Ok firstly is an epiphone les paul a decent guitar? I have about 700 pounds to spend on a guiatar and effects. So the other thing is effect pedals. Is a stompbox worth getting, i've read different types of reviews, some say they're not great and some are more possitive. Do most lead guitarists use stompboxes or do they use a number of pedals, delay, distortion, flanger etc.. if getting a number of them is the best option, what pedals do i get? I got a gig soon so need to know some good info on what to get?

Do you already have an amp/cab? What type of music are you playing?

no i haven't yet, i am doing a music course that will be providing us all with marshall amps. That's something i'm going to have to buy one day aswell. The music is my own songs and kind of like Muse i suppose. I'm buying a boss ve20 for vocal effects tomorrow, got a nice synthesizer aswell so need the guitar and guitar effects to complete the package. So imagine all what Matt Bellamy does with Muse, now what would you suggest buying in order to get that kind of sound?

On guitars, Yamaha Pacifica has a lot of friends for a first electric.

For FX, until you can play a bit, forget about it. You won't know what sounds you want, and until you can play you won't be able to get them anyway. Get the Pacifica (or other similar decent-quality-but-inexpensive guitar) and put the rest of your money in the bank. If you buy second-hand (and a second-hand Pacifica will probably be perfectly fine - they're tough) that will leave you £600 in your pocket.

In a year's time when you can play a bit, you can hit the guitar shops and get your own amp. You don't want to rely on your teacher's amp for too long, and anyway a Marshall might not be what you want. Say £400 for a reasonable amp. That leaves £80 for a Jim Dunlop wah, and £120 for 2-3 choice stomp boxes that really work for you. Or £200 for a multi-FX, of which you'll find plenty in that kind of price band.

Saying you want to sound like Muse when you can't yet play a note is, well, optimistic! "I'm going to have my first driving lesson next week, but my driving style is going to be like Colin Macrae, so what rally car should I get?"

This advice is based on the assumption that you can play reasonably well - a few scales and a working knowledge of chords.... If, however, you are just starting out and learning for the first time then ignore all this and listen to Grab.

Quote Jon Dinham:

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Ok firstly is an epiphone les paul a decent guitar?

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I've played Epi les pauls for years. Some are alright, but some are real pigs. You'll have to try as many guitars as possible before you decide to buy one. But hold on a minute.

Quote Jon Dinham:

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I have about 700 pounds to spend on a guiatar and effects.

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If I were you, I'd hold off on the effects for a while and spend the full 700 on a good quality guitar (possibly a really good used one). As I've found out, buying cheap guitars like Epiphones can be a false economy. It's cheaper now but you'll probably always want 'the real thing'. A good quality guitar will last you a lifetime and make you want to play it and practice on it. It's a great motivator.

Also, selling a used Epiphone won't get you much cash but if you buy a quality instrument you can get a lot of your money back if/when you decide to sell it.

Quote Jon Dinham:

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So the other thing is effect pedals. Is a stompbox worth getting, i've read different types of reviews, some say they're not great and some are more possitive. Do most lead guitarists use stompboxes or do they use a number of pedals, delay, distortion, flanger etc.. if getting a number of them is the best option, what pedals do i get? I got a gig soon so need to know some good info on what to get?

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Some guitarists use no effects at all - just the guitar into an overdriven amp. Some use huge pedal boards with thousands of pounds worth of electronics on it. Others use elaborate rack mounted systems. There really isn't a one size fits all solution.

Probably best to get your core sounds with your guitar/amp then add choice stomp boxes to that set up as and when you can afford to and need to. As you don't have your own amp, you'll probably want to invest in an overdrive, distortion, or fuzz as your first pedal. It can make a lot of sense to buy pedals used.

As you say you don't own an amp, will you have something to practice through on a regular basis? If not then a decent practice amp will be a must!


Edited by BigElectricCat (26/09/11 11:55 PM)

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I got a gig soon so need to know some good info on what to get?

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Just noticed that. Please god no...

