What's the cheapest gigable guitar (let's say for a covers band) that you'd be happy with?

SquireJapan

The challenge is that it can't be modified - you can have it set up, but you can't change hardware or pickups.

I've had bad times with Squire pickups live, as they've had horrible microphonic feedback. I guess you could pot them ... I dunno

I've not played it, but this fixed bridge RG looks like a good call at £160. No trem, so half decent tuning.

xmrchi

Great question, 

Whats the max budget? 

John_P

I had a peavy raptor stratish guitar that cost peanuts and played very nicely.     I've got an lop musicman style cheapy that I've gigged.    Neither of them come close to my expensive guitars but they were perfectly useable.   

Theses days all of the well known brands make decent cheap guitars - kids today are in a way better position with starter models than the olden days.

DrJazzTap

Pacifica £40-50

usedtobe

mrchi;666582" said:

Great question, Whats the max budget? 

One of us is misreading the question, I think.

Jeremiah

new or used?

Maynehead

The cheapest guitar I've gigged with is an LTD KH-202, which I bought new for around £400. I did try with a Pacifica 112 at rehearsal but the pickups sounded pretty bad, bad enough that I wouldn't gig it.

bigjon

Squire Affinity Tele - the pickups sounded a bit weedy but they didn't give me any problems as such.

I gigged my Axe catalogue guitar bought s/h for £35 (£84 new for the package) extensively for 4 years in the early nineties as my main guitar, then for 10 years as my backup.

http://i1136.photobucket.com/albums/n498/bigjon1684/JIM1991.jpg

Fuzzdog

Used to gig with an Ibanez SA160 for a while - cost me £60 used, and that thing played superbly, stayed in tune, and even sounded reasonable before I swapped the pickups out.

Only bought it as a backup for my more expensive things, ended up using it pretty much all the time as it felt great!

monquixote

I have gigged a Classic Vibe, but the "No mods" rule, rules it out for me. It played and sounded good, but it fell to bits under heavy use and required a rewire, new jack socket and switch to be usable.

Cheapest thing I can think of is the G&L Tributes which I think are meant to be pretty reasonable.

EricTheWeary

My guitars are fairly cheap to begin with !
I saw Bernie Torme using a Vintage brand strat for part of a gig and Midge Ure gigs with a Vintage brand Lester style.
The Encore range ( the range down from Vintage) are seen with a lot of very good African guitarists.
So, err, however much a used Vintage strat goes for would be ok for me.

Oh, couple of years ago my band did a support to a band whose guitarist turned up with a Pro Jr, an old Westone and a carrier bag with leads and a tuner in it. He was pretty good.

DrBob

I reckon I'd gig a PRS SE no dramas. Pick one of the really unfashionable ones like the Billy Martin sig & you could get that for sub £200 used.

Hertz32

£350 is my favorite figure to work with for these things. You can get reasonable value new, and some really really nice stuff used.
Certainly Mex strats, Tokai Les pauls, nice Ibanez's (my most used guitar is my Ibanez 7, which was £309 new)

IanSavage

Predictable response, but I endorse Vintage because they're genuinely giggable out of the box and amazing for what they cost - on six-string I know that Paul from the Quireboys uses one of the Icon Tele-types live and I've never needed more than my VJ74 on four-string. You'd get change from £250 for either buying new, not much more than half that secondhand. 

Philly_Q

I'm not a gigable guitarist, but if I had the necessary skills I'd happily use my £350 Japanese Epiphone Les Paul Junior.  The pickup's its weakest link but everything else about it is absolutely fine.

Modellista

DrBob said:

I reckon I'd gig a PRS SE no dramas. Pick one of the really unfashionable ones like the Billy Martin sig & you could get that for sub £200 used.

Yup.  I got a Santana SE, the earliest one, which plays brilliantly, for £200.  Really nice action.  I've rehearsed with it a number of times and it feels really well-made, I'm sure it would gig no bother.

Hertz32

IanSavage;666723" said:

Predictable response, but I endorse Vintage because they're genuinely giggable out of the box and amazing for what they cost - on six-string I know that Paul from the Quireboys uses one of the Icon Tele-types live and I've never needed more than my VJ74 on four-string. You'd get change from £250 for either buying new, not much more than half that secondhand. 

My Vintage v400mh acoustic wasnt that great. Sounded nice but I'm still working on getting the action nice and low. You coukd have walked under the strings when I bought it, ive removed most of the saddle by sanding and I've got a way to go yet...

bobliefeld

I gigged with a squier 20th anniversary jazzmaster fairly heavily for about years. Never had any issues with it until I bust the nut and used it as an excuse to buy something nicer. Can't remember what it cost but must've been less than £200

IanSavage

Hertz32 said:

IanSavage;666723" said:

Predictable response, but I endorse Vintage because they're genuinely giggable out of the box and amazing for what they cost - on six-string I know that Paul from the Quireboys uses one of the Icon Tele-types live and I've never needed more than my VJ74 on four-string. You'd get change from £250 for either buying new, not much more than half that secondhand. 

My Vintage v400mh acoustic wasnt that great. Sounded nice but I'm still working on getting the action nice and low. You coukd have walked under the strings when I bought it, ive removed most of the saddle by sanding and I've got a way to go yet...

That's unusual IME, they tend to be pretty much spot-on out of the factory lately; is the nut a touch high?

octatonic

Anderson Classic HSS. 

Circa £2k.

Danny1969

How good a guitar is and the price you pay isn't a corresponding formula. There are some many fantastic guitars that aren't worth much because they don't have Fender or Gibson written on em. I have an old Ibanez Roadstar that I paid £150 for that I've done hundreds of gigs with.