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I don't know anything guitars, specifically a red one for an 8th birthday eldest child whose just started lessons. Where and what to buy recommendations please, cheap is good.
Electric I presume?
Cheap (as in cheapest you can get) is not necessarily a great way forward as the guitar is likely to be a horrible plank of wood that's not easy to play and put scruff jnr off!
What's the budget?
Custom shop strat and a 59 bassman 😆
No idea, lets say under £100.
If you're going to spend £100 then buy an acoustic. Or talk to his teacher and see what they recommend.
£100 on an amp and guitar will be the same as buying a £30 BSO from Asda.
go second hand. Get something light with thin neck. I like Telecasters for this. Cheap guitars can be heavy and crap and hard to play. Where about's are you? I've got a nice vintage Yamaha you can have for £80...
Amp wise, don't bother. Has he got a phone/ipad? Download an amp sim app, for about £12 you get all the amps/FX he could ever need and that way if he doesn't stick to it you're not stuck with a rubbish amp!
If you are buying from a shop, go to a good, small, independent shop. A well set up guitar makes all the difference. Think of it like a bike with gears that aren't set up. It'll work, but its no fun. Now think of perfect crisp shifting, and how good that feels... (unless you're single speed, in which case you're getting into the jazz world!)
thomann
they do bundles and their guitars are supposed to be quite good for the price, they do a 3/4 scale strat copy
have a nose round the local cash converter, you sometimes drop on bargain mini-amps and there are facebook groups selling stuff 2nd hand
definitely get the advice from the teacher first though
Guitars are a bit like bikes on the second hand market, but they devalue even less. So you could buy a nice squier classic strat (rrp ~£300) for £100 ish and it'll never really devalue. That's the smart way to do it if there's a chance you'll ever sell / upgrade.
I don't really know anything about kids, but do you really want to give an eight year old an electric guitar? Sounds noisy and tuneless to me, but maybe I'm wrong.
Guitars are ace.
Edit: I never considered the full size vs 3/4 thing. Hmmm
if you do see s/h squier, avoid the affinity ones (they have the word printed on the headstock at the curve) they are pretty poor, but the next one up in the range are ok
thinking about it, probably best to avoid 3/4 for resale reasons as long as your 9yo is big enough to handle a fullsize
Hes a tall 8yo, no idea what size he plays in lessons so I'll ask. He doesn't have a phone or Ipad. his lessons are on an electric one so thats what he wants.
£100 for guitar and amp means going right into the bargain basement. A lot of the £100-ish guitars are basically toys, you buy them in a sealed box and give them as a christmas prsent and by february they're gathering dust, it's a shame- a little bit more gets a lot of result. They're not quite Guitar Shaped Objects but they're not usually good. £150 generally buys you a hell of a lot more than £100.
Squier Bullet is one of the reliable classics, they're not brilliant but at least they tend to be built right- there's a huge difference with guitars, it's not just the parts but also assembly, good parts put together or set up badly make a terrible guitar, cheap parts assembled well make a decent guitar. The Squiers at least have decent QC etc. Stagg make a lot of 3/4s and I used to do shop QC on them, practically none were fit to sell out of the box and quite a lot were just junk. With mail order or box shifter shops, that junk was ending up in kids' hands, putting them off or needing £50 worth of setup and repair to make them work.
I'm like 15 years out of date now but 3/4s used to be great sellers/resellers for the same reason anything else for growing people is- kids get them and then grow out of them, so there was a constant trade in quality ones.
What's he into? ESP do some brilliant 3/4s, they're out of your budget new but if he's a rocker they're absolutely the business. There's a Kirk Hammett signature kid's guitar, that's genius.
Ibanez Jumpstart is a decent boxed set, at £150. Comes with a basic case too, that's a bonus if he's doing lessons.
Is there a better practice amp out there now than the roland cubes? They turned things upside down when they came out. And then PC modelling did it again, suddenly you don't need an amp at all.
Ehhhh... I'm not totally sure but I might still have a nearly new little practice amp in the house. It's not very good but it'd be free, or the cost of postage, if I can find it. If you're interested, nah me about this, I will forget.
Might be a combined birthday and Christmas pressie then. His favourite music track is currently Apache by Sugarhill Gang 😀
The Epiphone Slash AFD package is pretty decent. Thinner and lighter than a full on Les Paul and plays nicely too. No idea about the amp but he's 8 and won't know either way!
See if you can get hold of a fender mustang 1 practice amp, absolutely fantastic amps. Like most have said £100 isn't really a lot for what your looking for.
You could do a lot worse than one of these
http://www.gear4music.com/Guitar-and-Bass/Squier-by-Fender-Affinity-Stratocaster-Pack-with-10w-Amp-Sunburst/L80
They also come in red, my niece got one (in red) when she was around the same age. The guitar is still going strong today 5 years later.
What I will say is , from experience Don't get an acoustic unless he wants one.
He uses a full size yamaha at lessons.
Well in that case... Nobody in the history of hte world has ever regretted buying a Yammy Pacifica 112.
Something like this
I've a Roland micro cube as a wee house amp, it's brilliant and really versatile. I've wired it so I can run it through a 4x12 cabinet too 🙂
I got my son (he was 8 at the time) an Ibanez Gio Mikro. The neck is great with a lovely action. The finish is spot on and the hardware decent quality. This guitar will noodle with the best of them. On the minus side the pick ups are a bit of a disappointment but with a decent overdrive pedal he'll never tell! You can always upgrade the pickups that would make this a great all rounder and one you could all use. The pick up selector switch is also a bit shoddy but easily fixed. For the money it's unbeatable really.
Look on youtube for some reviews it really is a belter for the money!
Don't go cheap or you'll put him off playing.
For an 8 yr old taking electric lessons then a Yamaha Pacifica everytime.
His favourite music track is currently Apache by Sugarhill Gang
Jump on it! 😀
Nobody in the history of the world has ever regretted buying a Yammy Pacifica 112.
This is the correct answer.
I've got a black Yamaha 121 (HB/SC/HB) and 15w Gould practice amp spare here if they're any use. I've just bought myself an Epiphone SG and a Peavey Bandit 112 😀
Squier Telecaster or Strat (classic vibe if you have the cash) and a Fender Mustang amp. I've got a Thomann guitar, an [url=
Tele copy[/url]. It plays great - having filed the nut (nut files cost lots) filed the uneven frets, changed the saddles and adjusted the truss rod. My classic vibe played fine from new.
And here's my son on what I reckoned was the best playing and sounding combination when he started playing electric.[url=
vibe Tele with a Mustang 2 amp.[/url] Everything from blues to metal so long as you don't want a tremolo bar.
Is the Yamaha 112 full size? Would it be too big for a tall 7 year old?
He ended up with a full size yamaha something, 2nd hand off a friends daughter. Buy an amp with output for headphones 💡
Thanks Scruff. I'll see what I can find.
Don't know what your budget is, but there's some great mini practice amps with bucket loads of effects to keep the youngsters happy these days
some examples..
Although for proper cool points, get jnr a mini Marshall stack - cool as, sound great for the size and have that essential headphone socket! Come up regularly on fleabay too.
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Daughter (10) just got her first electric after a year of lessons with acoustic. She spoke with her guitar tutor who suggested the Yamaha Pacifica and then went off to Andertons to give it a try...she tried some 3/4 size guitars but they seemed quite small and she was perfectly happy on the full size. We ended up with the Pacifica 112J with a awesome little Marshall MG10CF amp 😀