Thanks grab and B-E-C. By the way i am quite decent on guitar although it doesn't sound like i am by my useless knowledge. I am part of a music college called Access to Music that has loads of amps, i can practise in their practise rooms whenever i like although ofcourse i will have to buy an amp of my own one day. So distortion pedal is the most important one to get for now then? That must be the case as i don't want to be going to the amp to change from clean to distortion all the time. I have seen one called a monkey or something, it was late last night so can't remember the name. Is that the one i should maybe buy for now?

There's great advice above, basically play as many guitars as you can and find whats comfortable and sounds good to you. If you don't feel comfortable take a mate who can play, but always purchase based on your own comfort.

No reason you can't score a good Epi, but given you want a Matt Bellamy type rig, I would suggest a Les Paul is not the guitar for you.

Something with P90 pickups might get you closer, as Matt uses P90's over full on humbuckers, and you may need a whammy bar for a few tracks too. It sounds odd, but I reckon a Custom Player Jazzmaster could be worth a nose. It's at the top of your budget but it would give you a solid guitar for future use. Also check out Epi's with P90/P100 pickups and Fretkings etc too.

With respect to FX, score something used on eBay for now, until you get an idea of what you want. Should be able to get something good for very little.

Hewesy.

OK, apologies for assuming you weren't a player. Just sounded that way from your posts.

First thing is to actually play some of these guitars. The neck on a Les Paul plays rather differently than the neck on a Strat/Tele, due to different scale length and different neck shape. It's well worth seeing what feels most comfortable in your hands. You can always change pickups if you want, but you can't change a neck so easily! It's also worth playing it unplugged and seeing how it sounds, because if it's thin and reedy unplugged then there's a very good chance it'll be thin and reedy plugged in. Unplugged is also a better way of spotting fret buzzes and other nasties which you might not otherwise notice initially.

You *do* want to be setting up the amp each time for your chosen clean/overdrive sound. A distortion/overdrive pedal should usually be in addition to whatever the amp does, not instead of. Almost all amps these days have a foot pedal to switch between clean/overdrive (or light/heavy overdrive, depending on setup), so you can change between settings without needing to go back to the amp. But if you don't have your own amp, you will need to put all the knobs in the right place each time. Top tip for that - take a photo with your phone when you've got the sound you want.

If your college has lots of different types of amps (and not just a bulk buy of bottom-end Marshall practise amps, which would not be uncommon, sadly!) then take full advantage of this and compare them back-to-back to see what works for you. If they don't, then frankly their gear is not worth relying on, so get yourself down the shops and try some amps. Fender and Marshall are the usual suspects, but they're definitely not the only game in town - Orange have their own sound which is worth checking out, for instance. And don't think you absolutely have to have a huge amp either - some lower-power amps sound great, and you just need to stick a mic in front to lift their level a bit through the PA. Go for tone over watts every time.

And beg/borrow/steal FX boxes off anyone until you find exactly the right ones for you. The only thing I'd absolutely recommend having is a volume pedal. Everything else is so personal taste that it's not really possible to recommend anything.

If you are not too knowledgeable about the technical aspects of electric guitars then it would be worth holding a portion of you budget back to pay for a decent set up by a guitar tech. You may be able to get this included in the price if the store has its own tech but my experience has been that store set ups are pretty poor these days (with everybody shopping on the internet for lowest prices margins have been squeezed and service has been cut).

I'd also plan to make more than one shopping trip if possible. As pointed out above the difference between Fender and Gibson scale lengths has an impact on how the guitar feels but also set neck vs bolt-on, pickup type, trem or fixed bridge, single cut vs double cut etc. There's a lot to take in and you may need some time to refine your search criteria.

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Is it not the case that Matt Bellamy used to play Pacificas? My thoughts on Epiphones - they look great, play well, but sound a bit mushy. If was shopping for a guitar to run through effects, I'd opt for clearer sounding instrument, and yes, the Pacifica's are hard to beat.

Jon Dinham

It says you live in Bristol, so my recommendation would be to check out a guitar shop or two, try a few models, like a Epiphone Les Paul, a PRS SE, a Yamaha Pacifica, and maybe a Squier/Fender Telecaster/Strat with humbuckers perhaps.

