HellCell

Advice taken.

Though upon some research, I feel that I need an amp. I don't want to find myself playing something only to realize that it sounds completely different with an amp and I got to relearn it.

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Guybrush

If I were to buy a cheap guitar and I felt like this was something I was going to stick with, I'd probably consider looking for a used Squier stratocaster or an Epiphone Les Paul. I actually have a heavily modded Epiphone Les Paul Custom and when it comes to ease of playing, it's the best guitar I have.

This is just what I'd do. A stratocaster is the essential electric guitar played by artists like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Dave Gilmour or Mark Knopfler. They are made by the company Fender and are relatively expensive, but Fender also owns the company Squier which makes cheaper versions of strats and telecasters.

There's a similar story with the Les Paul, another of the guitar worlds most famous guitar models played by guys like Slash and Jimmy Page. Les Pauls are made by the company Gibson and are quite expensive, but Gibson also bought up their competitor Epiphone and now Epiphone churn out less expensive versions of the les paul.

Many other companies make knock-off versions of these classic guitars too, but if you get a Squier or an Epiphone, at least it has some tie to the real lineage

edit :

Amps are also expensive, so if money were an issue, I'd just get a practice amp like a Fender Mustang or something.

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Something Completely Different

HellCell

So I went to a guitar center today and as I was browsing through I saw a bunch of guitars which seem fundamentally the same except the prices and brands. $80-$500.

I was a bit afraid to ask anyone there in fear of sounding stupid, but I have no idea what's with the price range?

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Frownland

Some of it comes with the name, some are designed from better materials, and there are a lot of nuances that are different between guitars that you may not notice makes one better than the other even if you've been playing for years. Pick what sounds (and looks, if you're concerned about that) good for you and don't buy a $700 guitar just because of the price tag.

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

EPOCH6

A lot of what makes a guitar great isn't immediately apparent when standing in front of it. It has a lot to do with build quality / materials, neck / body finish, hardware / parts quality, and inner electronics / pickups. The hard part about shopping for a beginner is that you may not know exactly what to look for when playing it.

Pay attention to how easily your hand moves along the neck, neck finish is very important for ease of use, you don't want a lot of friction or the feeling that your hand is resisting movement. Pay attention to how high or low the strings are above the fret board (this is called action), this also plays a big role in ease of use (although it can be adjusted after buying), most players prefer low action, having the strings as close to the fret board as you can without them buzzing when picked. Pay attention to the weight and how it fits on your body, you don't want to feel uncomfortable after playing for extended periods of time. It's hard to gauge tuner quality without spending a good amount of time playing the instrument but that's something you can ask the staff, ask which models seem to stay in tune the best.

As for electronics, it's hard for a beginner to decipher which guitars produce the best tone, but regardless, take any guitar you're considering buying and ask the staff to help you run it through a classic amplifier like a Fender Twin Reverb or something else reasonably high end, they'll tweak the amp settings for you if you don't want to. Use the pickup selector switch to hear the different tones the guitar can make, moving the switch towards the neck usually produces a warmer / jazzier sound, towards the bridge produces a brighter, clearer, and twangier sound. The tone knob controls the gradient between these extremes, allowing for a finer adjustment of tone.

If you don't want to play in public yet ask one of the guitar salesman if they'd be able to demo the instrument for you, most guitar salesman play guitar and would probably jump at the opportunity to jam at work.

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Chula Vista

When it comes to large brands like Fender, Squire, Epiphone, Ibanez, etc. your best bet is to choose the model you want and then play as many examples of it as possible. Those guys crank out hundreds of guitars a day and there's going to be some very happy accidents along the way. The right combo of wood weights, alignment, setup, etc.

One of the best strats I ever owned was a $300 Made in Mexico model that I hadn't planned on buying but just happened to pick up and mess around on. That guitar was as good if not better than a lot of much higher priced Made in USA ones I'd played.

That's one advantage of Guitar Center (and they don't have many) is that they'll usually have a couple dozen of any one model for you to try out.

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“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Ashwell John

For learning I appointed a teacher. And after 2 months of trying hard I gain this. LOL!