Alrighty
I’ve been playing guitar for just shy of two years, I’ve played primarily on a $100 fender acoustic which I love
About a year ago I decided to buy a cheap squire electric and a cheap amp, $150 total, and I completely regretted it
It sounds like shit, I’ve probably played it for less than 2 hours in that year
Now I’ve saved up some pennies and am prepared to spend $500 on a guitar, and amp
What do y’all recommend?
ive been using a squire strat and a shitty line 6 amp. it makes you work to get good sounds out of it and pushes you harder than starting out with good equipment and makes you a better player imo. 8/10 the gear isnt the problem, its the player
but if the guitar is shitty its not just about sound, its about ease of playing
Ease of playing isn’t that big of an issue
The guitar just sounds like shit to me
If there's no issue with the playability, just change the pickups. It's a basic solder job and you'll get more out of your money at that price point. You could get a proper SD/DiMarzio pickup and spend the rest on a second-hand Peavey Bandit or Fender Mustang.
I like Gretschs myself(pic related is mine). I have a cheap $80 vox mini 3 g2 that has a ton of effects and shit on it. I would say that and a streamliner gretsch is good.
you should be more specific about the sound and why you don't like it. What kind of amp is it? If the amp isn't complete garbage I'm sure you could coax a decent sound out of it. And if it is garbage you should get one of those USB audio interfaces for guitar and pirate Guitar Rig 5 or something like that.
That sounds like your setup is bad. Action too high or whatever.
>tfw had the same budget as you a week ago
Ended up buying a 400 dollar strat
Gotta work to buy an amp but i think I'm gonna make it
That & get the intonation checked.
Op you don't say what you want to get, another electric or a better acoustic?
but whatever, I always recommend looking at second hand instruments, I bought a secondhand Taylor acoustic about five years ago and saved £250 over a new one.
Yeah no shit that's exactly the problem with cheap guitars
you have to get it set up every fucking two days because the wood and construction is cheap
save up more money
$500 is nothing if you're splitting it, you'll only get another shit guitar and another shit amp.
Do some damn research as well.
The type of amp and guitar you buy is completely dependent on the style of music you want to play. Just do you're damn research, and stop being cheap. Keep working your shitty job and saving, at this point you're just wasting money and won't get the quality you want.
If you're gonna be performing, get a decent tube amplifier and have your current guitar set up by a professional.
If you're just sitting in your bedroom playing shitty classic rock tunes and covers, buy a Squier Classic Vibe or second hand MIM Tele/Strat from the 2010s.
You'd be amazed at how a shitty guitar and play when it's setup properly.
pic related was $400 and I spent around $200 on fixing it up. plays just as well as a Japanese Fender.
Nice guitar, Brett.
I'm a total guitar newbie and I'd love to have a guitar just like that because it looks nice. A regular one with those color tones costs around $1000 USD on the Fender website.
MADE IN MEXICO STRAT
300-500 bucks
sound every bit as good as a 1,000 american strat
I had to force myself to not impulsively buy one for months
Other than that your options are ibanez
>if you're trynna be a "shredder"
Or epiphone if you want a genuinely worse Gibson
dig your facebook m8
just make sure not to post a picture with the FB download thing, it can be backtracked.
I have a good friend selling a guitar and amp for that price. he actually took it down from 700$.
contact me so I can get you more info
OP here
The reason the guitar sounds like shit is cus the action is too high
The reason the action is too high is because when it was lower the guitar had terrible fret buzz
The amp is a randy Jackson
The guitar is a squire strat
I’m not against trying to un fuck it, but I’d rather get a new guitar
Pictured: Guitar and Amp
>forgot to change the filename
thanks for the check before i wreck'd me further dudes. appreciate it
>action too high
>low action buzzes
Simply tighten the truss rod for a bit of a backbow/straightened neck, and raise up the bridge a tiny bit. Keep the radius of the neck with your bridge and make sure you work on the intonation afterwards.
If your guitar was bought second hand and you're taking off all the strings, take off the bolt-on neck as well to check if some idiot shoved a shim inbetween the neck and body. Every bolt-neck guitar I've fixed up and even the second hand Stratocaster I own had a shim stuffed in the neck pocket, in my case it was a fucking bus token, which fucked up how the strings move vibrations through the guitar. A shim changes the angle of the neck and could even sometimes make a buzz on the last couple frets depending on how large of a thing is stuffed in the neck pocket. Do a quick setup after you check
I like my Epiphone Les Paul Studio Deluxe. Got it on sale for only around $300. Sounds great compared to my shit thrift shop no serial number guitar. Waiting on a $200 Marshall mg30cfx to ship but from what I've read about and watched it seems like a quality cheap combo amp
I'm selling my Schecter Diamond Series guitar for 500 bucks, where you from OP?
>Waiting on a $200 Marshall mg30cfx
Worth $100 at most. I've owned a MG30FX and I don't know how it differs from the CFX, but it's variety doesn't really offer much other than dad-rock tones and generic le-ebin super distort metal garnage
fender mustang or duo sonic
Well the other amp I have is a Ibanez gta15r with a blown out speaker and muffed up tone controls. Just need something that will have a decent quality sound for jamming with friends that won't break the budget
Go for an Epiphone Les Paul, preferably Standard, but Studio is good too, especially if you upgrade the pickups. I have a Roland Cube 40XL solid state amp and I love this little fucker. I bought it used for $125 a couple years ago, I think it's about $250 new.
What's a good amp that I can use for gigs around 300?
I have a strat
>decent quality sound for jamming with friends
ahhhh it'll do that perfectly though. It's a good amp for jamming and fuckin' around with. most of the prerequisites I look for in gear comes from if I could use it in a gig or not. if your goal is to jam with bros then i'd recommend a Marshall MG
im not too sure, because you're gonna have to look for something nice and loud. Maybe something from Vox would do you good
you can set up a >squire strat
to play pretty good, easily. There's tons of vids on the internet and you most likely wont even have to adjust the truss rod. literally mnothing wrong with the squier affinity strat, in terms of construction. Ive heard the fretwire ends being rough but have never experienced that. but that's an easy fix, too. play it a while then spend some cash on new pickups for it or something.