Your first guitar?

[sidvicious]

it was 1968; i was 5.

walking through a five-and-dime i saw an electric guitar and begged for it. it was a danalectro or silvertone, or something like that. solid body, strat style, and dreadful and beautiful.

i week later it was in our living room as a surprise. the amp that came with it was a silvertone tube amp. soon after my older cousin gave me his gibson tube amp [a tweed model similar to the champ].

all are long gone.

sv-

[jason41224]

the guitar i learned on was my mom's acoustic. it was a brand whose name i forgot, but her dad bought it for the family back in the 70s. as soon as i got my first electric though, she pawned it off.

my first electric was given to me at christmas when I was 13 years old. i had only been learning for maybe 4 months, and from that point on i never took formal lessons. i was active in sports at the time and baseball season got in the way of lessons. anyways, it was an Epiphone G-400 SG in cherry red, and i still have it. it has loads of problems though, and i haven't quite gotten around to fixing it (broken tuning peg, broken pickup selector, stripped strap button, defunctional bridge-the repairs are more costly than the guitar is worth).

[Gretschguy]

My dad takes me to a local guitar shop to find my first guitar. I was eyeing some les pauls, but my dad shows me to an all black squire strat. I was disheartened and being the spoiled brat voiced my disapproval. The guy working te shop overhears me and comes over, explains that this was an '82 squire. These were made in japan and at the time actually were thought to be better than the American made fenders. I played with it, it sounded fine enough so i took it. To this day i love that guitar.

[indianDYsummer]

I had some terrible Ibanez silver cadet, or something. I was 12 and knew nothing about guitars, and neither did my parents, and they bought it off of a friend's parents whose kids didn't use it. It was nice enough to learn on. My parents got me a fender strat the following xmas since I proved that I was actually going to play guitar/learn instead of let it sit around.

Both guitars are long gone. My parents traded in the Ibanez for the fender, and I sold the fender on ebay to pay for my '72 Tele Deluxe RI. I had that strat for about 7 years I think. I wish I still had it, but c'est la vie. I like my tele better.

[chinese fork tie]

next year, my first guitar will be old enough to drive!

[IceCreamMan]

i was 18 .... being a south paw was a huge problem , learnt a bit on a mates hondo strat with strings kept standard ...

had a serious motorcycle accident ,lost sensation in my hands gave up on the guitar...fast forward 25 years... while surfing our local gumtree i come across an ad for a lefty ibanez SA160 and Vox AD15. reminisce ,buy it an start playing .... playing for 18 months now ,practice religiously , play in a band and suck a whole pile less than i did 18 months ago.

its the ibby on the right , my fender in the middle an my Gaskell V on the left.

[indianDYsummer]

next year, my first guitar will be old enough to (over)drive!

[Les Paul Lover]

Was 15 and bought myself a MIJ Matsumoku 1983 Aria Pro II RS X80 - still have it!


Wasn't allowed to buy a moped and so bought a guitar - excellent forced choice!


The axe is killer - fantastic, great professional grade instruement, was really lucky to score it for a snip at £100.


I didn't know it was a killer axe - All I know is that I had the best guitar of all my friends. Then, in an effort to get better tone (use to play on marshall MG20 of the time). I changed the pick thinking they were pile of poop.

Got some di marzio put in (Paf Pro and X2N) and was disappointed - the sound was different, but not amazingly better. I learnt 2 or 3 years ago that the original pick ups were Di Marzio Dual Sound (splittable super distortion)........


It took me a while to realise that I needed a better amp.... A very long time.....

[defrag]

I was 18, 1st year in college & I bought a Harmony Flying-V from JCPenney for about $100; I wore.... the frets.... out.

Last year, I added:

Sperzel locking tuners
Schaller strap locks
Schaller fine tuning tailpiece
Seymour Duncan P-Rails
N-Tune potentiometer-integrated tuner

& gave it a:

Fret-job
Custom-cut bone nut
Switchcraft jacks
Alpha pots
All new wiring

(I kept my original kill-switch that I wired in back in '85, before they were in vogue.)

