Cheap "metal beginner" guitars are the open secret to great blues tone
You've most likely passed by these guitars a thousand times. You might want to give them a look after learning how great these things are.
Take the Ibanez GRX70QA. It comes in several colors. This guitar sells for cheap new, and it literally has everything blues guys want out of a guitar even though they don't realize it.
I'll explain.
Guys who play blues that use solid-body guitars will of course naturally gravitate towards Fender Stratocasters and Gibson Les Pauls. Those are the two models that the most famous electric guitar blues players use...
...but with both you're going to work three times as hard as you would compared to using the Ibanez above to get a genuinely good blues tone.
This is what happens with the Strat:
You're going to set the action low only to discover you buzz all over the place. The pickups won't be "hot" enough to get those sustaining notes you're looking for. You will always have a problem finding the correct treble amount for both chording and soloing. You most likely will accidentally hit the top volume knob because it's so close to the bridge side pickup.
This is what happens with the Les Paul:
Goes out of tune almost every time you bend a note. It doesn't matter how much you stretch your strings or lubricate that nut, because all the strings are on an angle after the nut to the tuning posts and there's nothing you can do about that. You wish you had two more pickup positions like the Strat has but you don't - especially a middle position for "smoother" chording and lead tones.
This is what happens on both guitars:
The guitar only sounds good when you play on certain parts of the neck but not all of the neck. You either have a good chording tone or good lead tone, but can never seem to dial in a sound that covers the whole neck - and you can't figure out why.
I know why.
Enter the cheap "metal beginner" guitar
Strats and Les Pauls use pickups with AlNiCo magnet pole pieces, but they can sometimes be finicky when trying to dial in an all-neck sound.
The cheap Ibanez uses pickups with ceramic magnets. It's not that they sound any better or worse than pickups with AlNiCo magnets. It's that they're a lot more forgiving and moreover predictable.
Ceramic magnet pickups are typically voiced "flat", and the response you'll get out of them is much more even across the entire neck across all the strings. Some players consider this "boring", but I can assure you that where blues tone is concerned, flat-voiced pickups are better because there are no surprises.
In addition, you're never wanting for a "hotter" sound. All the response you want will be there, so that's one less thing you have to worry about.
On top of that, with the HSH configuration, you get all the tones. Humbucker Les Paul tones and that sweet middle pickup Strat tone. It's all there.
The configuration of the guitar is simple. One volume, one tone, one pickup selector. That's all you need.
The guitar will stay in tune. All the strings go straight from the nut to the tuning posts.
Fingerboard radius is 12", just like a Les Paul - and it's something all Strat players want but can't get on standard models. Note bends don't fret out on a 12".
Absolutely no neck dive issues. Note that the top strap button is directly over the 12th fret. That is the proper position to balance the guitar on a strap when standing.
Volume knob is in easy reach and does not butt against the bridge pickup. You won't hit it by mistake during play as you would on a Strat.
Action can be set really, really low. Even lower than a Les Paul if you like. And you'll still be able to get the good note bends without fretting out.
Why don't more blues players buy these things?
Simply put, it's not a Strat or a Les Paul, that's why.
If an electric blues player were to design a solid-body guitar that had everything he wanted, it would have the following: Predictable pickups with good output, good tuning stability, simple controls, humbuckers and a single coil to cover all the sounds, a thin neck with a flat 12" radius for effortless choring and note bending, and a design that has no neck dive, and cheap to buy...
...which is the Ibanez GRX70QA.
The only fault of the guitar? It doesn't look like a blues machine. But it can handle the task easily.
You can't beat a Gretsch in gold
Gretsch definitely does gold better than anyone else.
One of these days I'm getting a Gretsch. And it might be the G5232T Electromatic Double Jet.
I've seen my fair share of gold guitars. While true I could go cheap (as in under-$200 cheap) and get an Oscar Schmidt OE20G, a gold Les Paul clone, that would work but the Gretsch just has more class to it.
I like the skinny headstock. I like the 24.6" scale, which is slightly shorter than a Les Paul 24.75" scale, making for a ridiculously easy-playing guitar. I like the thumb pad style fret inlays. I like the master volume is in the most useful place (towards the front) while at the same time the other volume and tone controls are behind the bridge and completely out of the way when strumming.
This guitar is just designed well.
Oh, and the gold is also color-matched on the headstock, and the back of the body and the back of the neck and headstock too. And the construction is neck-through. No bolt-on here.
Everything is done right all around. This is why I said one day I'll get a Gretsch.
It takes balls to play an Avocado color guitar
Are you up to the challenge?
Take the Reverend Double Agent in Avocado. This is obviously not a regular run color. But it surprisingly works well.
