Tips on buying your first electric guitar. pt1

With the recent popularity of Guitar Hero and Rock Band. I can only assume that there will be quite a few people hitting the stores for an electric guitar, this holiday shopping season.

A couple things to consider…

Budget

Music intending to play

Experience level

1. Buying an Amp

If you do chose to purchase a electric guitar you will also need to buy a guitar amp.  One thing i have learned over the years is a nice amp can make a crappy guitar sound good but a crappy amp will make a good guitar sound bad. However this isn’t the final word on budget allocation, only a something to consider. I plan on contradicting my lesson learned by recommending the opposite.

A good choice for a amp regardless of experience or preferred music style is a Vox Valvetronix. The valvetronix comes in a 15w, 30w, 50w and 100w. I recommend either the 15w or 30w for beginners. Know that if you do land on the 15w you might have problems playing over a drum kit.

The cool thing about the Valvetronix is it comes with 22 amp models ranging from the latest high-gain types to hard-to-find boutique and vintage amps. So all music genres are covered with this choice . Another great thing about this amp is that it comes with 12 built in guitar effects.

The new Vox Valvetronix’s run $265 for a 30w and $200 for a 15W

To save even more green, i defiantly recommend going used. I recently bought a 50W used at a Guitar Center for less then what a new 30w costs.

-Mike Robinson

In pt2 i will give you some guitar recommenations. Single coil vs Humbuckers.