Recommendation: Good 3/4 electric guitars?

kennyabis

Have a Fender Japan ST57M for sale at the moment. Basically a strat but with a 7/8ths sized body, 24.75" scale neck, 40mm nut width

Philly_Q

kennyabis said:

Have a Fender Japan ST57M for sale at the moment. Basically a strat but with a 7/8ths sized body, 24.75" scale neck, 40mm nut width

That actually appeals to me (age 59), apart from the nut width.  1-5/8" is fine, but 40mm is really narrow.

kennyabis

Philly_Q said:

kennyabis said:

Have a Fender Japan ST57M for sale at the moment. Basically a strat but with a 7/8ths sized body, 24.75" scale neck, 40mm nut width

That actually appeals to me (age 59), apart from the nut width.  1-5/8" is fine, but 40mm is really narrow.

Its not that uncommon, Gibson have used narrower in some periods and a lot of Japanese strats and other mij guitars 

JonB

My daughter (now 10 but still tiny) has an Ibanez Gio Mikro. It's a really good guitar and plays well. From a kid viewpoint it's black, double horns and has shark tooth inlays so cool as. The one negative comment was that it wasn't green.

JonB

and maybe that's it. We look for the best guitars possible for us and our loved ones that meet our needs. But maybe the guitar the kid likes the look of the most is the best one. It's the one they'll play because they think it looks good.

crunchman

The 22" (or 22.75") scale guitars are a lot better then the 19" scale guitars.

The Harley Benton one is a lot cheaper than the Squier version and is probably just as good.

PhilKing

The Squier Classic Vibe Duo Sonics are great guitars, but the prices seem to have got ridiculous.  I paid $150 for mine about 10 years ago, but now they are looking for at least twice that.  It will last though.  My first real Fender when I was playing was a Musicmaster, and I was able to play all the songs in our cover band on 4/5 sets a night back in the 70's.  I finally traded it for a Strat, but really liked the Musicmaster.  They also have the advantage of being light guitars.

Ozzie744

robgilmo said:

I got my wee man (7) an Ibanez Gio 3/4 , its a fantastic guitar, it keeps tune (after a little nut work), it plays really really well and it doesnt sound too bad either.

This is what I came here to post. I have heard many good reviews about these Ibanez Mikros

robgilmo

Ozzie744 said:

robgilmo said:

I got my wee man (7) an Ibanez Gio 3/4 , its a fantastic guitar, it keeps tune (after a little nut work), it plays really really well and it doesnt sound too bad either.

This is what I came here to post. I have heard many good reviews about these Ibanez Mikros

I cant fault it, the satin neck is lovely, frets are spot on, it feels solid , action can go quite low and the hardware is very good quality. It was just the nut that let it down but Ive not bought a guitar yet that didnt need nut work doing. I need to get him a Pignose to bring to his guitar lessons at school after watching Crossroads!
I think on wee guitars a fairly open nut slot is required due to the low string tension other wise the strings just get caught up.
At the end of the day buy what your kid likes, it matters not what we think is a 'good' guitar or not, kids will like a guitar because it looks good to them, that matters because it will keep them interested enough to learn.

snowblind

My daughter has a Hello Kitty strat mini. I changed the tuners and gave it some decent strings and it's fine. For sure it won't be troubling a full-blown CS item any time soon but for a child it plays well enough so they don't lose interest or get bored fighting the instrument. Makes all the right strat noises too. I even gigged it once doing "Ballroom Blitz" just for a laugh but it held its own sound-wise. 

ICBM

crunchman said:

The 22" (or 22.75") scale guitars are a lot better then the 19" scale guitars.

I would avoid anything shorter than 22" at all - they're just too difficult to set up to play properly, even with much heavier strings - unless you go so heavy it's effectively the same as capo'ing a normal guitar, but that pretty much defeats the point for a young player.

And I say that as someone who used to gig with a 22.5"-scale '65 Fender Musicmaster!