Best Electric Guitar Brands For Beginners (2024 Update)

As attested to by all the reviews on the Capri Orange MX Player Tele, it is a great playing guitar in its original factory form. However, I chose this guitar as the platform for Sweetwater to custom mod. In collusion with friend and Sales Engineer Jeff Jent, we determined the component upgrades of choice for the project. The oem wiring harness was replaced with the Emerson 4way switch Tele wiring harness. The additional switch position allows for the pups to play in series. The oem pups were replaced with Fender Custom Shop Twisted Tele pups. All this modification under the hood was covered up by a Fender black pearloid moto pickguard. The oem string guide was replaced with the Fender American Standard string guide. The oem control plate and knobs were kept as was the oem bridge with box saddles. I prefer the 6 box saddles bridge to the 3 saddles bridge – just a personal choice. Upon receipt of the Tele, from my personal parts box I installed Fender all short post locking tuners and Fender locking strap buttons. Since the MX Player Tele doesn't come with either a case or gig bag, I had the guitar shipped in a new Fender Elite hard case. I provided Jeff with my preferred set-up specs by the numbers and he forwarded those to the guitar technician for the final modified product set-up. Guitar technician Brandon Harper did exemplary work in putting the mod guitar together and tech supervisor Marty Flaley verified the completed modifications "nailed" by Brandon. If you desire modifications on a new guitar, don't be hesitant to turn the Sweetwater guitar technicians loose on your vision project. The techs know their trade. But in full disclosure, modified guitars are non returnable so be sure of the modifications you desire. The standard Sweetwater warranty is in place though. All of these details can be gone over with your Sales Engineer to be certain, just in case I have misspoken the rules of engagement. Thanks to Brandon for his tech expertise and Marty for the oversight (prior to his promotion, Marty was my tech of choice for set-ups on new guitar purchases). Can't say enough about my excellent relationship with my Sales Engineer Jeff Jent. He knows his gear! If you don't have an assigned Sales Engineer, call Sweetwater and ask for Jeff. If you are ever on the Sweetwater campus, ask to personally meet your Sales Engineer and guitar tech. I've had that pleasure and glad to call them friends. OH, and what about the orange Tele? It feels, handles and plays great. It is on par with my Elite and Ultra Teles (except slightly less expensive) as a fine crafted guitar. If you have ever wanted to do a mod guitar, pick any platform and turn the guitar techs loose. My new Tele is a Sweetwater Custom Mod!

This is a really great deal. Unless you get lucky on Reverb or whatever you won't find a deal like this anywhere else. And let's face it–you need a Telecaster! It's as basic as a Stratocaster. Even more so. It's so versatile and has a bright (but not too bright) sound. It's HIGHLY customizable. The shape of the neck is very comfortable for both rhythm and lead play. I'd even go so far as to tell you to make this your kids' (or YOUR) first guitar. For one thing, it's a Fender. The build quality is rock solid. It's really designed to be a lifetime instrument. Cons–really just the shade of the neck itself. It's a little pale. But that's just me. Not only that, but later on you can purchase another Fender neck and just replace it. (It's easy.) Don't let this absolute steal for a real Fender Tele get away from you. You'll thank me.

I needed a Fender/Squire (single coil) guitar immediately. I had been using a Jazzmaster for a while at the time. I went to my local shop, and I noticed the 50s Tele. I played it for 30 min straight and thought it was simply perfect …I really wanted the platinum blonde color so I ordered one. Same perfection as the other guitar. I eventually even sold my Les Paul Studio as I was playing bar gigs weekly and only needed the Tele. Eventually replaced neck PUP w P-90. Fantastic guitar.

Overall: A couple of weeks ago, I was looking at buying the Gibson les Paul Standard 60's Bourbon Burst for $2,499.00, as I was doing my research checking out reviews when I came across a side by side review of the Gibson verses the Epiphone les Paul standard 60s. The similarities in quality and sound were eye opening, still skeptical I thought to myself, I owe to myself to at lest checkout the Epiphone les Paul standard 60s what's the worst that could happen, if I don't like it ill send it back and order the Gibson. Well I'm here to say I don't JUST like it, I ABSOLUTLY LOVE IT. Right out of the box I was super impressed with the look and feel of this guitar with the flamed maple top to the deep rich cherry back and sides, I sat down tuned it up plugged it into my amp. I went from being impressed to ka-ching I hit the jack pot. You know after I bought this guitar and before it arrived I had that feeling of buyers remorse, thinking that I somehow compromised and I should have bought the Gibson. Well the first few licks on this guitar and all that washed away instantly. This guitar has it all, value, quality, sound, playability and the flamed maple top…. just wow…!!!!! thank you zZounds and Epiphone for this fantastic les Paul.

