Help me choose a guitar!

I've been playing for under a year and i just have an old hand-me-down gibson guitar... theres a few guitars i found that look decent (for my price range), and here they are....

Epiphone Basher Les Paul Special 2 Electric Guitar


Epiphone Les Paul Special II Electric Guitar


Epiphone SG-Special Electric Guitar


Epiphone Refurb Les Paul Special II Electric Guitar


B.C. Rich Bronze Series Warlock Electric Guitar


Fernandes Vertigo FX Electric Guitar

Fernandes Retrorocket X-1 Electric Guitar


would anyone knowledgable tell me which of those is the best buy, or suggest a different guitar that i could find for under $200?


[Edited by Lordathestrings on 09-01-2002 at 11:11 PM]

first of all, what kind of music do you play ? what bands do you like?
who do you want to sound like? do you need a floating tremolo syetem (Floyd Rose) , standard tremolo , or no tremolo (tun-o-matic bridge) ..
are you going to need a 24 frett neck? or will a 22 frett satisfy you?
what about the pickups, single coils or humbuckers?
what about the wood type? did you know that it doesn't only affects the weight of your guitar, but also affects the tone?

you should answer these questions first to choose the right guitar for you, because there is nothing called 'The Best Guitar'

I edited your post because long URLs can make a post into a monster three screens wide. Please take a couple of minutes to check out the tricks available to you with vB code. There's a hot link to the explanation above the page you get when you compose a post. There is also a hot link to a description of the Smilies that you can use to dress up your posts. Use the Preview Reply button to see how your post will look before you submit it. This will give you a chance to check your spelling, make sure the links are correct, and like that.

About your question: These guitars are all quite different from each other. What kind of music do you play? More important, what kind of music do you want to play??

yo lord.... thanks for editing my post... i know how to use vb and i was trying to do that, but it all condensed into one link lol... anyways, the type of music i play is mostly metal. Deftones, a little bit of SOAD, tool, some Lamb of God... and some rap tunes that i taught myself how to play... and sly...i only understood about a 3rd of your post. i dont mean to be a pain in the ass, but i really dont understand a lot of this cuz i'm new to all the guitar lingo.... but for what i could understand, i only need 22 frets, and how does the wood it affect the tone? and how does the tremolo/non tremolo and pickups affect it too?

[Edited by Razzia on 09-02-2002 at 12:45 AM]

There are enough questions there to elicit several pages of answers. Try using some kewords in the Search function at the top of the page. There are several discussions on things like wood, tremolo types, pickups, and sustain.

You may want to look again at the "Old Gibson". There are probably many who frequent this site who would kill for a vintage Gibson what ever model. You may want to explore your existing guitar further and remember, looks are not everything!!!

really? that sucks cuz my gibson isnt in great condition... i mean it plays fine, but it got all banged up when i moved, and there are chips all over the bottom of it as well as one or two next to the fingerboard

Since you play mostly metal , then your problem is almost solved..
you'll need a guitar with humbucker, that means to go away from the stratocaster single coil pickups type..

Don't bother yourself with the would type & that stuff now, i dont think it's going to be important for you..

Anyway, the tremolo does't affect the tone of the guitar..
the tremolo arm (bar) is the thing attached to some guitar at the bridge that you can shake to make exaggarated vibrato..

A standard tremolo (mostly found in stratocasters) has some limits that you you can't push or pull very far, and usualy goes out of tune if not used by an expert guitarist who knows how to strech his strings well..

A 'Floyd Rose' tremolo has a floating type bridge and a locking system at the nut, so that you can push as far as the bar goes to the neck, or pull till you break your strings...

My recomendation from the list you wrote , buy the 'B.C. Rich' because most of the B.C. Rich's are metal style guitars..
aslo think of epiphone since they have humbuckers too

wow... reading around on this board has really taught me A LOT... i've narrowed down my choices too... thanx