Here are the three reasons why this works:
First is something you won't notice immediately. There's a P90 pickup at the neck position. That soap bar shape pickup with its off-white color on this guitar in this finish looks great. Sounds great, too.
Second is the roasted maple neck. Were this just a natural color maple, it wouldn't work. But it's roasted darker, so now it does.
Third is something you probably also won't immediately notice. Telecaster-like controls. The chrome plate breaks up the look in a nice way. Without it, the body color would be too overbearing.
Now as far as the playability and sound of the instrument, Reverend knows how to build a guitar right. It's modernized but has enough traditional elements to it where yes, you can just pick it up and play it.
The only thing that may throw you off at first is that extra knob on the upper bout. That's the bass contour control, and it's a thing Reverend does. Some like the different tones you get from it while others don't. If you don't like it, just don't use it and you still have a great sounding guitar overall.
And where the neck feel is concerned, if you ever wondered what would happen if you took Fender and Gibson designs where you used the best from each and combined them into one neck, Reverend pretty much nailed that.
Lastly, Avocado is actually not the most daring color. If you're really looking for different, see the same guitar in Mulberry Mist with dark roasted maple.
Two future collectible guitars, Squier and Fender
One for cheap, one mid-priced, both awesome.
There are two axes I believe will be future collectibles just based on their colors.
First up is the cheap guitar, the Squier Bullet Strat hardtail in Tropical Turquoise. This is the same Bullet HT guitar you already know, but in a color that will absolutely stand the test of time.
Squiers have hits and misses with colors. One of them that absolutely doesn't work is the Mustang HH in blue. It just doesn't work. All you need to do is look at the Classic Vibe '60s in Sonic Blue to understand why. The Mustang doesn't take very well to darker colors...
...hence the reason why Tropical Turquoise is such a good choice. It's basically a Daphne Blue with a little green in it. Just a little. Very easy on the eyes and works very nicely with the dark fretboard.
Next up is the Player Stratocaster in Capri Orange. This is a guitar I'm 100% certain will appreciate in value once it goes out of production because you simply don't see orange Fender Strats with 1-piece maple necks that often.
Now to note, Capri Orange is absolutely not the same as Squier's Competition Orange. Squier's orange is loud. Fender's Capri Orange is lighter and more tangerine-like. "Softer", if you will.
Why am I 100% certain this Strat will appreciate in value? It's because I guarantee there are many, many guitar players out there too afraid to pull the trigger and get a Strat in this color. In just a year or two from now they'll all say the same thing. "I should have bought that guitar back when it was available new." You can say the same thing about the Squier. The turquoise color is good and suits the Strat very well.
And even if you're not the guitar collector type, both of these Strat just look cool. Why get a boring sunburst when you could get one of these?
The secret that country guitar players use for clean tone
Country guitar players have known this secret forever, but most blues, rock and metal players don't.
A word that guitarists use to value a guitar's tonal worth is sustain. Gotta have that sustain. Sustain for days. Sustain forever.
The old school way of getting the sustain-for-days sound out of an electric guitar is using a tube type guitar amplifier head cranked up to 11 and a set of speakers in an enclosure that sound right when pushed. The amp when cranked up and its tubes hot creates a natural compression. The loudspeakers when pushed in a big box (usually a 4x12) vibrates in such a way that "carries" the audio "further". The end result is, you guessed it, longer sustained notes and chords - even when playing completely clean with no overdrive or distortion at all.
There's a problem, however. You can't just crank an amp to 11 and blast out a 4x12 cabinet whenever you want. This will annoy neighbors, or worse yet destroy your guitar amplifier head. This can get rather expensive very quickly. Can't have that.
Something country players have known for many years is that the secret of clean electric guitar tone is...
Compression.
When the old school way of getting that compression proves to be too impractical (and it usually is), that's when you run out and buy a BOSS CS-3 pedal or the newer BOSS CP-1X. Or if you want to go the cheap route, there are plenty of others available.
Compression makes any electric guitar sound better when played clean
Yes, I said any electric guitar.
Whether you have a $150 Squier or a $3,500 Gibson, run that guitar through a compressor and you'll finally get that clean tone you were looking for.
Where should you place the compressor in your effects chain? First. You want the sustained note to be as clean as possible before any other effects are applied, and that's why you put a compressor as the first effect in the chain.
Will a compressor increase noise? Yes, but when played clean you should barely notice it. If the noise does bother you for whatever reason, there is a solution. Use a noise gate as the last pedal in your chain and that will allow you to keep your guitar's volume to 10 while at the same time shutting it up when you stop playing.
In the end, sure, we'd all like to crank a tube-type to 11 through a 4x12. But again, impractical. Get a compressor instead and your clean electric guitar tones will sing the way you want them to. It'll even sound great when playing direct, using guitar modeling and listening through ear buds!