLS-ROYCE-Modell from the first Time!!!
THIS VIDEO SCHOULD BE THE FIRST VIDEO FOR EVERYBODY ...
...who wants to play Music ..
...who wants to be a Photograph ...
...who wants to paint Pictures ...
...and so on!!!
...NOBODY needs the BEST Material, to have Fun, and to grow up, and get better!!!
THANKS A LOT for this awesome and true Video!!!👍Greetings Gerd🎸( ...still a bad playing Hobby-Guitar-Player 😂)🎶
never been this early
I’ve been playing this less than 200 buck minion Rhoads, but I can say that this is easily my fav guitar:) gear doesn’t really matter as long as it’s playable
Wait! You started teaching in '97, but you look like you're in your 20's. Looking good, brother.
@Myke Fuller Dudes giving a compliment, not strange at all lol
@Myke Fuller he's 40 something and commenter said he looks like he's in his 20s...how is that weird. Its a compliment.
maybe you see it as weird because you never get compliments but they're generally a polite thing to say
@Myke Fuller you jealous?
The cool thing about gear today is that there is a ton of really nice gear available at very affordable prices. Back in the 80's when I started cheap gear literally was crap. Today you can get a decent guitar (one that stays in tune, intonates well, and has decent frets) for a few hundred dollars. This is the golden age of gear for guitar players.
My first electric was a Hondo2 LP copy, and i wish i still had that piece of garbage!! Hahahahah
My first guitar was crap, the high E string kept getting stuck under the fret edge, only now do I know the fix was superglue! Hendrix used CBS Strats because they weren’t great, but they were consistent; you could say the same about modern Squiers.
Not for left handed players :/
The difference in the quality of even a Squier Bullet from when I first saw them coming into the store I worked at in the 90's and early 2000's, and what they are now, is beyond night & day, and for not that much of a price increase.
and lets not forget all the low watt/Hi gain tube amps and everything line 6 has done
Yes you need good gear, but good doesn't mean expensive. A well set up squier is gonna be able to take you places.
Without a doubt bro !
I think a car, a bike, walking would be the best to take you places, a guitar wouldn’t move that far
This is all a bad idea.
Learn how to make crap sound respectable.
Then you can really know if you have a passion worth investing in the good stuff.
The good stuff you cant truly utilize to its potential if youre a noobie.
@@richardwhite6062 i get what you’re saying but you can’t progress if your gear, especially your guitar, is fighting against you and not letting you play the best you can
You definitely have got to get a "tone strap". People just dont understand how much the strap affects the sound
Those blues legends from early last century often had shitty guitars. But they were THEIR guitar and they took the most out of it.
Yep- some of them were home made...
Kurt Cobain famously played whatever lefty he could find... anything works
@@allendean9807 home made guitars are a whole other can of worms, and something I’ll do before i ever spend 1000$ on an electric guitar. But i wont make an acoustic... that scares me...
Willie Nelson. That piece of crap made a lot of records.
@@DeliriumXM Wait. I'm interested to know if your opinion on this has changed at all in the last 3 years? Why would you sooner build an electric guitar rather than pay $1000 for one?? Is their benefits to doing do??
Hey, Mike!
My dad used to say “a bad workman blames his tools” and I think it’s a very applicable little saying for guitar. My main guitar is a strat my granny bought me nearly 11 years ago - shortly before I put the guitar down for a decade. So when I picked it up again 4 months ago I resolved to never blame it for not sounding amazing - that’s on me, I have to improve. In a way being a relative beginner on a nice guitar feels good because I know with certainty that the guitar isn’t the issue with my playing, and it makes addressing gaps in my playing easier that way. Plus I really wanna feel worthy of such an amazing bit of kit!
Your dad was right, assuming the tools are in fine working order, but it takes more than just talent to make something great.
It's a common saying, but if you have really bad tools you can probably get good results with them, but it will take longer and you have to be really patient and talented.
