guides reviews
Top beginner guitars that won’t break the bank
A useful gear guide with a clean beginner-friendly angle.
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When it comes to guitars, I am not pretending to be the final authority, but I have been playing for about 25 years and I have definitely learned a few things. My first guitar that I will never sell is a 1990s Mexican Fender Strat, and I still grab it constantly. It is the comfort pick, it sounds great, and it does a little bit of everything. After that came Les Pauls, Ibanez models, and plenty of other experiments. So instead of making you repeat all those mistakes, here is the distilled version.
My top 2 picks are extremely high value for money and from sort of opposite ends of the style and sound spectrum. Either is an awesome choice for a heavy hitter guitar that will last lifetimes and cover both single coil strat tones, or humbucking heavier tones.
Everything on this list comes in under $1,000.
Yamaha Revstar Standard
While I personally love a lot about Les Paul-style guitars, the Revstar gets you that humbucker-friendly territory with more comfortable body contours and a more modern feel. My experience with Japanese-made instruments has generally been excellent, and this one is a ridiculous amount of guitar for the money.
Fender Stratocaster
The Mexican-made Strat is still one of the safest and best value choices out there. You get strong fit and finish, classic tones, tons of flexibility, and a guitar that can stay useful for years even after you improve.
Ibanez RG450
If you want something that leans faster, heavier, and a little more aggressive, this is a great beginner-friendly pick. Ibanez consistently does a good job in this lane, and the thinner neck plus Floyd Rose style setup make it a natural fit for more shred-focused playing.
Honorable mention goes to the
Epiphone Les Paul Custom
This one looks great, and from everything I have seen, it is a meaningful step up from the lower-end Epiphones a lot of people remember. It is a bit pricier than the Yamaha Revstar, and I would still take the Yamaha first, but the classic Les Paul look is always going to win people over.
Quality of life improvements
Both of these things significantly increased the amount of time I spent and wanted to spend playing around with guitar and I attribute these sorts of things to improving my playing a lot because of it. I mean who wants to play with a setup that either doesn’t sound good or is unable to play loud enough? When you find that right tone and can crank it with high quality headphones you will play for hours. Trust me.
Another quick note, I personally really like using a headphone / headphone mixer setup since it is not exactly feasible to rip a tube amp at 1am when you randomly feel like playing. Some of my quick last minute recommendations for this would be -
Sony MDR Professional Headphones
My dad bought a pair of these in the early 90s and they still work and sound awesome. They have great features and easily replaceable ear cups.
Mooer GE100 Multi Effects pedal
I have an older version of this model and still love it. It is great for tuning, recording little riffs before you forget them, and practicing with loops. If you want to play late at night with headphones and still have a bunch of tones to mess with, this kind of pedal is a really nice quality-of-life upgrade.