electric guitars for beginners

What electric you select depends alot on what type of music you want to play and how much you can tolerate.  Your acoustic is probably generally in tune -- if this is important to you, stay away from tremolo systems.  If you don't mind frequent tuning then get a tremolo system -- long "Van Halen" style dive bombs call for a double-locking tremolo but avoid a proprietary bridge in favor of a guitar with a Floyd Rose licensed bridge system with locking nut.  Single coil pickups make a lot of noise, called '60 cycle hum' but double coil humbuckers tend to be more loud and can be harsh sounding.

As far as brands go, Ibanez makes quality, afordable electrics (with and without tremolo bridges) as do Epiphone (hard tail) and Fender (both available -- but beware of the squire synchronized bridge).

Decide on what you want to play and how you want to play it before purchasing and you'll be happy with what ever you get.

The most important consideration is the tone you're looking for.  Personally, I find humbucking pickups more versitile and responsive.  Next is the the neck.  You want a fretboard that you're comfortable with.  Then there's the weight.  I have a vintage Fender Jaguar that I rarely play, since it weighs a ton.

Someone else mentioned Ibanez as a good, relatively inexpensive brand.  I agree.  My guitar of choice is still my 25 year old Ibanez Studio.  I did replace the pickups with Seymour Duncans and added a phase switch.  But this is one playable guitar.  YMMV.

If you want something super cheap, but playable, check out the Dean guitars.

<table border="0" align="center" width="90%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td class="SmallText"><b>vampsfang wrote on Tue, 20 June 2006 00&#58;29</b></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">
hi i am glad your wanting to learn and play a guitar and purchase a electric  i am a working musician and i own a music shop know let me tell u what the others hasnt, first off ur mistake is buying on line  if u buy online you cant hold the guitar and u cant play it every guitar sounds and plays (feels) differant stay away from online buying, anther reason if u buy online for all you know the guitar could fret out on certain frets ( dead frets)  neck could be warped  its endless , i saw post  that ibeniz and so on let me let u in on a little secret i sell a range of guitars at my store from 99.00 to 4000.00 depending on what u want to spend  now heres the secrect listen close because u wont hear no one else tell u this  my 99.00 guitars come from the same place as do my high dollar guitars all your buying is the name on that guitar  i have more cheap guitars that play and feel better then my higher end guitars  for instance i play out  live in clubs about 5 days a week  i play a cheap ellca  guitar that runs around 110.00 tax  and all i put new ernie ball strings on it and it sounds better then most of my high end guitars people when i play out cant beleive the sound of these guitars  remember  anyone can buy a gibson but if u dont play well they sound like crap anyways, but like i said most of these guitars out here in the music shops come from the same factory the same line  just a dif name if u dont beleive me do some research because i know i am a dealer , anyways stay away from buying online  peace out and keep rocking !
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dont listen to him

if you can find a better deal online then go for it

most sites have like a month long return policy so if you dont like the guitar you can send it back and get your money back

try either like a standard strat or tele or get an agile les paul or a epi plain top les paul