If you have good tools, you can often get good results faster and with less ability
@Arthur Frayn I’d be more worried about any guitar without a setup, especially if cheap or used
@@adrianscarlett doesn’t really apply that way other than a good setup... also personal preference is another big thing, for example on any guitar with shallow frets I sound like a dying monkey doing bends. Or maybe you have to have a whammy bar, locking tuners or whatever else, but a well setup cheap guitar (unless the nut is badly carved; again any competent tech know that and can swap it if need be) is going to outclass a badly intonated expensive guitar any day
I’m kinda in the same boat. I’ve owned a guitar since I was 9. I’m 22 now and I’m just picking it up again for the first time in about a year or so. I go through phases where I’ll play a lot, but I’ll also go through phases when I don’t even touch the guitar (mainly because of school, work, etc.). Right now I’m back in my playing phase
I started out on a cheap acoustic guitar my dad bought me. The problem was that it had buzzing frets, so basically half of the frets weren't playing properly at all. My learning kinda stagnated because of that: It wasn't fun to play, I couldn't learn a lot of songs. We eventually repaired the guitar, at the cost of a higher action. It is really hard to play fast, and your hand hurts after playing barre chords. I remember i went to a guitar shop and picked up a low-action shredder Ibanez, and it was just magically easier to play. Didn't even know I was that much better than I thought.
Point is - don't let the price stop you, slow you down and make it difficult and not fun to play.
This!!! Its true that bad guitars can "help" you evolve ONLY if youre a diehard rock/guitar guy BUT a easy playing guitar (set up, quality, neat tone etc.) will make you pick it up more guaranteed. Less of a chore hah. When fun becomes a chore, its no fun no more
A quote that comes to mind "all the gear and no idea". I know people can easily get pulled into that and I can certainly be one of them, so I made sure to get a decent starter pack by Squier/ Fender, instead of breaking the bank getting some expensive gear when starting out.
I'd rather have had something cheaper to learn on rightaway instead of waiting even longer to get something at a higher price point to start learning. I'm so glad i did that. I then saved up my money for just over a year to buy my SG.
I just heard that saying for the first time yesterday!
I love SG's. I have a faded special and an SGJ. I'd love a standard 😊
@@louaguado995 mine is a 2005 model, previous owner had it for 10 ish years but barely played it so it was basically brand new, I just had it setup and it's all shiny and new, sounds amazing 🙂
@@Impassion it's a good one, I'll sometimes say it to myself if I feel I'm getting carried away with buying new stuff or even thinking about buying new stuff. Just gotta focus on practice and playing what you already have.
I’ve never heard that quote before, but that is awesome. 🤙
Mike is exactly right. My first guitar cost $100.00's. It had one humbucker, it was all flat black with a "strat" style body. No tremolo. I don't even remember what it was. I didn't even have an amp for like 2 months. I had to play it unplugged except when I was at my lessons. This actually made me really want to practice because I wanted to get back to the lesson each week so I could plug it in. This made me take baby steps and made me focus.
Expensive gear will not help you to get good, the only way is practicing :-) I think there is even an advantage of using bad gear: If you can play something on a bad guitar with high action you you can play it then with ease on a better guitar.
My first bass was $100 no-name P/J knockoff, action was almost 1/2" at the 12(!). I still prefer the buttery smoothness of my Schecter, but a bad setup is going to slow me down.
Or U get tendinitis for working for working with shitty gear. Using cheap gear is sometimes depressing, I spend a year busking with a Bad amp with a lot of problems, and now that I got a Roland I feel morè comfortable, progress faster and play better. U don't need expensive instruments, but functional ones, and sometime its not possible to fix It with a fre bucks
@@thepagnaet6361 half an inch! And you never dropped it at all? Thats some dedication, and on a bass no less! Im in love with my schecter and its like low action too though,
@@geronimosilveira7349 exactly, if you dont have gear that can produce the style/tone you want to some degree, it can be a huge blow to motivation and make you feel like your not good since your not getting the sounds you want to be hearing. But you also dont need to spend 700$ on tube amp if your brand new, its completely pointless; if you can’t discern the difference in tone it makes
i personally think that haveing a realy bad tone doesnt make you worse but it does take away lots of fun playing
That is exactly the way i see it, thats exactly why I’ll always recommend a decent modeling amp for a couple hundred and to get on with your day, sure its not the purest sound but it gets the job done pretty darn well
@@DeliriumXM bro modeling amps are the best bang for your buck tbh
Another avenue to explore is used gear, I bought my kid a used brand name guitar and amp for around $100 and it’s nicer than my stuff when it was new.