Sound: Today's guitars are all made on cnc's unless you get something like a US made G&L, those are cut out with bandsaws and routers, like fenders in the 50s up to the 70s. The neck pocket in mine is very clean and neat, the body routing is very clean, the frets were nice out of the box, no misaligned screws or parts, no blemishes in the finish or anything. Features: The least useful feature for a majority of people will be the rhythm circuit, it has its own volume and tone pots and is neck pickup only, with a much darker tone than the neck pickup on the lead circuit, leave the switch in the down position, and you never have to worry about it unless you want an old school jazz guitar tone. Then push that switch up. (It does old jazz guitar really well) Ease of Use: The jazzmaster has quite a bright bridge pickup, makes it well suited for surf, or spaghetti western guitar, but it also means distortion on the bridge pickup will cut through rather well. the neck pickup is strat like, but bigger and thicker. Like a strat neck pickup on steroids. Both pickups together results in a sweet soft sort of quack tone, due to the pickups being so far apart, it's not the same as a strat quack tone, but its very nice sounding. Then of course there's the neck only rhythm circuit which is very much like an old jazz tone (hence the name Jazzmaster)The pickups are generally higher output than most other fender pickups, and work well with distortion. A lot of people still think jazzmaster pickups are p90s. Nope, real jazzmaster pickups are roughly the same size, but thats where the similarities end. They don't even sound similar. This confusion is furthered by the old mexican player jazzmasters, the j mascius, and others that have P90's. Quality: Fender mexico didn't skimp on the electronic parts, the pickups are very much like a mid 60s jazzmaster in sound, even down to the gray bobbins and enamel coated coil wire. Pots are CTS, both switches and the jack are switchcraft, just like they are supposed to be. They should last forever. The trem is built well, but not exactly the same as the old ones, the trem arm is screw in, it really should be a push in arm, like all the old ones. Also, I think the hole of the trem arm in the top plate is way way too big, it only needs to be slightly bigger than the trem arm collet.The tuners are kluson like split shaft, loke fender used from the very earliest days until 68, they're not made by kluson but it doesn't matter the design is too simple to screw up. The frets are vintage, they're always described as tall and thin. They're not tall, but they are thin, it is a 60s styled guitar after all. But I think a lot of people used to 9.5 and flatter radiuses will have problems, it's a 7.25" radius fretboard, requires a bit higher action but a half hour or so of playing, you get used to it. It also has a truss rod nut at the heel of the neck, its a correct feature for all fender's prior to 1971, but man was that a bad design choice on leo fender's part. You either have to loosen the neck a lot or take it completely off to adjust neck relief, and hope you got it right.Now when I got my guitar I took it completely apart (I always do). What I found on the inside could be improved. First was an excessive amount of wire. There is a lot of wire in a jazzmaster, but they didn't even bother cutting the pickup leads to length. Both pickups had about a foot of unnecessary lead wire, so I fixed that.The other issue was a bad conductive paint job in the cavities. The jazzmaster is an electrically noisy guitar, they need all the shielding they can get. The conductive paint was one thin coat, and didn't even go up the sides of the cavities, it wasn't doing anything. From 1958 to the end of the original run around 1980 each jazzmaster had brass tubs in all the cavities, all soldered together and grounded. I don't expect that in a new jazzmaster, but they knew then that it needed shielding. The pickguard in 58 was also gold anodized aluminum, which was excellent for shielding. But the anodizing wasn't good, and the gold wore off after a few months so and looked awful. In 59 fender switched to plastic tort pickguards, with a thin pickguard sized aluminum shield underneath. Anyway I properly shielded the cavities. Also the pickguard only had aluminum tape for the toggle switch to the jack, and another piece for piece for rhythm circuit switch and pots. That ain't going to do it. I added more shielding, put it all back together and it was a major improvement. Recently I decided to see what a proper gold anodized aluminum pickguard would look like on ice blue metallic, and its VERY cool, looks like a 1960s california speed shop modded my guitar, might put some tele knobs on it sometime.I also made another modification, I had a 65 reissue trem and bridge laying around, so I put them on it. In the old days, the lock button, trem

I purchased this guitar for my teenage son who has just started to play, so I wanted a budget guitar. The sound is really great and I'm very impressed with both the quality and aesthetics of the guitar. Delivery was efficient and within the estimated date of delivery, which having read other reviews I was expecting it to be later. The item was very well packaged and I was sent the tracking details for DHL and then for Parcelforce once the guitar had made it to the UK. I can recommend using this company based on my experience and this guitar.

