guitar NEWB thread

that's where everyone starts ;-)

you'll be hard-pressed to find a satisfying electric guitar/amp/pedals setup for under $300 but it can be done. Again the good news here is that LA craigslist is about as good as it gets for guitar stuff.

Starter guitars to look for imo:
- MIM telecasters or strats
- Epiphone 335s or Les Pauls (there are a couple on LA craigslist right now around $300 that look pretty promising)

Starter AMPS to look for imo:
- Fender Champion 600 (with single coils; not a lot of clean headroom with 'buckers)
- Vox AC4
- Vox Pathfinder
- dunno what the hot el cheapo modelers are these days, but these will let you play with effects without buying pedals yet. Vox Valvetronix? Roland Cube/MicroCube? Line 6 MicroSpider?
- Yamaha THR10 looks ideal but it's $300 and not yet on the used market

Starter PEDALS to look for imo:
- EH Big Muff or Little Big Muff
- Ibanez TS-9 Tubescreamer
- RAT
- MXR Distortion III - not a classic or anything but super handy and cheep
- Digitech Digidelay
- Line 6 Echo Park

Would love to hear other folks' thoughts on a good affordable NEWB rig. Wonder where DJP's got off to...

ugh, money

maybe I'll just learn the flute or go acoustic...

vox pathfinder is a perfectly fine little practice amp. can be had for under $100 on amazon.

I like this place, it near my house:

http://futuremusicstore.com/

xp - nice! thank you. I was hoping for like a $100 amp and a 200ish guitar. I realize that isn't much but for now...

i've heard some good things about the Mascis Squier Jazzmaster ($300)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgVEtGXJRzo

MASCIS?

uh oh....

That sounds nice. I wanna be J too =(

it's CHEAP too

uhhhh

seriously do not worry about this crap at all ;-)

i think we can put together a totally sweet low-cost electric rig 4 u. esp. if you can stretch to like $500. it'll grow over time if you enjoy it, and you'll be able to ditch it all for more or less what it cost. zero risk!

and yeah Future Music is grebt. lotta oddball stuff, can get a little spendy. but a great place to dream, in a good way.

Dude, this is a nice guitar.

I'm fucked. This is the same thing that happened when I was a bike newb!

xxp

i have a mexijag : (

It sounds cool, whatever it is

By a strange chain of events I came to own a Johnson Solara. I believe they are around 150 new. I play it through a lower end tube amp, a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, and I love the way it sounds and it plays great.

names of guitars and gear are great, huh?

Am I having an early midlife crisis?

wish i still lived in LA. would have happily just loaned u gear to start.

my vox da5 has intermittent sound from the speaker (sometimes it works, sometimes it's silent). i attached alligator clips to the leads and attached them to another speaker and it works OK, so it must be something inside the speaker itself, but can't imagine what it is. (bad capacitor?)

just based on this, i wouldn't get a vox, since even the worst of the worst crate practice amps have always at least worked, though this just could be a freakish defect.

awww thanks roger

Here is a thread all about cheap-ass guitars

Hey, hey, how are the slave labor guitars: Gibson-Baldwin Signatures and SX/Agiles

maybe I'll just learn the flute or go acoustic...

― www.gbokchoymail.com (admrl), Friday, May 18, 2012

welp one nice thing about acoustic is it definitely limits the variables so you can focus on just learning the instrument. iirc the first few months were tough for me. it's not like e.g. piano where on day one your touch might be a little lacking but you can at least produce an F or B chord that sounds like it came from a musical instrument.

Are there any really good slave labor amps? I would think it would be easier to build adequate amps than adequate guitars

acoustic is definitely a great way to learn and build hand strength. your hands and fingers will hurt and you will want to die

xpost hurting there are TONS tbh.

just listed a few of them on the low-cost/low-power side of things but there are also e.g the various new Voxes and Fenders, Jet City, Egnater, the lol Bugera Matchless knock-off, etc etc.