From my guitar experience:
I got my first guitar about 11-12 years ago. It was cheap accoustic guitar (for about 25-30$) which wasn't really staying in tune. The second one I got was 2 years later - Takamine G340, I got it for around 100$. However, I always wanted to have an electric gutiar and I wasn't excited to play it.
So 10 years passed, I could play some basic chords, nothing special. I got my first electric guitar (it was 1 and a half years ago) - it was ~800$ japanese 1990/1991 Burny Les Paul Custom (black). Since then I made pretty good progress - much bigger than through 10 years with accoustic guitar. This guitar really inspired me to play, I love it so much. And now I can see that I wasted 10 years with the guitar I didn't really want to play. Excuses, excuses, but that's how it goes.
So yes. You can make cheap gear sound good. But better gear can also inspire you and make your life easier. The most stupid advice you can give to beginner guitarist is "buy the cheap guitar first". If someone can afford more expensive guitar, it's better to buy more expensive guitar, even at the beginning.
As long as your guitar doesn't cut your fingers, doesn't buzz on every fret and holds its tuning, guitar's fine. But nice tube amp with a quality speaker will make all your mistakes quite a bit more noticeable. Even cheap one. Cheap transistor amps got this quality of smoothing bad technique.
Starting out I would recommend no amp. It's just a distraction in the very early days of learning. You will find your tone your sound. Beginners don't need to obsess about tone learn the basics you don't need an amp for that.
@@spiderfan1974 I don't think this is good advice, tbh. You need an amp to learn how to mute your strings properly.
I started with a classical guitar, then I got my first electric and I was in for a really rude awakening - the amplifier did its job well enough. It amplified all my mistakes.
@@spiderfan1974 Playing without an amp is a very bad idea. You won't hear your mistakes as well, also take into account what Alex above me said about string muting.
This is exactly what happened with me.
I started off playing on a classical guitar, which is way harder to play especially for a beginner, i was playing for a year enjoying the classical but i wanted a electric so bad.
and then the day came when i went to a guitar lesson and my teacher told me I'm ready to have an electric guitar. I had to earn the electric guitar and it made the experience of playing guitar in general more fun and challenging.
I have almost no time to play due to work. I got caught in the collecting trap for a while. Now I have a bunch of guitars I don't have time to play.
Same...
@@josefbleaux6724 That must really Bleaux....
@@WingmanStudios 😂
Ever have a singer come in, and they have all the PA gear, but can’t sing for shit? Gear is meaningless. Willie Nelson’s guitar has literal holes all over it. Brian May still plays the guitar he and his father built from a tabletop. My first guitar cost 75 dollars, my first amp 40 dollars. It’s about learning your instrument. If you want to ‘sound’ amazing, practice. Learn to train your ear.
This is a great video for beginners.
Beat the hell out of that Squier!
Having a PA but not being able to sing is how Ozzy got into Earth/Black Sabbath :P
Trigger is a Martin N-20! Hardly a meaningless piece of gear. (Not even going to get started on comparing the Red Special to some dude's PA.)
@@Kylora2112 ozzy was a great singer
a singer with his own PA is actually quite a gem ! Most singers I met usually don't have any gear at all (not even a cheap mike) and rely on other's gear.
Lately I’ve bought a couple of “guitars I always wanted” and after playing them for awhile I keep going back to my strat I’ve had for 20 years.
As a 3rd year player I'll say this... In the beginning I always tried to replace failure with gear. My first guitar was a Washburn strat copy with a 10w amp for 100$. I ended up spending 600$ buying a thr10c and a partscaster. I forced myself to learn on that gear and always wanted more distortion because I was sloppy. I assumed my cheap guitar and amp was to blame. Fact is I was trying to do hard rock on a strat bridge and with an amp specifically designed for cleans it just didn't work. I bought a roland GP8 and that was my first experience pressing a pedal and hearing a difference. I now own an acoustic, that same strat but with texas specials, a spark amp, a ts9, a wah and a sugar drive.
Now the sound that comes out of my guitar is exactly the one I have in my head. Everytone I want to get out of my strat I can get with my gear. By being limited financially I only bought what I needed and made the most out of what I had. Most of the issues I had with my gear went away when I practiced more. I don't often get the urge to play acoustic but everyday I get an urge to pick that strat up...
