Cheap guitars are good

mikeyrob73

I have some nice guitars, Tokai , PRS , Schecter , Fenders but I’m finding myself playing the cheapest of the bunch more than any of them at moment. A Vintage av2 thing. I bought it thinking I would maybe swap the pickups out but it’s pretty bloody good as it is. The “roll control” on it is actually really good, it doesn’t split the coils but rolls them back from humbucker to p90 then single coil. 

Just goes to show how much guitar you can get for very little money these days 

https://i.imgur.com/Qj8Hmpx.jpg

ThePrettyDamned

Yeah, I remember even 15 years ago when I first started, a squier strat was much nicer than an encore strat.

My friend had the cheapest epi les paul - a horrific, slab bodied thing with a screw on neck that looked nasty. Set up, it played fine but it wasn't a good guitar. 

Now, for £200 you get something that 15 years ago would have been £300. That's kind of amazing. 

I love seeing people treat some older budget models as vintage - Korean epis were really hit and miss, and while I played a stunning korina explorer it was the only great epi until more recently. 

Gotta wonder, though, whether the places that churn out these guitars are ethical - what are the environmental and human impacts of this? I've seen relative beginners on Facebook start by buying several different guitars, usually harley benton, yet a single £500 guitar would be so much better. 

Rusty-Strings

Friend of mine recently got a Harley Benton LP special with P90's, a very fine guitar indeed

Sassafras

I've got An AV2, it's one of my favourite guitars.
Absolutely nothing wrong with it apart from the neck plate needs tightening up a fraction every coupla years.
Then again, so do a lot of bolt-ons.

King85

That's lovely.

I've never played an strat more fancy that a Mexican 50's player but I got a Squier vintage modified one of the classified here for £150 and it's superb, I can't imagine selling it as I know I wouldn't get anything anywhere near as good for the money.

I'm going to check out the v100 when things get back to normal as I fancy a gold top.

grungebob

Yep. I’ve discovered a very cheap little Aria in the past few days and despite it needing work to get playable I’m enjoying it immensely. 

It’s cheeky, it’s trying and I appreciate it’s effort. 

More expensive guitar should perform well they have no excuses but with cheapies you can forgive em a bit and love em when they surprise you if that makes sense ?

rossi

Most cheap guitars available now even Glarry are far better than the crap me and other greats like Eric and Peter  started out on .......

TTBZ

I've always liked cheaper guitars if they're good, there's something fun about it that you don't get with expensive guitars (which are nice too but for other reasons). Most cheap guitars these days probably don't even need a pickup swap like they used to. Out of all the stuff I've seen from NAMM this year so far, the thing I'm most interested in is probably actually the Squier Contemporary Tele with roasted maple neck, looks great for £325 and has desirable (to me) features you don't get in cheaper Fenders like a less blocky neck heel and 12" radius.

mikeyrob73

@TTBZ thw her block on this thing is really interesting shall a a picture later, it’s a rock maple neck with a bubinga heel block 

Alex2678

grungebob said:

Yep. I’ve discovered a very cheap little Aria in the past few days and despite it needing work to get playable I’m enjoying it immensely. 

It’s cheeky, it’s trying and I appreciate it’s effort. 

More expensive guitar should perform well they have no excuses but with cheapies you can forgive em a bit and love em when they surprise you if that makes sense ?

Aside from my current guitar, the one I’ve enjoyed most over the last few years was a Gibson sg faded, which isn’t exactly cheapo, but with properly expensive ones the flaws drive me crazy, with cheap(er) guitars you just enjoy them for what they are 

skullfunkerry

My main guitar is an Indonesian X-series Jackson Soloist. When I first started playing seriously around 1989 I knew one guy with a Jackson and the thought of actually *owning* one was just pie in the sky... if anyone had told 16-year old me that not only would I own a genuine neck-through Soloist, but that it would be my cheapest guitar, I'd never have believed it. We're so lucky with the range of excellent guitars available to us now 

grappagreen

Despite having some very high end stuff my main squeeze currently is a MIM Duo Sonic - can’t believe how much guitar £360 can buy...

Voxman

grappagreen said:

Despite having some very high end stuff my main squeeze currently is a MIM Duo Sonic - can’t believe how much guitar £360 can buy...

A year or two back, I bought a used albeit mint Yamaha Pacifica 611VFM for £300.punches way above its weight, and is a cracking guitar. Seymour Duncan HB bridge/P90 neck, locking Grovers, Wilkinson trem, graphtec nut, translucent black, matching headstock, superbly put together, lovely neck, plays and sounds great.

So it got me thinking that you don't have to spend a lot to get a really good guitar and I wondered what I could get for say half that. Always wanted an ash Tele with a maple neck, so watched loads of vids and read reviews, and took a punt on a Harley Benton TE52-NA that cost £139 from Thomann. Simply mind boggling quality, playability and tone not just for a £139 guitar, but that could hold its own against the 'real thing'

I upgraded the tuners to Wilkinson deluxe vintage for £22, and replaced the chrome bridge saddles for Wilkinson brass compensated saddles. And for the last 3 months it's pretty much all I've been playing. Still blows my mind how they can sell a guitar of this build quality, superb neck, great pickups, Inc free delivery and a 3 yr warranty for only £139. I may never buy a 'name' guitar again!!

Rocky1991

Cheap guitars these days are fantastic (not super budget ones). Once you get over the £300/500 range, you are not getting 2x, 3x & 4x the instrument really in terms of quality to price. At least I don't think. That said I still find myself looking at 3k guitars 

blueskunk

Pink Squire Bullet Strat, set up really well and a nice Seymour Duncan in the bridge. Got it for £70 for my son but I play it all the time. It does the strat thing and like I say it was set up by a proper guitar man so it’s as good as it gets for the money

My other guitar is a MIJ Squire Bullet from 1983, smaller Strat body and Telecaster neck with three pickups. It’s not expensive but genuinely awesome. 

Nitefly

rossi said:

Most cheap guitars available now even Glarry are far better than the crap me and other greats like Eric and Peter  started out on .......

@rossi you're not kidding!  Remember "Broadway", and the horrors in the Bells of Surbiton catalogue? 

How I drooled over them!

To be fair, they did have some decent stuff, such as Hofner and Levin, but that was way out of range for a poverty-stricken teenager like me...

mikeyrob73

@TTBZ pic of the heel 

had another hour with this today and it’s bloody great fun 

https://i.imgur.com/CeUvUe8.jpg