Overall: I have been playing the epiphone les paul std for two and half years now,and started looking at semi hollows around five months ago! I did some research looked at reviews and then bought the am93 ays almost four months ago,and just love it! The body is bigger and its lighter then the les paul ,it rests real nice on the lap no strap is neaded.Pickups and tunners excellent !! I would say the neck shape is a (c ) standard! Not thin like a jackson or wizard 3 neck! With the string action low feels and plays very nice!! Flawless machine ! No sharp frets,no freting out, all notes are clear, fret boards nice and dark no gaps around the block inlays ! All smooth sealed and even. Amazing finish. Thanks to everyone at zZounds ! With the payment plan i was able to get this! im very happy and very much enjoy it

I understand this is a 99 USD guitar and you are doing your best to keep the price low to make it affordable to many but…two issues I have noticed from the get go. A minor issue is related to the frets edges which were sharp, I played it a bit to realize it had scratched my hand in a way that I'm still waiting for those scratches to heal, in the meantime I have used a file to smooth the edges, so that can be considered fixed, would be great if you could take care of smoothen it before shipping, the first impression is always the most important and believe me those edges impress, negatively. The major issue are the tuners, very low quality and don't keep the tune, in my particular case the G tuner didn't work as expected and most of the tuners are not precise at all, I bought the Grover 6-in-line mini rotomatics for 60 USD, I hope that'll fix it. FYI, I bought this to experiment with a GK-3 installation so I'm using it for my Frankenstein tests. Best regards.

I normally am apprehensive on any discount guitar simply because the "standard" is usually considerably more. And that in some ways still holds true. But if you want to play and you don't have hundreds to drop on an entry level guitar, this one exceeds expectations. Bought for my son to start learning and he loves it. He wanted a red Strat and being 6 I didn't want to buy a pricey unit to start. This was the cheapest guitar on the website and I am still smiling at the choice. It feels solid, neck allows for good fret progression and allows for smooth transition. One thing I am very impressed with is that it holds tuning. Very rare in this price point. It could use finishing touches like tightening screws on the pick ups and smoother fret wires, but nothing to deny it's value and favorable playability. For the price it still wins the day. If I had extra money I would try their Telecaster version for myself, that is how impressed I am. Keep improving the product, you're on the right track to introduce more people to music. Thank you Glarry for the better than expected guitar. You made my kids day.

It was exactly as I expected. The neck was smooth, frets were not sharp, the action was decent and easy to adjust, the guitar tuned up in a minute or two, and held tune pretty well. Overall I would say in its price range you are getting everything you could ask for. I am not going to say it's the best guitar ever made, but it's far from department store junk. The included "gig bag" is more of a dust cover than anything else but considering it's free it will do the job until you have a chance to get something nicer. The same can be said for the included strap, pick, and 1/4 cable. They will do just fine to get you started but should be replaced with nicer parts later. Overall the guitar alone is worth the price and mine came in quickly, and in excellent condition. If you are a beginner, or someone looking for an S-type mod platform then I think you found what you are looking for. I will certainly be coming back to Glarry for lower-priced guitars in the future.

First off, let me say that I wrote a review on this instrument when I first got it a couple of years ago, but I'm writing another review because now I what I'm talking talking about, unlike I did back then. That being said, this guitar is amazing! I own a Squier Stratocaster Standard and a Yamaha APX500II acoustic (I like cheaper guitars. They play better to me for some reason.) My Strat has a thinner and smoother neck, so I use it for the better feel. But for tone, this LP has got it in the bag! I told a friend I got a cheap Les Paul, and he asked "un-covered or covered pickups?" I said they were un-covered, and he was so happy. Granted, covered pickups look much better, but for tone, un-covered is the way to go. And humbuckers, no less! If I could choose between my Strat and this Les Paul, I would probably choose this Les Paul, as the tone and sound is unsurpassed by even the finest Gibsons. As for looks and feel, this not too bad. It has a thinner body than other Pauls, and a bolt-on neck makes it a little different, but it's fantastic. Also, the pictures on Musicians Friend hardly do it justice, as the guitar looks so much more beautiful in person (I have the heritage cherry sunburst.) I strung this bad boy up with a set of Ernie Ball Cobalt Series .10's, and it is unsurpassed by anything! A lot of people complain that the strap buttons are bad. Well… they are. But I had strap locks on this thing for a bit, and they were great, because they completley sovled the problem. I gave the locks to my church's bass player as a gift, and I bought a DiMarzio ClipLock strap earlier this year, and with the combination of this strap and the lighter weight of the guitar itself, this thing is very comfortable to play standing up. My only con; it has dot fret markers, not the block ones. But who really cares? It's the best Les Paul you can get for this price range, and it's even better than most in the $1,000's range. I would guarantee if you buy this, you will not be sorry!