The very first electric guitar you ever owned, how good or how crap ?

JD50

My first electric guitar was a Vox Standard 25, which is basically a Strat with a dodgy headstock (Insert Suhr joke)

The guitar was really heavy but played well & sounded great to my ears, pickups were (Dimazio I think).  

Also had a Sunn-Mustang P Bass

merlin

A Woolworths "Audition", which I learned many years later was made by Teisco. It was below all criticism. Then onto a Columbus hollow bodied thing that was SO much better but still below all criticism. Then a Yamaha SG45 that was really good by comparison, actually just really good. I wish I still had it. 

mikem8634

One of these -



Absolutely loved it but let it go when I got the real thing. It was pretty damn decent for £90 in 1987.

Emp_Fab

A Satellite Strat.  The body was ply, but some freaky ultra-heavy type.  If the strap slipped off, the neck would fly up so fast you had to get your head out of the way.

KKJale

As a teen I was forbidden from owning an electric guitar (hardcore religious parents). I was nearly forbidden from owning a guitar at all, but eventually wore them down.

Within two days of leaving home I swapped my Gibson B-25 for a Strat. It was a 1973 model, non-trem, rosewood board, refinished in daphne blue, with a Super Distortion in the bridge. 

Philtre

Danny1969 said:

Mine was a Kay guitar, make of thin plywood with an action so high the Terminator would have struggled to play a bar chord and the pickups were truly awful things that squealed micro-phonically like a piglet being tortured. 

I wish I still had it ... mainly so I could torture it like it tortured me

So was mine. Except I couldn't afford an amp so I held the headstock against the edge of a door which made it sound "slightly louder".

Twinfan

guitars4you said:

Twinfan said:

Squier JV '62 Strat in Fiesta (yet orangey) Red.  I've still got it.

It sounds pretty good and plays excellently.

that is posh Dave compared to some of the crap me and others had to start on - I assume you mean an early 80's version

Yep, it's an '83.  I bought it around 1989 for £200, which was more than a new Squier Strat at the time. The shop owner told me it was better than the new ones and he was right 

It now has David White "Old Glory" pickups (the originals weren't great so I traded them in) and a Callaham trem block (the original arm hole stripped).  I'm not a Strat man so it doesn't get played, but I won't sell it.

peteri

Black Hondo Les Paul, circa Christmas 1983.

Looked amazing, and I loved it for a long time (only thing I did at that age )

But with hindsight - crap, suspect it was plywood, pretty certain the pickups weren't hum bucker - they were certainly microphonic and it sounded nothing like my (real) Les Paul!

markj

Ibanez roadstar, over 30 yrs ago.

rossi

Hofner Club 60  in the early 60's .It was good as far as hofners go but its neck was way too thick for my small hands.it didnt have  a truss rod .I see they fetch about a grand now but for me the cheapest Squier is more playable.

SNAKEBITE

Encore Strat that was in bits.

I sprayed it green and assembled it the best I could, although I had no idea the pick ups went in any order, so god knows what order they went back in.

Oh, and the 5 way selector switch only worked in a couple of positions.

Other than that it was peachy.

Limehouse_Blues

My very first electric guitar was a 'Rockster'. By any objective measure it is not a quality guitar at all. But it holds a special place in my heart. It was a surprise Christmas gift from my folks in 1991. At that time picking up any guitar wasn't even on my radar. For me the electric guitar was no act of rebellion but something my parents steered me towards. They aren't musicians or guitar players (but they both dig guitar based music) and they wouldn't have known a good guitar from a crap one. This was a cheap guitar that they could afford though and without it, my continuing love affair with the electric guitar would never have got off the ground.

This thing weighed a ton (I recently discovered that's because the body is MDF!) and had a really high action (in 1991 I didn't know what a set up involved). I learned my first riffs on it and played it in school music competitions alongside a friend who went on to quite a successful career in music.

After about 18 months with the Rockster I upgraded to a Squier Strat. To be honest I always thought the graphics on the Rockster were gimmicky and was happier later in my teens to be toting a more sober looking axe. Since around 1995 the Rockster gathered dust at my parents' house. At some point in the 2000s my bro managed to knacker the cheap tremolo block and the guitar fell into a sad state of disrepair.

In the last few weeks though, the Rockster came back into my life as my parents brought it over with a few other childhood possessions taking up space at theirs (including my violin). I stripped it of its (very cheap and nasty) hardware and have had a luthier put a new bridge, tuners and knobs on it (photo below). I should take delivery of it this weekend and am looking forward to playing it again, more than 25 years after first strumming a chord on it. Should be nicely set up too - turns out it does have a truss rod after all, albeit one that requires neck removal to adjust.

Will be interesting to hear what the extremely inexpensive pickups sound like through my Brunetti Singleman! The Rockster actually came with a tiny, tinny crappy amp. In very early 1992 I realised I needed a new amp more than a new guitar and for about a year played this Rockster through a little Marshall Lead 20 which sounded great and i now regret selling circa 96. Every other 'beginner' guitar I had (Squier Strat, Epiphone Les Paul) I got rid of. I'm glad I kept this one. Everyone has to start somewhere.



 

Flanging_Fred

My first was a Karwai Aquarius in turquoise. 3 dimarzio style humbuckers and it was actually pretty decent for a first instrument. I sold it to a school friend when I upgraded to my first Chsrvel.

I think if I ever come across it again I would buy it back. However the kid who bought it was a bit, er, wayward and I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up as splinters or l a pile of ash.

ourmaninthenorth

A Zenta SG copy - bought from Mamelok's on Deansgate in Manchester circa 1976. 

Weighed approx a hundredweight, and sounded like a fifty gun salute though the WEM Dominator I had. 

I spent the first year learning the opening riff to Black Sabbath...which I still haven't got right.

God does indeed love a trier. 

Sesh

Aria Legend Les Paul-a-like. Bought mid-nineties for £200. I spent ages looking for a non-strat style electric, which back then seemed to be the only option at the budget end of the market. It did everything well and looked good too. Very heavy though. It's in storage at the moment but I'm looking forward to digging it out again soon and seeing what I think of it now. I'm too sentimental to ever get rid of it though.

Vibetronic

Mine was an 'Axe' in about 1987, cost £89 from an advert in Metal Hammer. It was actually fine for a first guitar; my mate had a Satellite LP which was much, much worse.

guitars4you

rossi said:

Hofner Club 60  in the early 60's .It was good as far as hofners go but its neck was way too thick for my small hands.it didnt have  a truss rod .I see they fetch about a grand now but for me the cheapest Squier is more playable.

showing your age a bit there @rossi - and I bet you had a curly lead to go with it and a black leather strap with the 50's style shoulder pad

kjdowd

Aria Pro II. Super strat shape, double humbucker, some sort of active boost circuit. 

Was way, way better than I gave it credit for. I pretty much ruined it in a painting/modding attempt and it is no more. 

guitars4you

Vibetronic said:

Mine was an 'Axe' in about 1987, cost £89 from an advert in Metal Hammer. It was actually fine for a first guitar; my mate had a Satellite LP which was much, much worse.

'Axe' - are those the ones that came in a 'see thru' bag that looked like a rain coat/mac 

Lestratcaster

Was a 1997/98 Squier strat which was bought as a starter pack from a local guitar shop with an amp, stand, strings, strap and plectrums for £195.

I've had it set up properly and had the stock pickups switch out and it sounds quite nice actually. Cleans are pretty nice. I still use it now for teaching and its my most sentimental asset as its 20 years old now.