Help me with some equipment questions

[fjr11]

Ok,

I started playing an electric about 6 months ago. I've gotten pretty decent. My equipment is very basic, however. I have a sledgehammer electric and an amp I got for about 100 bucks. The only feature my amp has is gain.

To give you an idea of what I'm trying to do: I like to play Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, AcDC, and some others. Some of my favorite songs are Stairway to Heaven, The Turning Away, thunderstruck, and Metalica's unforgiven, Claptons original Layla.

What kind of gear should I have to do this kind of stuff. A more sophisticated amp? Some kind of pedal, (a better guitar?!).

Thanks,

fjr11

[stratman42]

Thats the kinda stuff i like to play. At present i dont have a pedal, but i use a Fender Mexico Strat and a Marshall
VS30 amp. This is incredibly good at a reasonable price for that kinda stuff. I don't think they do the 30W Valvestates anymore tho, i think 25W is how they come these days. So get one of them definitely. As for the guitar, its up to you, but i can certainly tell the huge quality advantage on mine over my friends'...

[PonyOne]

I'm buying a new guitar and since I'm lefty on a tight budget I looked at a couple Mexiacn strats; I think Fender may have downed their quality in the last two years. The things were set up like crap and didn't have "that feeling" you should get when you pick one up.
Disappointing, especially since they used to feel so nice.

I'd follow stratman in that your best bet on a budget is something that's Strat-like, if not actually a real strat. They offer the most versatility, all things considered.

I play more hard-edged rock, some AC/DC-ish stuff but more stuff along the lines of Tool, Deftones, Failure, Refused, etc. For those applications it's best to have something with a humbucker; I'll assume you know the differences between the basic pickup types and all that, but I will say that the high output allows for more chunk and grind when you use some distortion.

I'm a fan of the Kramer Focus guitars ($80, at musicyo.com). Some people hate them because they aren't REAL Kramers, or they're made by Gibson, or whatever, but if you actually play one of them you realize how good they actually are, especially considering the low price. They have a version called the Fatboy (I think it's like $100), which has a humbucker in the bridge position; I'd recommend that, since it's a good guitar, and you get the versatility of the humbucker plus two single coils.

You can also buy humbuckers that are the same size as single coils, if you'd rather save the $20.

As far as amps go, I like Vox amps, any type, any price. Great tone, very durable. I've never been a Marshall nut but I think I'm in the minority there. Whatever you do don't get a Crate unless you're buying one of the costlier models, they're not powerful enough and lack the meaty tone of other

For pedals, a good distortion that would fit the tone it sounds like you're going for would be the Boss DS1. Boss pedals are costly, but they're worth it, and you can find used DS1's around for really cheap, like $30-$40. I use an MT2 Metal Zone, which is really good for serious tear-your-face-off rocking, but can be too much for some.

[stratman42]

I myself am planning on getting a Kramer Striker soon.

[PonyOne]

I'll let you know how it plays when I get it. I've talked to a few people who've tried them or have them and they've all liked the action, weight, tone, etc. so it seems like a good bet.

[educatedfilm]

Hey Pony, I'm pretty much in the same boat your in at the minute... I'm Lefty and really just on a shoe string budget, but I want something semi-acoustic and with a warm tone (so most likley something with humbuckers), but I dont have too much at all... I mean I'm putting £250 ($362.5) into building my own guitar and upgrading parts on my old one, and then about £100 ($145) on an effects box, and then what I got left on an electric (about £150 ($217)).... I was actaully thinking of a 12-string maybe, but that would just be a bonus... This is over the next year by the way, before you get the impression that I've actaully got much money...
Any Ideas?

[PonyOne]

I've got a 12-string that started life as a righty; it's a 1967 Aria Diamond that was one of the first the company shipped to the US to use as a demo. It's been played by a lot of celebs and such, pretty cool history.
When I got it, the previous owner had destroyed the electronics, basically he'd used it as a guitarsmithing experiment, but sadly the experiment went awry and the guitar ended up in a state of relative destruction for over a decade.
When I found her sitting in the corner of Daddy's Junky Music in downtown Boston, I felt like I'd gone to throw my Coke bottle in a dumpster and found a naked, dirty supermodel next to it; it was in a place it didn't belong, it was neglected and forgotten, but under all that disrepair, was a beautiful creation that was mine to keep if I could get it back to the way things were.
My girlfriend told me to shut up and just buy the damn thing. It was $125 and I helped the clerk move a pair of Marshall stacks so he gave me his discount; I paid $100, no tax.
I took it in and got the thing rewired with gold plated wiring and the switch redone with gold connectors (for that warm tone), the neck straightened (a worse bow never existed), Waverly 6-in-a-row classical tuners, pickups rewound, everything flipped lefty, and two of the four knobs I had unwired so that I wouldn't bump them when playing.
It looks like a Gibson ES with SG horns and a sculpted tailpiece, and it plays like an acoustic. The P90's are really nice and have period-centric covers.

