Electric Guitar and Amp £54.51 inc postage

Man-Alive

I followed a link on the page linked above & found this Black Guitar for only £49.95, slightly cheaper than the Blue one but it seems to be the same spec!

tcall

The blue one was on the special £49.99 deal this morning, but they changed it to the black one when i was half way through ordering.
Good thing too, cos I prefer the black one

salthegal

yup today they've changed the deal to the black one, I've saved a tenner! ROCK ON!

jediross

Great spot, just edited my order from yesterday, saved a tenner, so added in a guitar stand!!

Cousin_Hilda

:mad: Hey, this looks like a great offer but be very wary of ebuyer! We spent loads with them over the years and then we had a problem - we didn't receive one item in our order. They're incredibly unhelpful - they basically called us liars and said they'd be contacting the police! That was when we eventually managed to get a reply - it's almost impossible to get an answer on the phone and they don't answer their e-notes. :mad: Thankfully we'd paid by credit card and all credit to Capital One - they sorted it out for us with no hassle! :j
I don't usually do forums but I'm so mad with ebuyer and if I can stop anyone else having similar problems then great! They appear cheap and if you don't have to contact them then it's ok but heaven help you if you have problems!By the way, I hear they're being investigated by Trading Standards :T

salthegal

With the tenner I saved I also bought the compact guitar stand they have on the site now, will save the thing falling over and getting trodden on. Also noticed they have a QT guitar tuner on there now.

So my guitar purchases to date include:

Black Guitar Package- ebuyer
Guitar Stand - ebuyer
Qwik Tune Tuner - ebay
Ernie Ball 'Super Slinkly' guitar strings - ebay
Fender Presents: Getting Started On Electric Guitar DVD- Amazon
Total Rock Guitar: A Complete Guide to Learning Rock Guitar with CD Book -Amazon
The Ultimate Rock Guitar Scale Finder Book - Amazon

I rekon that puts me in a good stead to start learning, all I need now is a couple of hours a day and 20 years and ill be the eric clapton of mse! :rotfl:

Man-Alive

Cousin_Hilda wrote:

:mad: Hey, this looks like a great offer but be very wary of ebuyer!

Well I will have to keep my fingers crossed just ordered one of those black guitars to give as a birthday pressie to my girlfriend.

bartman

salthegal wrote:

With the tenner I saved I also bought the compact guitar stand they have on the site now, will save the thing falling over and getting trodden on. Also noticed they have a QT guitar tuner on there now.

So my guitar purchases to date include:

Black Guitar Package- ebuyer
Guitar Stand - ebuyer
Qwik Tune Tuner - ebay
Ernie Ball 'Super Slinkly' guitar strings - ebay
Fender Presents: Getting Started On Electric Guitar DVD- Amazon
Total Rock Guitar: A Complete Guide to Learning Rock Guitar with CD Book -Amazon
The Ultimate Rock Guitar Scale Finder Book - Amazon

I rekon that puts me in a good stead to start learning, all I need now is a couple of hours a day and 20 years and ill be the eric clapton of mse! :rotfl:

I think I'm gonna have to get a Clapton "Blackie" now they're reduced!
They don't have a pic of the guitar stand though - all I get is a pic of an accoustic guitar! Does anybody know what type of stand they supply?

Chaeros

Great offer - really cheap guitar - that is of course unless you happen to live in Northern Ireland in which case - add £20 onto the cost of postage straight off.

Ridiculous! Having sold quite heavy items on eBay and paid for postage to "Mainland UK" there is NOT a £20 difference in shipping costs - in fact the difference in minimal.

So eBuyers are perpetuating the myth that it is a lot more expensive to send things to NI from Mainland and vice versa.

Shame I was looking forward to hanging up the air guitar and playing a real one!

bladesuk1

as a guitarist of around about a decade or so, i'm always wary of cheap little strat copies as starter guitars.

there's a school of thought that suggests starting with a nylon-string classical guitar is probably the best route forward. aside from anything else, the nylon strings are softer and less painful to play when your fingers aren't accustomed to steel strings (think cheese wire and you're not far wrong).

another reason for starting on the nylon is that it's quite a picky instrument -you really have to learn to press on the strings properly or it just doesn't sound good. this means that if you can make one of them sound good, you'll be able to make any guitar sound good. incidentally, this is just about the only way you can ease the pain on your fingers as a beginner. in theory, you could change the strings for something thicker, but that'll make them harder to press down, so it's six of one, really.