Try as many guitars as you can and find one which you like the look of and the sound off.

What I would say is if you do get one of the guitars above or something, if possible I would leave a little of your budget for upgrading the pickups; it can make a big difference.

As for amps, do you want a loud one for playing gigs or one for recording/practising at home?

Effects are a confusing and complex world. Do you want one effect or many? If you want many you could get a multi effects units such a Boss ME-25.

Personally I would suggest not over complicating your set up even though you have the budgets to do so. Maybe buy a new guitar for now, but if your current instrument stays in tune and sounds decent enough and you are happy with it, then don't bother getting a new one, but I'd maybe upgrade the pickups perhaps.

If your sound needs no effects then don't bother getting any pedals.

You may already have one but if you don't the one piece of kit I would recommend getting a tuner pedal, the newish Boss TU-3 is supposed to be great. A distortion/overdrive/fuzz pedal too is a great addition, but again there are so many out there try as many as you can, each person has a favourite, mine is the Proco RAT.

Good luck and if you have any further questions please ask.

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http://soundcloud.com/earwighoney

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a loud one for playing gigs

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The two are not necessarily synonymous. Stick a mic in front of it, and it doesn't matter a damn if it's a 1W Pignose running off D-cells, bcos the PA will do the "make it louder" job. (I have actually had a guitarist get me to mic a battery-powered pocket amp for a gig, in case you think it couldn't ever happen...)

It's useful to be loud enough to match a drummer, for the sake of rehearsals. 15W is usually enough though; 30W is definitely enough. More of this is down to the drummer (are they an ultra-hard hitter?) and the style of guitar you play (do you go for a piercing trebly sound or do you want a fat distorted sound) than the watts per se.

It's also worth mentioning that amps are highly directional so unless it's pointing directly at you, you'll hardly hear it, even though the audience (or other band members) may be copping a right earful. An amp tilter is your friend here.

As I'm being contrarian for the evening I'm going to suggest you could go the other way around and buy a modest guitar with a big multi fx gizmo.

The line 6 m13 (£430) has a lot of fx in it, also has scene switching so you can have lots of different patch sets in it and ready to go at the touch of a button, ideal for live playing.

So you could get a pacifica and a ridiculously wide range of emulated sounds for your budget.

To be fair I'm sure that better sounding versions of many of the effects in the m13 exist. But you couldn't get them for anything even vaguely similar in price. I'd suggest that the m13 is great because it gives you so much to play with. There is a huge range of different kinds of effects that you can go through and experiment with. As time goes on you'd undoubtedly want to get other pedals, but there's a huge mount in the m13 to get you started on fx and keep you busy for a very long time...

Review Here

Regards,

Grant.

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I've never liked a solo violin, you need at least five for a proper fire.

+1 on the Pacifica

You can also look at second hand Epiphone, they're usually a lot cheaper. Locally I found one SG (Epi) in good condition for $320 opposed to $700 brand new.

If you're not sure on the effects - look up a multifx unit. I like the Boss GT-10 or the GT-8 second hand. A multifx unit will be a jack of all trades and even if you outgrow it/don't like it, you'd learn enough about all kinds of fx so you'll know what to get when it comes to boutique pedals and such.

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www.descentintomadness.com

Hi Jon,

In your position I'd buy a modelling amp like the Vox Valvetronix (I've got an AD30VT) but something like the newer VT20+ (£120ish, 33 Amp Models, 25 built in Fx) would be fine. That way you'll be able to see which Fx boxes you'll find essential & which ones you'll never use.

Regarding guitars, as suggested Yamaha is always a safe choice. Rarely exceptional, but I've never played a bad one out of the box. Ibanez can also be a pretty decent bet, look at the jet king range if you fancy something a little different. JTK 30 has good stock pick-ups & hardware for the money, nicely balanced & oh so pretty!

Personally I think once you pass a certain price range most guitars are servicable nowadays. You will sound like you on them, I will sound like me, & Matt Bellamy will sound better than either of us...

DM

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Not much in life worth running for. Or from.