That's funny cos I've had it the other way so far - avoiding distortion when playing for others (just a few videos) cos I couldn't (and still can't but started working on it) mute properly and well, then it's the real hot unlistenable mess. 🤣
Otherwise I love metal and distortion but for those videos I chose things that can be played (or are meant to be played) without distortion.
And I have a decent amp and decent guitars, so I know if it doesn't sound good, it's ME. Be it bad setups (either on amp or guitar (I set up my guitars myself)) or just my sloppy beginner playing. Or very possibly both at the same time. 🤣
there is barely such thing as "failure" when it's about music (only happy accidents ? 😁 )
Distortion won't cover up sloppiness it makes it stand out front and centre !!! Usually this thinking comes from non players , the "oh they use so much distortion because they can't play " myth . I remember reading a story about Hendrix's guitar tech /roadie saying he used so much gain he could get nothing but noise and feedback from his setup as he wasn't good enough to mute every string but the ones that were being played !
The people who have asked me this same question, I've always given the same answer. Buy gear that makes you want to play. A huge thing for me was buying a guitar that just looking at it, made me excited to pick it up. Almost like I wanted to be worthy of how cool it looked.
TBH those peavey bandits are not that bad, especially red stripe.
I used to use a Peavey Supreme head that’s basically a 100 watt bandit because they were cheap and sounded good.
If you suck at guitar and you get better gear all it will do is make your sucking sound “nicer”.
I had an acoustic guitar with only 4 strings that was my first guitar but even tho I still learnt some songs and managed to make them sound cool
last time i was this early, megadeth still had 2 original members
If you can afford it, I suggest starting on a mid-priced instrument. By that, I mean a Made In Mexico Fender or something similar. You can get one for $400-500 used, and it's good enough to last you forever if you want it to.
Get a MiM and deck it out - sperzel locking tuners, upgraded pickups, upgraded bridge and saddles, new nut... you’ll have a guitar that’s miles ahead of anything you could pick up off the shelf and half the price of something with equivalent components.
Phillip McKnight is particularly knowledgable in this area.
Got a Fender J Bass from the 90s made in Mexico. Good shit.
I dunno. I have MiM Strat - doesn’t feel great. I’d rather Chuck the extra few hundred in and get a second hand US Strat or Les Paul Classic.
Definitely!!! I had a cheap Ibanez roadstar 2 and peavey practice Amp and I believe it made me better cause to get a decent sound out of it my picking and palm muting etc. Was top notch. When I'd get on good gear I turned heads. The owner running over to grab there guitar back lol. Actually happened several times. That cheap Ibanez I eventually I put a Duncan distortion and that guitar was instantly awesome
To me, it’s not abt if your gear is cheap or expensive but more like getting the correct guitar teacher to teach the right way, hence watching your videos is the right thing to do 😂
I had to learn to play guitar the correct way even before if I can make my cheap guitar sing!
You can spend thousands of dollars on gear, but if you have no talent the gear will still sound like junk. I have seen people that can make a rubber band, and a paper clip sound like a Spanish guitar
Behringer do a great line of cheap pedals that are clones of their expensive counterparts.
100%! The age of great sounding, cheap gear is now.
Over the span of 3 years I went from "Bedroom Nirvana learning beginner" to "album releasing, singer songwriting performer"
this was all with the same white fender squire that was at most $120
I have had many students who are able to buy very nice instruments and they stop progressing as much just like you said. I told them to keep the one they had and focus on practicing and every time they didn't listen.
I can’t imagine him getting the hm2 and playing Swedish death metal but I really wish I could
i love how he just has a guitar in his lap in every video without even playing them
In my personal opinion I love the sounds and tones that you get from cheaper gear much more than what a lot of the more expensive stuff gives you. To me, the emotion just comes out through the music better than it does with the more expensive stuff.
Your forced to be more creative and imaginative with limited setups.
With guitar you'll only knew what you considered enough when you skimmed trough tons of em.
Honestly tho for beginners just buy anything "enough" with your own budget.
Buying a bad gear never was a mistake. A mistake is not knowing what fits yourself.
