SG style for a beginner?

stalkofta · #1 December 11th, 2006

I've been doing some legwork online researching what I think in my 'mindseye' might be a decent guitar for me to start with. After reading a bit about the different styles of guitars, I'm tending to lean toward an SG electric. Although I don't have any experience playing, I want to set myself up with something halfway decent so that I know I'm starting with a good instrument. I found that I can get an Epi g400 relatively cheap and I've read a lot of positive things about this model. I want to know if this basic model would be good for a beginner, and.... if I buy this guitar, what else will I need to begin playing. Does anyone else have this model? What's a good match for an amp? Any help would be great. - Stalkofta

737blues · #2 December 11th, 2006

Pretty much any guitar that is of reasonable build quality and is properly set up will do the job. Epi's are as good as any other guitars in their class. More importantly, make sure it is comfortable for you to play and is suitable for the musical styles you like. Ask the salesperson to demo. As for the amp, there are just so many to choose from. I'd suggest buying a small digital job with a good feature set and a reasonable price deal, initially. Save enough in your budget for a good set of headphones and an electronic tuner. The Fender G-dec is really aimed at beginners.

allthumbs · #3 December 11th, 2006

You really need to be able to listen to different amps to see what fits in with the sound your looking for.

Stratrat · #4 December 11th, 2006

Good advice from both 737blues and allthumbs. Your best bet is if you can demo both the guitar and amp to make sure they fit what you're looking for. As far as accessories go, get an electronic tuner, strap, picks and a decent set of headphones and you'll have plenty to get started with.

As far as amps go, I think the Roland Microcube is a great beginner amp. It's small, not too loud (but more than loud enough to practice on), has a headphone jack and also an aux input so you can connect an mp3 player and jam along to songs. It has several different amp 'models' built into it so you can get pretty much everything from a clean acoustic-type sound to a heavily distorted hard-rock sound, and also built-in effects to experiment with (phaser, flanger, chorus, delay, echo & reverb). It's about the size of a car battery, and can also run on battery power (6 AA's), which makes it nicely portable. VOX also makes a model with similar features which is called the DA5. Either of these will give you plenty of enjoyment.

allthumbs · #5 December 11th, 2006

I second what stratrat had to say. Two great practice amps.