Re: speaker intermittent thing upthread - no caps in the speaker, prob either a tinsel lead or a slight voice coil rub. Short version - replace the speaker.

heres a $200 range guitar thats prob good for the price
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/guitars/squier-cyclone-electric-guitar/h77032000004000

UPDATE:

I still don't have a teacher. I'm a lazy SOB.

I can play the following chords: E/G/C/D/A/F (ps F sux) (I assume I'm doing F right anyway, I kind of figured it out instead of looking it up and ended up with XX3211)

I can't play anything in rhythm yet. Switching between chords is a 3-10 second "um okay my fingers go here no wait HERE dammit press harder ow my fingers" ordeal.

I have a newfound appreciation for anyone playing fast-strummed rhythm guitar parts because that shit is hard and hurts.

I need to get a teacher, it's stupid I haven't gotten one already.

full F chord is 133211, it's basically the E chord with everything pushed up a fret, but yeah it's a lot harder to play because you have a make a barre

yup, that's F

learning the barre chords is fun and good for hand strength

xp

like n/a said: the "E major" shape barre chord: 133211
the "e minor" shape barre chord: 133111

the "a major" shape barre chord: x13331 (people mostly play this as x1333x
the "a minor" shape barre chord: x13321

I looked at making F with all 6 strings and my hand basically went "you know what, that idea can go fuck itself"

sigh

wait, wouldn't x13331 be... B-flat, E, A, C#, F?

B-flat, F, B-flat, D, F

oh right, 3 not 2

i'm putting those chord names in quotes because that's the shape when played as an open chord.

i probably should have called it "e string root major and minor" and "a string root major and minro" which is more accurate.

no I got what you meant, I was just thinking A = fret 2 and being dumb about translating into notes

another good practice chord is the minor 11

111111

Yeah, that's a good way to practice the barre. Especially if you don't play the A string, making is just a minor 7th.

1x1111

I haven't really wrapped my head around how to skip a string in the middle of a chord

Well, you could try to either
1) play fingerstyle
2) skip TWO strings xx1111

you don't have to skip the string at all. that would be hard! just mute it. much easier.

btw just to gloss n/a's post above re the F chord: the full barre is 133211 but the xx3211 you're playing is also technically a complete F and has a long and honorable tradition. the "baby barre" you're playing on the E and B strings is sort of one of the guitar player's early rites of passage.

this is a little ~advanced~ but if you take any two or three strings of any of those barres it will sound like something familiar.

xx333x = a major triad with root on the 5.

xxx211 = major chord, root 3

xxx321 = minor chord, root 1

xx321x = major chord, root 1

you can move these around anywhere

ha that is what I was figuring out yesterday

I can't play anything in rhythm yet. Switching between chords is a 3-10 second "um okay my fingers go here no wait HERE dammit press harder ow my fingers" ordeal.

haha, yes. i'm reliving this frustration. i decided to really start teaching myself finger style stuff by learning bert jansch's version of angie and it's those first days of learning cowboy chords all over again.

"okay, these two fingers here at the same time, alright then this bass note with my thumb while hammering on th--AAGGGH why is that note muting when i...?!"
*forgets place in song even, though i've spent all afternoon on four seconds of music*
*HURLS GUITAR AT CAT*

cowboy chords?

you know, those chords which, when you finally get them to sound, make you leap up and shout "YEE-HAW" while tossing your ten-gallon hat in the air

I thought it meant those chords that are so frustrating that you want to shot something?

haha, it's just another term for open chords. i prefer the DJP definition

full F chord is 133211, it's basically the E chord with everything pushed up a fret, but yeah it's a lot harder to play because you have a make a barre

I don't! Wherever i can avoid playing barre chords I do, instead I use my thumb to hold down the lowest string (btw Dan I am not recommending you learn to play the guitar this way)

you have to have pretty big hands to do that, seems like it would also inhibit mobility of your fretting hand but i guess whatever works for you!

don't worry, my hands are barely large enough for me to do open chords, let alone utilize that type of barre cheat

btw up until I started actually teaching myself how to play the guitar I just KNEW that it was "bar" chords because you had to use a finger to make a bar across the neck

ha well i think barre is just french for bar