Develop your ear, then focus on gear. One other point for beginners -- learning on a cheap acoustic can be really brutal. It will tear up your fingers. You can definitely learn more with a cheap electric. I'd suggest starting with a used, $300 electric and them moving into more expensive gear and better-built acoustics.
learning on a cheap acoustic gets really frustrated as well...almost gave up when I was learning Paranoid solo on a $30 acoustic. Then I got a $40 electric and that solo became so easy
I find myself bored with nicer guitars, I started on a secondhand Silvertone Strat copy and modded the guitar so many different ways, started as a SSS with a 6 point trem ended up as a single EMG 81 with a hardtail (permanently blocked the trem) I learned to work on frets, how to solder, had an HH set up with push pulls at one point, all about set up. Now “good” guitars bore me and I’m starting to look at pawn shops and Craigslist for cheap beat up guitars just to work on
This is a good point, you don’t need amazing gear, I bought my first squier for $75 at a pawn shop, that got me through about a year and a half. I think everyone should start with a decent guitar (not crappy) but decent, a $200 guitar can be bought for $100 or cheaper at a pawn shop or in the used market. Once I got my fender I had an amazing appreciation for the instrument and my playing greatly improved once I had the drive to play for hours, I was able to put it to use and get my money’s worth. Pro tip: BUY USED, I spent $75 for my squier and $380 for my fender, I even got my amp used (but relatively new) for about %75 of retail
I had a fellow guitar teacher that got so sick of his students saying, or inferring, that the only reason why he was good was because of the quality of the guitar he was playing. He went out and bought a really cheap Squier Strat to use for lessons and the students could no longer say that he was only good because of his gear.
I’m Garbage no matter what rig or equipment I have
Just practice man, I'm sure you'll get better :)
I have the same Peavey amp in the thumbnail (mine's earlier though)
How does that one sound ?? I think josh homme used one or something
@@Hevvvyyy It's a good clean platform to run pedals through. It handles fuzz in particular very well
Dude, I love your perspective. You're so earnest and passionate. Even though I don't play anymore, I take joy and even maybe some pride in being able to still love the instrument through people like you. Keep up the good work!
My Hondo II LP copy I got in 1977 was holy grail of guitars for me at 13. I made the biggest strides on that instrument out of all my gear throughout the years.
Those are good and even desirable guitars. Super hot pickups.
I had one too. I put Dimarzio pickups in it and always recieved compliments on my tone and playing.
It’s true about ‘your’ sound - I feel like I sound the same now as when I had crappy guitars with crappy pickups - I still sound like ‘me’. I’m sure everyone here knows the feeling
I got a gretsche I was playing for a while and I spent so much time tuning it. Never stayed in tune for more than like 5 minutes. Then I started playing my sisters PRS since she wasn’t really using it and because the Gretsche had a broken string (I didn’t have an extra to put on). Now I am using the PRS exclusively because it always stays in tune. I obviously have to tune it but compared to the other guitar it’s great. Maybe the Gretsche is broken or it’s the tremelo bar but I am selling it. Never again..
im learning to play on a 200$ ibanez with a cheap amp, im making progress and if im getting much better, i stay playing on this guitar. Its you that have to play indeed
A good setup on any guitar makes all the difference, even a squier bullet or any offbrand guitars can be setup to be an enjoyable instrument.
I'm still using my 200$ bass I got when I started a few years ago and I love it. I traded in my 15w practice amp for a fender LT25 amp a few months after I started because I wanted to have some digital effects and the ability to save multiple different tones and i havent thought about upgrading anything else since.
My recommendation to anybody thinking about upgrading their gear. bump up your amp to an affordable amp like Fenders lt25/lt25rumble for
My first was a cast iron and plastic red strat no brand. I did buy it pure fore looks en because no idea. Couple years later i got my self a second hand Gibson Marauder, because no idea, but that one turned out right afcourse. I still used a crap Marlboro transistor amp. (I had it fore give away in 2018, zero entries). Anyway i play some mid range guitars now a days. Fore me the game changers where teechers who managed to spark me!
That was fun trying to guess what you were trying to write ! Lol still haven't a clue what afcourse means or is about ....here's a tip if you can't spell any better than a four year old child try using the spell checker and predictive text features .
In my opinion, a reasonably high monetary expense can really boost your motivation to practice because if you don't practice then you would've paid that money for nothing.
I disagree, sorry. Cheap crap “beginner” guitars can really make it not motivating to play when it is so difficult to do so because the guitar is crap and plays awful. Better start and average gear. I definitely agree with not starting out with the very best as you won’t even know what you have and would appreciate it much more as you work your way up to it. But to start on cheap gear is the worst thing you can do for your self confidence as playing on it is so difficult and is just a terrible experience all together. Start on average to pretty decent gear for sure! You will appreciate it more and will learn a lot faster. And you can always sell it if things do not go according to plan 👍
Thanks for your insights, Mike.
