Decent entry level guitars?

[Ken]

Take a look at the Dean Jazz Stylist. Good sound with a street price around $400. Feeds back pretty easily if you want to play really loud, but at normal jazz volumes it's great.

[L4sleeko]

Hey y'all. Glad to be back! I want a new guitar real bad and luckily have GAS for a few Ibanez Artcore models _ AF105F, The fab AK85 and AF84 (no cutaway,new model). At least I don't have to spend a butload of money ;D. I tried the Ak and it was real close feel and sound-wise to my L4CES. Gosh, I love that color! The AF84 comes in same color and looks a lot like a 1930's L5. Has a single floating mini PUP which I favor. Anybody try one of these yet? The AF105F has a natural finish also with floating PUP. I'am having a hard time making up my mind. Like mentioned on an earlier post, the surrounds are cream colored on the dark brown finish (AK). Can't for the life of me figure why they didn't use black. Other than that it is one of the most eye-catching new guitars I have seen in a while. Great construction and sound as well. Chow-fur-now folks. ?;^)~

[rfahrytas]

It has been one year since anybody has posted to this thread! Has anyone got any further advice to add?

I have been bashing away on an acoustic for 5 yrs now, trying to make some sense of it all, in what appears to be a vain attempt to awaken the "musician" in me!! Something keeps tellin' me to move over to electric - probably the pain (LOL) - but seriously I believe I have that sorted now, well mostly! Anyway not into heavy rock or metal - like the mellow tones of a hollow body and have been reading the posts here to get an idea on what I should be looking to buy.

So any more input here would be much appreciated.

BTW: Can anybody vouch for simply plugging into a reasonable Sound Card instead of purchasing equipment!!

[slowpoke]

I am very happy with my Ibanez Artcore 75T (the T is for the bigsby style tremolo) and have been very happy with it for a few years now. It covers clean sounds well and dirties up nicely with a little distortion pedal and I've had no problems with feedback or anything. If you like mellow tones I think the biggest thing you need is humbucker style pick ups (which is pretty much all I've seen in hollow bodies except maybe P90s).

My dad recently got a jazz box made by Johnson, which make even less expensive guitars than the Ibanez. I wasn't too keen on it at first but then he had the frets leveled by a tech and it plays and sounds beautifully.

Another friend of mine got a made in mexico Tele thinline (semi hollow) which plays and sounds great as well.

Are you looking to play just clean tones, just jazz or are you looking to make other sounds or play in other genres? Things to consider. Most inexpensive guitars just need to be set up and maybe have a jack, volume/tone pot or pick up switch replaced.

[slowpoke]

oh yeah, plugging guitar direct into your sound card will almost assuardley be terrible. Maybe OK for recording ideas but anything you want to show to anyone it will yield annoying results at best. TAPCO makes a usb interface called the usb.link and it goes for about $150 and comes with some pretty fantastic software called Tracktion. The thing has two channels that allow direct recording and XLR input (as well as phantom power and mackie preamps). You could get something cheaper, or if you have an amp you can just get a USB microphone that plugs direct into the computer.

[bloftus]

I would check out these 3 guitars. They are high quality, and fairly low priced. The gretsch is $750, and the ibanez and epiphone are $399. I've played the ibanez and the gretsch and they are both great sounding jazz guitars. here's the link to the site jazzguitar.yolasite.com/guitars.php