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

sticker

I gig a Squier VM Jazzmaster .. Cost £159 from Coda , it's great for the New Wave covers band!

guitargeek62

Assuming new prices only, then I'd go for Squier Affinity Tele, or a hardtail Ibanez. Both should be possible at ~£150.

A Pacifica would work, if they had wider nuts.

Hertz32

@IanSavage it was a touch, but since sorted by myself and some files nowhere near as bad as the bridge though.

DrBob

guitargeek62 said:

Assuming new prices only, then I'd go for Squier Affinity Tele, or a hardtail Ibanez. Both should be possible at ~£150.

A Pacifica would work, if they had wider nuts.

Totally with you re the Pacifica Si, if they came with a 1 11/16 nut I'd be gigging them. Were I gigging currently of course...

IanSavage

Hertz32 said:

@IanSavage it was a touch, but since sorted by myself and some files nowhere near as bad as the bridge though.

Either you've got a bad one or I've only played good ones then (disclaimer: I DO pick up Vintages 'off the rack' in guitar shops on occasion, they don't just send me stuff ) - very odd, you'd think if the nut was cut low enough and the neck's straight (and the top's not warped, but that'd be ludicrous) you shouldn't have to take the bridge down to next-to-nothing to get a decent action  

Dave_Mc

I don't gig but I reckon I could gig happily with a Japanese Tokai, a Fretking Blue Label, or MIM classic series Fender. So probably around the £400-£500 mark.

Roland

SquireJapan said:

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

All of mine have been modified in some way, even if it's only locking strap buttons.  If I had to pick one off the shelf then I could get through most gigs with a decent Telecaster, say around the £450 mark new

Octahedron

Hmmm definitely a Squier for me. They really make great guitars. I paid $299 (Australian) for BNIB Affinity Tele. Truly a fantastic guitar.

I used to own a Vintage LP style. The thing was it played beautifully but for whatever reason I kept breaking machine heads on it somehow. I had luthiers replace them and I replaced a couple of sets myself too. The problem might have been to do with the scale length or something but they kept "slipping" and no amount of set ups and restringing or change of heads seemed to be able to solve the issue so unfortunately I had to stop gigging it due to the tuning stability and moved it along. Sad because it was a great looking guitar.

I rely solely on Squiers and Epiphones

rawk100

I use to gig my Hutchins regal semi and that cost me about £350, it had a fake bigsby on it but stayed in tune fine.

Stevepage

Mexican HSS Strat. Had one before, great guitar.

ThePrettyDamned

octatonic;666755" said:

Anderson Classic HSS. Circa £2k.

Cheap skate

I've gigged a £120 squier affinity telecaster.

Actually, it was pretty damn good! It looked like a Tele, the tuners were functional if a bit crap, it sounded like a Tele and it was slimmer than normal, great first guitar I reckon. If only I knew.

Even the pickups sounded good. Unrefined, a bit thin and lacking body, but broadly speaking they sounded like tele pickups. The neck was lovely, too, nice satin maple.

ICBM

Anything that plays well and stays in tune, doesn't have a huge neck, doesn't squeal or hum too much and looks ok. Probably £100 or so for a second hand Squier would cover it - I have actually gigged with one. (A Chinese 2-HB one I paid £50 for and fitted with two second hand Duncans.)

More expensive guitars are nice, but not necessary.

For an acoustic, I've gigged with an Eko Ranger with a soundhole pickup too. Nothing wrong with it.

IvisonGuitars

I played Sheppards Bush Empire a few months ago with a Marlin Sidewinder Strat...it faired absolutely fine with a proper set up and the audience couldnt have cared less if it was a Marlin, a '54 Fender or a lump of cheese! Food for thought, especially for a boutique snob like me...

usedtobe

I've gigged stuff I've put together myself, for next to nothing.

GuitarMonkey

miserneil;666865" said:

I played Sheppards Bush Empire a few months ago with a Marlin Sidewinder Strat...it faired absolutely fine with a proper set up and the audience couldnt have cared less if it was a Marlin, a '54 Fender or a lump of cheese! Food for thought, especially for a boutique snob like me...

Did you smash it to bits at the end of your set?

paulk

I used a Squier CV tele out of the box for a few years with no problems but then, like they can do, the wiring/jack/pickups went shitwards and I replaced them. It still played great after that. 

Jalapeno

A MIM Strat (or Tele), and a Vintage LP type (as said ^^^^ Midge Ure sounds great live with his Lemondrop)

nickp

mex strat which cost £220 s/h.

s/h PRS SE

squier strat

so IOR £200 for me

EricTheWeary

GuitarMonkey;666874" said:

[quote="miserneil;666865"]I played Sheppards Bush Empire a few months ago with a Marlin Sidewinder Strat...it faired absolutely fine with a proper set up and the audience couldnt have cared less if it was a Marlin, a '54 Fender or a lump of cheese! Food for thought, especially for a boutique snob like me...

Did you smash it to bits at the end of your set?

[/quote]
I saw Saxon ( I'm so cool...) and Graham Oliver played either his white SG or his V throughout. For the encore he played a blue SG copy. Odd, I thought. Then he proceeded to smash it up at the end of the song.

I thought both 'well, I could have had that' and 'not smashing up one of your good guitars takes the credibility from this, as an act of passion,out of what you are doing.'

Oddly enough he's another Vintage user these days. Don't know if he smashes them up or not.

stimpsonslostson

Another vote for a Pacifica. I gigged one for AGES until I got a "better" guitar. 

Of my current collection, I'd probably trust them all- even my Harley Benton Te52 tele clone- the quality of budget guitars has skyrocketed since I started out on that Pacifica.