You could look for a used righty, sometimes they go for less than their 6-string equivilants, since many guitarists disdain them nowadays. Then you just flip as per normal guitar.

The other option is buying a lefty of some type and getting some 12-string parts. First and foremost a neck (best purchased from Warmoth), then you just need a bridge, like this http://www.stewmac.com/cgi-bin/hazel.cgi?client=68775021&action=SERVE&ITEM=catalog/p.html&A=%2BNAME_LINK%3DTwelve-String_Bridge_For_Electric_Guitar and you can carve the nut yourself. I know this is more costly than you wanted, but if you get one of those Kramer Focus', or any other lefty that's cheap, you'll cut some costs.

As far as lefty hollowbodies go... the cheapest ones I've seen are by either Kramer, Jay Turser or another lower- or mid-end company, and they tend to be at least 250. Every now and then Epiphone releases some lefty Dot's, which is cool, they run for around 350 and are generally higher wuality than their competitors.

If you mean you want a lefty acoustic that you can play over an amp, then all you need to do is buy a lefty acoustic (i'm not an expert on acoustic makes, but my Yamaha FS310 works fine for me) and then a preamp. It has to be installed, and that means cutting into the guitar and doing some wiring, which you can probably do if you're making your own instrument.
The other way you can get that warm, strummy acousic sound is by getting a piezo for your electric. Fishman makes a really good one called the Power Bridge, available in Tele, Strat (trem and non) and I'm pretty sure Floyd Rose versions. It can be switched off, or can be used without the magnetic pickups or you can blend the piezo and magnetics together. It's not the same, but it achieves its means.

Hope this helps some.

[educatedfilm]

Thank you SOOOOO much... that's seriously helpful... I'm gonna keep asking you stuff (You've only got your self to blame...hehehehe)
Thank you again...:)

[Flinty]

One thing you might want to keep in mind while shopping for a new guitar is versatilitly. For this reason I'd recommend something with humbuckers (with 4 conductor wiring) or humbucker/single coil combination. I have an SG that I've added a pull volume pot to switch between serial and parrallel coil configurations which lends itself well to anything from the Doobies to Van Halen.

I would definately recommend look at some Godin guitars. I just recently added their Solidac model to my collection. Lots of bang for the buck. As for amps, I've had Fenders, Peavey's, a Crate and Acoustic. None of them could hold a candle to the Marshall vs-65 I'm using now.

[Szabolcs]

Hi,

I read what you posted and I know the situation you are in. Well, If you want to be in a band you will have to get new gear such as... every thing. I'm sorry if I am being rude but please consider it honesty.
Anyway, If you don't plan on being in a band your gear should be sufficient. All of your influences that you mentioned have unique tones. Your gear needs to be "dialed in" as they say. Somehow I can't believe your amp does not have an E.Q. section on the control panel. You know, Bass, Midrange, and Treble. Well, If your amp doesn't have that... get one that does.
Once you dialed in your amp's E.Q., The next thing is knowing the pick up selector on your guitar. A guitar w/ one pick up doesn't have a selector. Two pick up in your guitar means your selector switch is a three way switch. If you have three pick ups in your guitar, then you have a five way switch. Play with the switch to find out which way turns on which pick up.
As a rule of thumb, the P.U. by the neck (the neck pick up)
is more bassy than the P.U. by the bridge(the bridge pick up). The bridge pick up is used for solos and twang in your tone. The neck pick up is more of a rhythm tone. If you have a third P.U. in between these two that I mentioned , don't worry about it. The middle pick up is kind of pointless in my eyes. But, to each his own.
Industry standards for Rock are (but not limited to)two guitars. The Fender Stratocaster which has three P.U.s and the Gibson Les Paul which has two P.U.s . I know that David Gilmour uses a Fender "Strat".He uses the neck pick up a lot for his clean tone and then switches to the bridge P.U. for leads. Strats are known to have a more brilliant sound. The Jimmy Page sound is definitely a Gibson Les Paul model guitar. It has two pick ups. The Les Paul is a very good guitar. And, you will pay alot to get one. It's characterized by a meaty, fat sound.
You know I seem to be rambling on now so if you want to know more about what gear a certain artist has go to www.guitargeek.com . I like radiohead a lot and couldn't figure out how he got this sound so I went to this site typed in Johnny Greenwood and found out he was using a "Whammy" pedal. I could probably help you further so if your interested just reply to me.
- guitarist for Twin Dynamo,
Szabolcs Szafko
P.S.: Check out www.twindynamo.com

[stratman42]

I turn the tone down on my mid p/u, and that way it comes in handy for intros and rhythm parts.

[PonyOne]

When use 3 pickup guitars I tend to use the middle in conjunction with the neck or bridge, especially if the pickups are non-hum cancelling. On its own it doesn't have the merits of the other two pickups to make it worth using.