Lord Fraquart wrote:
I need to buy my son an electric guitar and amp. He likes rock and metal music. I've been Googling, lurking on forums and visited quite a few shops. The budget is in the region of R5k for amp, guitar and hardcase. Doing my homework has confused the situation more than it actually helped. I guess after this topic and the advice I'm going to get here, I might be off worse. ?
Points I need clarity on is as follows:
1. Amp size? I was looking at getting him a 15-20W amp for his room to practice on. Then someone said I should rather get a 30-40W as the smaller one will not be able to perform as well. Higher wattage will mean more noise, but is forking out an extra R600-R1k worth it for the bigger amp?
2. As for amps, we were initially looking at the Roland Cube and Vox VT amps. Then we were introduced to the Line 6 Spyder IV and Fender Mustang amps. Some said the Vox was more suited to Jazz and not to metal, which the others apparently are. So why have a Metal setting if not suited? The Mustang also has a USB port. Would that be a gimmick and become a white elephant?
15-20W is actually too loud to crank up fully in a bedroom. You can get away with a 5W amp very easily for home practice, but a 15-30W-ish Roland Cube or Vox VT would actually be great choices either way. These amps are great for beginners because they have amp models (which mimic the tonal characteristics of other, often famous amps) and built-in effects (which means you can forego worrying about pedals for the time-being).
Keep in mind that the above are also solid state amps (making use of transistors instead of valve (tube) based circuits), although the Vox VT amps do use a valve in the pre-amp section to add some "tubey goodness" to the overall tone. Many electric guitar players will gravitate towards an all-tube amp at some part of their playing career, but I think that for a beginner you can get plenty of mileage from a solid-state amp before you worry about that stuff. The many options on these amps will let your son decide which types of tones and effects he likes best, which will inform his decision making later.
As for music suitability, these modelling amps are about as versatile as amps get. They will obviously never be as "good" at ripping metal tones as a real Mesa Boogie dual rectifier or Soldano SLO, but they cost a tiny fraction of the "real thing".
Also, your budget of R5k overall probably precludes too many all-tube options (which are typically more expensive to buy and maintain), although there are sometimes deals to be had. I would advise that you spent as much as you can on the guitar itself, and keep the budget tighter for the amp.
Summary: you can't go wrong with either the Cube or the VT.
3. Guitars. Not knowing anything about guitars and the hardware associated with it, I have picked up that the guitar need to have at least one humbucker. Now some guitars have D, S, S configurations and some D, S, D and some just D, D. For metal music, should we worry about having single coils?
I think that for your son's needs, you're right that at least one humbucker will be desirable. Many guitars with humbuckers have a coil-tap feature, which means that by flicking a switch the pickups can produce a tone much closer to a single-coil, so you can get a lot of tonal variety out of one guitar.
4. As this will be his move from acoustic to electric, I have gathered that he needs to stay away from Floyd Rose bridges as they are finicky. Should he also stay away from a guitar with whammy bar?
Floyd Rose systems create a bit of hassle when changing strings, but offer great tuning stability when set-up well. For my money, unless you're abusing the whammy bar constantly ah-la Steve Vai, I wouldn't go for a Floyd for a beginner's guitar. As for whammy-bars in general, many metal techniques (dive-bombs, whammy-trills etc.) require a whammy bar, but there's plenty you can do without one.
5. As for guitars, we were initially sold on the Yamaha Pacifica 112. Later on it was some Epiphone. Now it is the LTD Viper 100FM. He also started off liking the sunburst colour, now it needs to be black. Which of these would you guys suggest would be a good first electric that would not have too many finicky things to worry about and that would be the easiest to play?
You can't go wrong with a Pacifica 112 in good shape: it has a bridge humbucker, whammy bar and is generally a very well constructed introduction to the "Super Strat" idea. Singemonkey mentioned elsewhere that people often hang on to these guitars and modify them, which is a testament to their overall quality.
Epiphones can also be good, although I've heard grumblings about some of the newer ones so you might be better off looking second-hand. Keep in mind that the most popular Epiphones are cheaper versions of Gibson Les Pauls, SGs and 335s. That's not a bad thing, it just depends on what floats your son's boat. The Viper offers much more of the "metal" aesthetic, but it does have a stoptail bridge (no whammy) and humbuckers only (not sure if it has a coil-tap feature).
They're all reasonable choices, so your best bet is to go and actually play all of these guitars, preferably plugged into the amp that you're looking at buying (or something similar). Check out all the features: play around with each pickup selection, the tone and volume knobs, the coil-tap etc. Try different settings on the amp to hear how the guitar responds. Sometimes guitars that look great on paper or on a wall give a different impression in your hands.
Feel free to add things I have not yet considered. I am a total noob when it comes to guitars, but I'm learning quickly. Hopefully I can one day learn to play his guitar, when he gets one. 8)
You don't sound completely noobish to me. ? My folks didn't put in this much effort when I got my first electric, so kudos to you for taking the trouble.
Keep an eye out on the classified section here too, as there are some very nice bargains to be had. I'd recommend not being too hung up on a colour (can't always be helped, of course), rather go play some guitars and judge them on their individual appeal.