Most of us, at least those who have enough money to fuel their hobby, will probably go through this gear-fixed phase you mentioned at least once.
So we cannot blame each other, as it probably seems easy on paper: Better Guitar is better to play (maybe a less could only could be missing just a proper setup instead, but that's not the topic here), theoretically learning easier and faster to fret notes, a more lovely sound inspires you to play more. If it wasn't the fact the sound still is made out of your fingers ... Shit in, shit out ;)
My two cents: Still, the easiest method to decide if you should really go through more expensive guitars (or any related stuff) the first time probably is, if you already feel motivated to do this already, and you are not one of those people having a fully working guitar in their closet sitting for years and just hoping, that super duper custom shop pro axe waiting in the basket of your musician's store website since so long will suddenly bring back the magic to go to the ever life-learning guitar stage again. Might work, or might not. I am not entitled to judge this in any way, of course.
I went that route and awarded myself with a new axe (Ibanez S Prestige) last december. So the thing is, already having an Ibanez metal axe before and liking it as well, I wanted something more versatile. I always tell myself I want to use the full potential of that thing, also having a tremolo which is so nice, even with the cons a trem system has. And that doesn't mean to compare to any pro players who played for decades their life for many hours will still be better. I do not know enough how much talent affects the learning rate. Like, if someone gifted with learning guitar faster could do as good as someone else in half the time? All assuming both pratice the same efficent way and the age difference is not too big. Don't know.
Luckily there are so many hobbies out there, where people splash ridicolous amounts of money as well. We should ne be too shy compared to other hobbies, when awarding us with lovely gear if this is our wish, while being no BB King, Gilmour, Satriani and others.
Just enjoy making music. Nothing else matters, like a certain band had a song with this title :P
I own 27 Guitars..
Every time my son stopped playing I would buy another guitar to inspire him..... It worked.
Man I love Ebay!
Ive got a squire and a fender mustang 1 amp cheap equipment one day il get better gear but for now this will do.
Nothing worse than fighting against a cheap guitar - no idea what cheap guitars are like now but back when I started, you knew WHY they were cheap as soon as you picked them up.
Some people become luthiers, some people make pedals, some people collect guitars, other people become RUclipsrs. Let's not talk about those people.
Love the point he makes. Once you're in a jam / band situation. You realize your gear has to be up to snuff
Exactly.
The gear doesn’t matter, all that matters is the passion for music!
This was very wise words.
I got cheap gear. I love my guitars. Thank you 😊
I have a 200 usd guitar and a 50usd multi fx and i dont have an amp , im using a speaker 😂😅. Guitar to pedal(multifx),and pedal to speaker. Ha.
Thanks for reminding me about my original guitar, I haven't played it in years and years. Cheap (at the time, 30 years ago ) three different paint jobs and a pick up upgrade until the better guitar came along. Time to break it out and relive some great times.
I’m gonna comment on every video until I get a yes. I’d die to see a Chris Poland techniques vid.
Video streak: 3
This is literally a story telling video with holding on a guitar 😹😹🎸🎸
To quote Santana, expensive gear makes you better, but you have to be talented first
Yeah I’m a fan of Santana 😅
Cheers from France 🇫🇷
You make me grateful for my gear thank you sensei
I still have my first electric. And it is a pain in the ass. I tried to play Van Halen but its just impossible to get harmonics out of that guitar, also the action is very high. I didnt gave up but it is really frustrating and quitting is much closer with shitty gear. But these days you can get a decent guitar with 100-200$. if someone gets Van Halen kind harmonics out of that old Strato of mine I will make a statue of him/her.
BTW. why you advice beginners buy pedals when you can buy a whole effects board with the price of one pedal, or justs use free internet amps.
Free internet amps? No fun in that at all
a way i like to view gear is like crayons: if you give someone a box of crayons with every color they'll have huge options to go wild but if you give a professional artist just like green and yellow they'll make amazing art with just the two colors. If you can master using bad gear you'll be amazing on better gear
I managed a record store that sold a selection of inexpensive guitars.
