Advice for Guitar for Son

[def90]

Guitar Center.

Been playing guitar since 1983.. I could go on for hours on the subject but as far as your needs are concerned here is my super basic response:

For electrics anything in the $800 range is going to be a very good guitar, you can even get really good guitars in the $400 to $800 range, it's amazing what they make and sell these days, guitars are one of the few items out there where quality has gone up and price has gone down. Ibanez makes a solid guitar at a great price point as well as ESP which now goes by the label of LTD, I would stay away from cheap (sub $1000) Fenders or Gibsons. Charvel would be the cream of the crop. Spending more than $1500 on an electric is wasting your money unless it's a collector Fender or Gibson.

On the acoustic side once again Ibanez makes a great acoustic for the $$ as well as Taylor and Takamine. Ovations are ok.. You should be able to get a decent acoustic for around $700, acoustic guitars are where you will likely spend more money than an electric. Martin acoustic guitars are awesome and what most people eventually move to that have played for a long time but other than the tonal qualities it may have will play no different than an Ibanez or Taylor.

There are a lot of used guitars available on craigslist, just need to know what you are looking at to determine if it's a good deal or not. but honestly guitars are so cheap these days I would just buy new if your kid is really interested in playing long term.

Once you buy a guitar and your kid continues on with it it is worth it to take it to a respectable guitar repair shop and have it set up correctly, it will be close out of the box but it won't be what it could be, they crank those things out and get them about 80% there and say that's good enough. What this is is they dress the frets, properly adjust the neck and the string height, this will make a worl of difference when playing it.

If you buy a cheap guitar it is going to play like shit and will not be an enjoyable experience for your kid.