Cheap ass electric guitar thread

[kayagum]

The best guitars cost $300. Period.

How about Jap strats? Or for even more cheap fun, Jap Squiers?

I also think Seagull acoustics have tremendous bang for buck value.

[superluminalmagus]

I have a Epiphone Les Paul. Cost about $85. Sounds fine.
Not as good as my good guitar, but it works great as a backup.

[llmonty]

i always loved the silvertone amp in case guitars with lipstick pickups, they such sound and play great. Yeah, they won't stay in tune for more than a song if you are jumping around on stage, but never have trouble with mine.

Unfortunately these aren't nearly as cheap anymore as they were just 2-3 years ago. stupid vintage craze. if only hair metal would come back with their jacksons and esp's and pointy guitars - a guy can dream of cheap vintage guitars can't he?

Others - galanti guitars - from italy - most comfortable necks I have ever played, beautiful rosewood fretboards, weird-ass pickups and accordian style push buttons. The grand prix is kinda jaguar/jazzmaster comfortable.

Pre-60's Kay acoustics - the big Bodied maple cutaways - the sound of a Gibson for <$300. Wow -

[Punkity]

Kay can be super cool. I had one, it must have been only 5 lbs. Not a main axe, but for cool Tele-like, no sustain solos it killed. That and it cost $50. Fell over one day and the headstock flew in one direction and half the fretboad in the other.

One suprisingly good one, if you can find them, is the Gisbon Sonix. They were only made from '82-'83 (I think), and the body was made of chip-board. They look pretty much like a Les Paul with all the edges rounded off, and I think they only came in a somewhat dull black with white lettering. All in all a good guitar IMHO. Mine had a mini DPDT switch that flipped the polarity of one of the coils in the bridge humbucker. This was a cool tool (DYIers should give this a shot). It completely changed the character of the thing. Early Black Sabbath sludge to Big Black bone drill in one easy step.

Some were outfitted with an extra-industrial tremelo system that pulled the bridge assembly straight back along the face of the guitar. The entire idea for the guitar was strange, but it was a winner in my book. $200-$300 if you can find them (and that is a big if).

I sold mine to buy a Les Paul Jr.

Stupid-Stupid-Stupid.

[Rolsen]

Danelectro anything. I have the 'innuendo.' $220 and has a whammy (use sparingly!) and built in sorta-cheesy-in-a-goodway effects.

[twitchmonitor]

The best guitars cost $300. Period.

How about Jap strats? Or for even more cheap fun, Jap Squiers?

I also think Seagull acoustics have tremendous bang for buck value.

That's right...Jap Squier Strats....from the 80s. I don't know if they made 'em after that, but they made some awesome guitars in the 80 over there. I own two: one traditional configuration, and one I modded to a 2 humbucker config with a nice single/hum switch. Each guitar cost me $200 and I don't think I'll ever part with either.

[oxfist]

i've owned 3 guitars in my lifetime, and none of them were over $150. the first was a squire, which i totally regret selling. the second was an epiphone les paul type copy, that really quite honestly sucked, save the pickups. and now i have a hondo II fat strat that i'm dying to get rid of. if i had it to do all over again, i would do an epiphone dot. mmmmmmm, dot.

[Devlars]

I just bought a stratocaster style Epiphone at a garage sale for $65 including a gig bag, guitar stand and strap. I took the guitar over to a tech immediately and had him give it the full setup and now....looks, feels, plays wonderfully. After the repairs total cost of the guitar was $132...yeah I'd say that's cheap.

[gog]

Definately Danelectro - the U2 reissues can't be beat.

... couldn't agree more. i got mine used (barely) for $150 with the tweed case. allparts makes a retrofit individual saddle intonateable bridge for about $25, in case you have trouble with the rosewood slab keeping you in tune.
good luck

[pedalboy]

I found myself a yamaha Pacifica 112 (hot strat copy) on ebay. The previous owner had done some modding to it and swapped out the tuners for some heavy-duty ones, and swapped out the humbucker for a duncan disctortion. After shipping, I paid a total of $145 for that thing! I looove it. Of course, the aspiring mad scientist that I am, I had to replace all the electronics in it too... Still saving up for new single-coils though, i'm thinking lindy fralins? But this $145 guitar rullllles!!!!!! I'm pretty much loving all things yamaha right now.

[KennyLusk]

Yamaha can surprise you sometimes.

I recently bought the Yamaha RBX270F which is fretless and have to say I've been really happy with it. It actually came set up pretty nice already and since I like it I'm going to replace the bridge pickup (which is way too noisy) with a Bill Lawrence.

The Fender Mexi Strat's are a decent bargain. If you replace the pickups and rewire and re-cap you've got an outstanding guitar for 1/3 the price of a custom shop (and with better pickups).

[lateshift]

Squire Bullet from MF for $99, Xmiss present for my daughter, el-cheapo but cool, I had to pick one up for myself. Spent a few hours dialing it in and swapping out the pickup for a SD '59 I had. Ended up with a new bridge on it, string through body style, now it sings! I love the one pickup set up, it's like a single speed bike, nothing complex about it just twist the knob and go for it.

I have four other guitars (Dano double neck, Jazzmaster, Subsonic Strat, and a custom Strat) but I find I play the Squire more because I don't have to worry about it. I can take it to work with me and leave it in my truck all night, no big thing.

The Squire is also a nice break from the others as it is strung with .10's, the Strat, Jazzmaster, and the lower half to the Dano are strung with .11's and the Subsonic and other half of the Dano are strung with .13's.

[marqueemoon]

Definately Danelectro - the U2 reissues can't be beat.

... couldn't agree more. i got mine used (barely) for $150 with the tweed case. allparts makes a retrofit individual saddle intonateable bridge for about $25, in case you have trouble with the rosewood slab keeping you in tune.
good luck

I'm a Dano fan as well. I switched out the crappy tuners on mine for some Kluson-style Allparts ones.

To me the wood slab is an important part of the sound, so I kept the stock bridge.

[nestle]

I play one of those PRS custom dragon inlay jobs. I only take it out of the display case on special occasions -

[jajjguy]

danelectro, yes. the newer ones are excellent and cheap.

hohner also makes some very good and inexpensive copies of classics. i had an electric archtop for a while that was really solid.

teiscos can be really good too, but they vary a lot, so make sure you get a good one.

not a huge fan of silvertone or harmony or kay. the sound can be fun and interesting but the build quality and setup seems usually to be not quite there. like you have to fight the guitar to get it to do what you want.

fernandes has made some really excellent fender copies over the years. they aren't exactly cheap, more dough than a new mex fender, but they're cheaper than their vintage fender counterparts and jsut as good.