***The Official Guitar Thread***

Soldato
Joined
21 Apr 2003
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South North West
Can anyone suggest any good resources on Youtube for an absolute beginner?
I spent a lot of time looking through this guy's output https://www.youtube.com/user/TheGuitarNick https://www.guitarnick.com/ when I was starting to get serious about improving. His stuff runs from very basic indeed to pretty complex, but there's no real structure to it.

Depends how you want to learn. I just trawled through his many, many videos looking for stuff at my level that I wanted to play.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
29 Mar 2003
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Location
Stoke on Trent
Can anyone suggest any good resources on Youtube for an absolute beginner?

The paid version of Ultimate Guitar has proven to be really useful and I've been gigging for 51 years, always something new to learn.
Every song I've looked at, you are able to see a fretboard on the screen while it plays and they also have good videos on there.
 
Soldato
Joined
3 Oct 2010
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3,273
you bought an epiphone? (kidding)

it looks like a cracker. I love the finish. Gibson LP?
Gibson Les Paul Standard 50s.
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Soldato
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What do you guys think about buying a guitar online without playing it?

I've advised against this my whole life but find myself considering it as I need a new acoustic and obviously everything is shut. My local PMT are doing a collection only service.

Hmmm...
 
Soldato
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New? Fine so long as they let you return it. Check any set-up is part of their product description and not being classed as "customisation" which would affect your right to return it.
 
Soldato
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Yeah I'm conflicted. It will be from new.

I think the store will accept returns with a few caveats and will have a form of set up. I'm only looking at the 700-1k price range as just looking for something to do some recording and general noodling.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
29 Mar 2003
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56,811
Location
Stoke on Trent
Yeah I'm conflicted. It will be from new.

I think the store will accept returns with a few caveats and will have a form of set up. I'm only looking at the 700-1k price range as just looking for something to do some recording and general noodling.

Over the decades I've picked up many a fellow guitarists electric guitar and the majority play very well or brilliantly but I honestly can't think of one time when I've picked up an acoustic and thought the same (when I compare it to mine).
My Sound Engineer has got an old Guild and he put it in my hands saying "Play that" and it played like a wardrobe, it's on sale for £1800 :)
 
Soldato
Joined
22 Nov 2007
Posts
4,099
What do you guys think about buying a guitar online without playing it?

I've advised against this my whole life but find myself considering it as I need a new acoustic and obviously everything is shut. My local PMT are doing a collection only service.

Hmmm...

i did this with an esp, i had an ibanez starter guitar and from what i had read i knew it wouldn’t be that much different. The neck is a slightly different shape but i soon got used to that, i love it.
 
Soldato
Joined
14 Mar 2011
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5,421
I've bought a guitar online unseen before too, but especially with an electric you can usually (pre pandemic of course) at least go to your local guitar shop and try out guitars of the same or a similar enough model to convince yourself (e.g. in my case I bought a Fender Professional Strat, so I made sure I'd tried out some others with the same neck profile etc.) Everything after that is just setup which can be adjusted later
 
Soldato
Joined
23 Nov 2019
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3,307
I got my acoustic online from a dif store from where I tried one. I'd used the store before mind so trusted them, it came excellently set-up and secure in a hiscox flight case. Very happy bunny me. I also ordered a taylor (or at least was in the process of ordering) from a store, and cold-called in on the way home from a site visit one day to see guitar delivery in their cardboard boxes just heaped into a corner, tossed around etc. I walked out and opted not to proceed. If that's how they handle stock I did not want a £2.5k guitar from them! Did me a favour too as 6 months later the economy went to cack and I needed that money. I never will own a Taylor now I think, and that's ok, I'm not good enough to justify that kind of outlay!

FWIW I'll plug the place - express music in Coventry. I don't think OCuk do instruments so that's hopefully ok to mention. Mods if I've got that wrong apologies and feel free to snip that out.
 
Soldato
Joined
24 Nov 2006
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4,933
Got myself my first electric guitar, an Ibanez RG421-MOL and a little line 6 spider V mk2 amp to practice. I made the mistake (and was discouraged by my parents) of not going electric when all I wanted to play in my teens was rock lol. So at the grand age of 33 and armed with 4 or 5 chords I remember I'm trying to learn following on with the Justin Guitar stuff. It's nice to have the motivation and be able to practice in the evenings. Trying to build a firm base then go from there.
 
Soldato
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23 Nov 2019
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3,307
Good on you! It takes a while but suddenly it clicks and then it's so much fun. Persevere and practice practice practice. Be strict with yourself. Get it 100% right early on as bad technique is much harder to unlearn than good technique to learn from the start.
 
Soldato
Joined
21 Jan 2010
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3,529
Last guitar I bought was a Cuenca Model 10, which was a bargain at £40 and bought for my son as a starter guitar off ebay. Was told it played fine.

Doubtful as when I got it one of the tuners was bent and jammed solid. The strings looked as if they had been on there since Hendrix was a boy, too.

Ten minutes work with some pliers and a set of new strings it was all fixed.

If I was beginner, that would have been a major issue.
 
Associate
Joined
19 Jan 2012
Posts
22
Got myself my first electric guitar, an Ibanez RG421-MOL and a little line 6 spider V mk2 amp to practice. I made the mistake (and was discouraged by my parents) of not going electric when all I wanted to play in my teens was rock lol. So at the grand age of 33 and armed with 4 or 5 chords I remember I'm trying to learn following on with the Justin Guitar stuff. It's nice to have the motivation and be able to practice in the evenings. Trying to build a firm base then go from there.

I'm a similar age, and have owned an electric guitar for the last decade or so. Several times I've picked it up and managed to stick with it for a matter of weeks or months then lost interest never getting the chord changes up to speed. However, since the new year, I've given it another shot, and really actually starting to enjoy it now, and I can see real progress. Once you pass that boundary of getting the changes quick enough, playing along with the songs is great fun and really helps motivate you. Good luck with it, and definitely take your time trying to get a good solid foundation of the basics! Justin has done a great job with the new beginner course, good structure and pace and nice he's included some cool riffs this time :)
 
Soldato
Joined
14 Mar 2011
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5,421
Can anybody who is better versed in this stuff recommend me a decent (ideally free, but I could be persuaded) software side of a setup for recording? I'm currently unable to play through my amp properly (had a baby, gotta keep noise down) and so I'd been using the headphone-out on my Trio+ for some silent playing. But it sounds a bit crap and I would have thought I have the hardware to do something better only I have no idea what to do software wise!

I have a Focusrite Audio Scarlett interface (6i6) which I originally bought when the wife and I were mucking around with Youtube/Twitch but since that never went anywhere I now just use it to drive my microphone for gaming/chatting etc. But I have it hooked up to the line-out from my amp's attenuator which can drop the speaker volume down to zero, and also to the line-out of my wife's bass cab. So I have feeds of both bass and guitar going into the interface. I'm just not sure what to do after that? I'm aware it's meant to be possible to get some good plugins for DAWs and stuff that simulate cabs and other stuff but not really sure where to start... Any tips?
 
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