My advice for customers was to spend the $75 on a professional set up at a reputable shop. They skip this process on cheaper guitars at the factory. Almost any guitar can be made to play pretty well.
Very good point. Mid end guitars take set ups exceptionally well. Buy used if money is the problem, dont buy toy guitars lol. Unless on purpose haha
Peavey has actually aged well and people are realizing it was great equipment
My first guitar lacked the stick-thing inside its neck, which made the whole thing a bit crooked, so the action was messed up. It was generally really high but even higher on the G, B and E strings. So my muting abilities got pretty bad because I hardly had to do anything to mute. Luckily, I got a new guitar two years later, so it worked out. The point is, cheap guitars isn't a bad thing, but a bad guitar is. And some people might struggle with seeing the difference.
Love your content man.
I think nice more expensive gear won't make you better, but it might make the workload and process smoother. Maybe you have this really cool riff you wrote, but it's damn near impossible to play on your cheap guitar (maybe the way it's set up) so you don't pursue that riff any more since it's impractical, but on a nicer guitar, that riff could come out much easier, meaning you actually could spend more time on it not thinking it's impossible to play
My favourite part of starting on cheaper gear was that I used my brothers old acoustic to learn and had no idea it played terrible and the action was way too high so when I eventually got my own guitar it was a surprise how easy it was to play
Thank you so much!!!!!! I’ve been wanting to buy a electric guitar but I have an acoustic and I don’t have the money to buy a really good one I started saving for one already I was starting to shy away from my dream cause I thought I wouldn’t be good enough but now I feel like I can still reach my dreams!!!!!!
Hey Mike do you still have your boss heavy metal pedal ?
My high school van had 3 on the tree.
Now I drive a Y2K Honda CR-V. It’s practically a corvette.
Im of the opinion that your first guitar should be at least $200 but preferably $300-500. Then just use a cheap digital amp. At this price point you can get some amazing playability in guitars and get close to almost any tone you want. Will take you way into your intermediate years.
Oh god I don't miss my first guitar at all back in the day I was so young, still in middle school I used to play like 8 hours daily. Not the best pravtice sessions but learning songs. Still I got so much done with it but the pick ups were muddy, it would go out of tune just by laying eyes on it and the neck was wide like a freeway.
7:47 heavy metal and heaven sounds strange in one sentence lol
I haven't upgraded my gear since 1945.
When I first started it was on a couple different guitars, but I remember the acoustic/electric Harmony the most. In the early 90s, a group of us ended up in north Florida on the beach almost homeless and would get a free old beater acoustic from who knows where, and make it work. The action was terrible, and we would usually just use the old strings that were already on it. We were able to keep it in tune for a while. Anyway, Nirvana was very popular at the time, and we would sing and play the songs off of their unplugged album down on the boardwalk, and on the beach. Believe it or not, we would usually draw a crowd of other partiers that would join in and sing with us. We did not need a good guitar to make the magic happen. Those songs sound ok on an old beater anyway. But it did make my fingers compensate for the terrible guitar, and after a while, I could make it sound great. When you only have a bad guitar with terrible action, and you finally get something good, you are in heaven. Not to mention, you earned it!
And now, many, many years later, I have a Marshall JCM 2000 triple super lead head with 1960 lead cabinets. My axe is a Dean Dime Razorback set to Dimebags specs, with a Floyd Rose tremolo. I have several pedals like a crybaby Wah, and a Digitech death metal pedal. My favorite is my multi effects pedals. My Vox valvetronics tone lab se multi effects is awesome. I also have an old school Digitech RP3 multi effects pedal. I do have an acoustic/electric as well. It's a Takamine with a built-in tuner and EQ. I could go on and on about all of my equipment, because I have plenty more, but it just goes to show that you can start out with a beater, and if you are serious enough, end up with a gold mine. Hell, even my cables are made of gold. Expensive, but nice. Thank you truck driving industry. I could not afford it without you!
Please 30 minutes workout level 2 finger sherd
Yes
Great advice. “Check out my 59 Les Paul my mom bought me”.
I started off with a similar cheap imitation Les Paul, played it for over 10 years, and eventually upgraded to an Epiphone Les Paul Studio. Played that for another 10, and only just recently I finally upgraded to the dream: Gibson Les Paul Standard 50s. I still only consider myself an intermediate guitarist, but holy crap is this guitar ever a joy to play! And it's just like you say: I wanted to learn guitar because of Slash, so finally having THE guitar is totally pushing me to learn even more.
The thumbnail speaks to me
Very wise! I wish I had known this 30 years ago! 😯
Great information! Good job😃
I love the way people reference SRV as if he's still alive.
Legends never die bro
Yes, because he will always live in our hearts and we invoke him whenever we play the blues
I’m sure he knows he’s not alive
Feels like he is cause theirs so many SRV imitator bands lol
SRV lives in our hearts.
A used Mexican strat is perfect for beginners I feel, you can get them reasonably cheap. But while being cheap they are legitimately good guitars, and will even do the job just fine for professionals. They may not feel as fine as a brand new US strat but then again ones a couple hundred used and the others well over a thousand
MIM fender stuff has good bones too. I replace pretty much everything on them accept the body and neck and plastic parts. Great guitar! Just have to spend a few hundred.
Got my used 2005 MIM Strat for $375 in perfect condition. Half of the original MSRP. It plays great and stays in tune. Super happy with it!
I've had both the American and Mexican strats and my by far favorite is one of the Mexicans; much better action than the American, better finish, just a better, top notch guitar that was a whole lot less expensive and sounds great and is a pleasure to play. I didn't change anything on it, it stays in tune forever, the pickups are like custom shop Americans. I also have a Gibson Les Paul, and honestly, the Mexican strat and the Les Paul are my two favs.
yo that strat is the guitar i really wanna see you do a review for. thats always been my favorite of your guitars.
After a few years of practicing my ass off on a decent Japan Strat, actually buying a butchered PRS did a lot for me, cause it was way more modern and it was easier develop my technique on a flat fretboard and jumbo frets. A nice entry-level Dean or Washburn guitar might have worked just as well though 🙃
Art Of Guitar, I've had the same guitar (a red Dean Playmate) and the same Ariana AG-10 amplifier for over four years now. I fell in LOVE with this $40 guitar at first sight, even though people say it's just for practice, even though I feel I got my own tone and songs for it though. I'm hoping to get a Fender Mustang amplifier in the upcoming months for $150 though, but even though it would be louder and have more options, I was wondering about how my tone with prescribe to that amp. But maybe I can just set the amp to the guitar tone... I don't know, maybe I should get a feel for it before I go and buy it though...
PS: I'm too poor to buy any kinds of pedals or things like that so don't worry, I just want the sound from the guitar hopefully; Also PS: I also suck at guitar, but I do write my own songs, but I know a lot of people that I know can play the guitar WAY better than me but they can only play covers? What's up with that? Thank you for reading though.
For what it's worth, I bought a Fender Mustang to play with my MIM Stratocaster. The clean tones were good but the dirty tones were junk. I sold it and got a Blackstar ID Core 20W combo amp for less than $200. It is great with the strat single coil pickups and gets many cool tones. Just my opinion.
Still have the mustang 2 I bought secondhand! Great practice amp but I’ve even used it in a couple of live scenarios and it worked great
This was a particularly good video. You managed to explain complex matters both thoroughly and precisely. And in a manner that anybody who is actually interested in hearing about such things would be able to understand. That is not an easy thing for a lot of people to do. That is cool because it shows that you care enough about your lessons to make the effort to put everything together ahead of time so that nothing is left out of your lessons. And having huge holes in your music knowledge sucks. Anyways, keep up the good work. Peace.
I've got a prs. I suck less. It's a lot more fun to play.
The best beginner gear:
A well set up Squier Bullet or Affinity and a Fender Mustang LT25 amp. It’s a modeling amp, that means: You can use effects.
If you want to save money:
Buy a Harley Benton from Thomann and a Mooer modeling amp. The Mooer is a modeling amp is great and has many effects, you can use it as a real bASS and and a real acoustic amp! The Harley Benton (TE20) is a great guitar for about 80$, the cheapest guitar on Thomann.
My first guitar was a cheap-o acoustic. Did wonders developing calluses on my fretting hand. Main thing was I had the passion and never thought bad of that guitar. Over time, my parents felt that passion and eventually upgraded me to a beautiful Gibson ES-335.
He literally showed my gear. Same guitar (SX Standard Series) and amp (Peavey KB15) . Did he sneak into my house?