So now I have about $800 into a $100 wooden string-plucker... & it sounds awesome!

[Borderline Productions]

When I 14 my uncle gave me his beat up classical guitar. It fell apart shortly thereafter. Then I bought a Kingston bass (short scale), which I still have. Then a Fender acoustic for $75, which I still have but it doesn't work. Then a '68 Telecaster ($150), which got stolen.

[Ohara]

Got my first guitar and ibanez Blazer series cutsom, basically their rip off of a strat for christmas when I was ten years old. Kept the guitar for about 18 years and then sold it off, as it was replaced with a Fender strat and felt I no longer needed it. But to this day I regret selling that guitar, I've sold many in between but that one I should have kept even if only to let it hang on the wall. It was a beautiful playing guitar and sounded great either unplugged or plugged in.

[ScottyDanger]

When I was 15 I was working part-time at a ski shop putting together snowboard rental packages all day for like $5/hr saving up for a Fender Cyclone. I already had my Fender P-Bass, and had been playing bass for a year, but I wanted an electric guitar because I had been messing around on my friend's Ibanez Artcore and was enjoying it. I had about $450 saved up when the guy who worked in the liquor store downstairs offered me his Gibson SG Standard in Heritage Cherry with hard case for $600! I told him I only had $450, he said 'pay me the rest when you get it' and handed over the guitar. It was in IMMACULATE shape, as good as new.

To this day, she's my go-to guitar for everything. Best playing Gibson I've ever picked up. Every time I try amps at a shop, I grab an SG Standard, and they always feel like crap compared to mine. I've also upgraded it with a Bigsby (on one of those plates, I forget the name, it's totally reversible) and silver grover tuners (I freaking HATE green keys on everything).

Most people get pissed at me when they find out my first guitar wasn't a pile of crap squier (I know there are good squiers, but most people start on a pile of crap one). But hey, for that price, I figured I'd get a guitar that would last me forever. She's aging beautifully too, it's been 6 years and I've worn her down a bunch, but everything feels much smoother and doesn't look as bright red.

[sgpornstar]

I started at around 9... in the middle of hair metal 80's... on an Alvarez classical acoustic. That thing is still in my grandparent's basement somewhere, I bet, they never throw out anything!

[Gtr_Pkr]

For my 16th Christmas I got a strat copy from the Montgomery Ward catalog. It was branded Regal. The guitar originally had two single coils that were wired together to the one volume pot. Also got a little junkie practice amp. It did sound cool when everything was maxed out though. My friend had bought a Gibson SG and was replacing the DiMarzio's with Classic 57's. I bought a pickup from him and installed it in the guitar. With a little routing, it fit fine. I played a lot music on that guitar. AC/DC and Rage Against the Machine mostly. The next year I ended up buying a '93 Gibson Flying V, but I still played that Regal just as much. Finally, 18 years, and a whole lot of guitars later, I took it apart, as it was old and I held onto it long enough.

[a.hun]

1st guitar:
Strat copy. Probably by Musima an old East German firm, but any original decals were removed and replaced with fake Fender. Pickups appeared to be nice old DiMarzios - pretty powerful stuff. One died during some excavations though.

Decent build and woods, nice sunburst finish, maple board. I did horrible things to the headstock that didn't need to happen after losing the fake Fender decal. Decent guitar Neck was always way too narrow for my long fingers though. Last seen starting a friends sons playing career - he is now very good.

1st decent guitar:
'94 MIJ Fender Strat. Their '60s RI in black with aged parts and alnico p/ups. Still my Strat.

1st bass:
'79 Aria EJ230B 'J' copy, bought new. (Plain 'Aria', not 'Aria Pro II'.) Black with rosewood neck.
Pretty decent build, but rubbish p/ups. Replaced the bridge with a Badass.

Would love to find it again. I scratched 'AAH' on the underside of the neck plate. Last seen in the old 'Live Music' shop in Edinburgh around '88 or so. I was totally skint then and it had to go. Still missed...


Andy.