personally, i don't think it matter all that much - if you want to play electric, get one, and see how you get on. i started on nylon, though, and do recommend that approach to anyone who asks. aside from anything else, you can pick up a cheap second hand nylon guitar for about £20 to see how you get on with it - much cheaper way to start!

my very first electric was a cheap strat copy, but i'll be honest with you, i got rid of it very, very quickly. the pickups are single-coils, which basically means that they'll pick up radio interference from anything and everything - tvs, hairdryers, monitors, you name it. the way around that is a different type of pickup known as a humbucker, which looks like two single coils right next to one another. it also played like a bag of spanners - the neck was cheap, the fretboard poor quality, the frets themselves were out and buzzy, and when i took it to a guitar shop to have it set up, i was told it would cost more for the setup than the guitar was worth. in fact, my guitar teacher at the time made a huge point of telling my parents how much my current guitar was limiting me and my playing. in the end, i picked up a second-hand washburn for around £120, and that blew away the cheap strat completely.

to be fair, once you get to a point where you can play to a reasonable level, you'll have a better idea of the type of thing you like, and at that stage you'll be looking to spend somewhere in the region of £300-ish for a decent 'entry level' electric guitar. the likes of epiphone, squier, maverick, ibanez, yamaha and so on are all worth looking at.

i'd be very hesitant to recommend or slam a guitar without playing it, though - for all i know, this could be the exception to the rule that 'cheap guitars aren't worth touching'. what i can recommend, though, which is admittedly more expensive, are these packages:

http://www.guitarampkeyboard.com/p.php?n=97

(well, aside from the behringer or ion packages - i've not played those, although i do have a fantastic behringer amp, so i wouldn't assume the worst). i've played on all of those guitars, and they've all been reasonable learner guitars. the marshall played like an ibanez, which is no bad thing, and is probably my favourite out of those. i'd probably take the yamaha after that - a very close second, and a lovely guitar.

to be fair, you could probably get those packages cheaper elsewhere, but i was really only looking to give you an idea of what to look for. the more expensive ones are worth the extra cash, though - if you don't believe me, once you've got about 6-12 months playing experience, go to a guitar shop, and ask to try a gibson les paul or an ibanez or (if they'll let you) a prs. it's a world of difference. saying that, the gulf from around £600-£1000 isn't as noticable as the £50-£300 gap.

generally, the guitar is less important to a good sound than the amp you play it through. if you get one of these packages, and you're happy enough with the guitar, upgrade the amp first to something with at least 30W or 40W of power. don't, whatever you do, plug your guitar into your soundcard as the impedances are completely wrong, and you could fry the card and/or your speakers. you need a specific bit of kit for that, or a high end guitar-oriented soundcard. oh, and as far as plectrums go, get one that you like the feel of. try loads of them, see what works. for the fast widdly stuff, you'll need something that doesn't bend - say 2.0mm - but if all you do is acoustic strumming, something thinner might work better for you. my take is that you can strum with a thicker plectrum, but you can't do the rapidfire picking with a thin, bendy plectrum, so i use a thick one.

lastly, when it comes to strings, there are a few things to remember. firstly, the thicker the strings you use, the better your guitar will sound - more metal means more current through the pickup, which means a better tone. however, cheap guitars won't be able to deal with the added tension of thicker strings. thicker strings will also mean you need to set the guitar up again, though, as all of the intonation and the action will be out. one way to compensate for thicker strings is to tune lower - i tend to use 10-52 guage strings, and tune to e-flat. sounds heavier - think green day, alice in chains). change them every month or so (assuming an hour's play a day, they'll be sounding duller by that point - maybe more, depending how heavy-handed you are, and how sweaty your hands are because the sweat will corrode them). you can get coated strings, but i've not found them worth the extra because the coatings affect the sound. it's also worth considering a 'hybrid' string set - thicker strings for the bass three strings, but thinner ones for the treble three. makes it easier to play the widdly stuff on the top three strings, and makes the heavy rhythm on the lower three sound better. they don't cost any more. lastly, once you've found a setup you like, stick with it - i've been using 10-52 (hybrid) strings for years (rotosound-yellow packet) and they're fantastic *for me*. find out what you like - play as many different guitars as you can through as many different amps as you can, and keep asking about how they're set up, what string guages they've used, that kind of thing. play on your friend's equipment. read the magazines for gear reviews. but, mainly, just go with what feels right to you.

if anyone wants to talk more about any of this, feel free to send me an email (i think it can be done through the site?) or ask more questions. i love talking about my toys :rotfl: