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It seems obvious to me that most beginner electric guitarists want to play guitars that look and sound like their favorite guitarist’s axe. For me personally, when I was about 14 or 15 years old, I was a big fan of Jimi Hendrix.
Naturally, I wanted a Fender Stratocaster. Then there was the Jimmy Page – Led Zeppelin addiction, so I wanted a Les Paul guitar.
For rock guitar, the Gibson Les Paul, or alternatively the Gibson SG are the most appropriate choices. Their solid mahogany bodies and necks, combined with powerful humbucking pickups are perfect for driving any valve guitar amplifier into warm ballsy crunching overdrive.
As far as guitar sounds go, the Gibson Les Paul and Fender Stratocaster are two opposite ends of the spectrum. The two most distinct sounding electric guitars that where the forerunners of every other electric guitar ever built.
In todays electric guitar manufacturing diversity, guitars either sound like one or the other, and sometimes halfway between the two with no distinct tonal character of their own. Not that that’s a bad thing.
An interesting thing about Les Paul, is that back in the early days when he was experimenting with the idea of electric guitars, and building various prototypes, he used the Epiphone factory as a workplace on the weekends.
He later took his electric guitar ideas to Gibson, who in an ironic twist, ended up buying the Epiphone guitar company.
Nowadays it’s possible to buy a Gibson Les Paul guitar, or a much cheaper Epiphone Les Paul guitar. The Gibson SG also has its Epiphone equivalent, the most accurate copy being the Epiphone G400.
Not so long ago I owned a beautiful Epiphone Les Paul which I got as part of a swap for one of my amplifiers and some cash at a music store. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen a guitar salesman look sad when I walked out the shop with what was clearly his favorite guitar.
I think he wanted it for himself.
At that time Epiphone was advertising their Les Paul models as having either a mahogany or alder body, and they weren’t telling which wood you’d get of the two. Lately, I see they’re listing a number of their Les Paul guitars as having mahogany necks and bodies.
Here’s the list, and a reason for the list is that I regard mahogany as a phenomenal tone wood. So much so that I recently had a guitar custom built for me, made almost entirely out of mahogany
Les Paul 1956 Goldtop – This one has P90 pickups, so not exactly humbuckingLes Paul Black Beauty 3Les Paul CustomLes Paul Custom Plus – mahogany body with flame maple topLes Paul StandardLes Paul Plain Top – mahogany body with maple topLes Paul Plain Top Plus – mahogany body with flame maple topLes Paul StudioLes Paul Studio Chameleon – These change color depending on which angle you look fromThen there’s the Les Paul Ultra and the Les Paul Ultra II, which have chambered mahogany bodies with quilted maple tops and maple necks.Okay well…… You’ll notice that I’ve only included guitars with glue in, also known as “Set necks”. Apart from neck through body construction, a set neck provides the best neck to body join, which also adds to that classic Les Paul tone and sustain.
Some of these guitars definitely wouldn’t be considered as beginner electric guitars, like the Ultra and Ultra 2, but I’m really impressed that Epiphone have decided to make most of there Les Paul guitars exclusively out of the same materials that their Gibson counterparts are made of.
Something that you should know about the maple tops on Les Paul guitars is that tonally, maple has a resonance one octave higher than mahogany. This adds to the guitars ability to put out good harmonics. If you don’t know what that means – It just adds more treble, without taking away from the full rich tone of the mahogany.
Some time back I was asked to make a backing track of Sensitive kind, the Santana version.
Here is the intro guitar solo, done on my Epiphone Les Paul – Sensitive kind intro
At one of my gigs I was hounded repeatedly by a fellow guitarist begging me to swap my Epi for his Carvin Custom guitar. He said he was in love with the sound I was getting.
In an ironic twist, I later ended up selling the guitar to a friend of mine who has a music shop, and the customer who bought it from him was the same guy who ordered the backing track from me.
It seems to me that the Big Boys in the electric guitar manufacturing world have woken up. The Les Paul I got from Epiphone was quality through and through, and I think companies like Fender and Gibson realized a while back that unless you give a beginner guitarist a decent guitar to learn on, there won’t be that many of them around to buy any guitars later on.
All too often I hear from people that have tried to learn to play guitar, about how difficult it is to press the chords or progress beyond a certain point.
In most cases they’ve tried to learn guitar on something that could barely be described as a cheap knockoff, made by companies who’s only concern was to sell as many unusable guitars as possible in as short a time as possible to as many unsuspecting novices as they could.
My very first guitar was one of these. It was unusable, but for 19 bucks and a pretty finish, both myself, at the age of 12, and my mother where suckered in.
When it comes to rock guitars for beginners, I have two main recommendations.
Here they are.
You can click on any of the following pictures to get a bigger picture, user reviews and more info on these beginner rock guitars.
Epiphone Vintage G-400 Electric Guitar Worn Brown
Now I suppose you’re wondering why, after all that talk about the Epiphone Les Paul guitars, I recommend an Epiphone SG as a first choice for a beginner rock guitar?
Epiphone SG’s are called G 400’s.
It’s still got that great mahogany tone and set neck with humbucking pickups, but here’s the clincher for me…..
If you look at where the neck joins the body, there’s just an incredible amount of access to all the higher frets, unlike on a Les Paul where you’ve got this big bulky neck joint to contend with up there.
As a beginner guitarist that might not concern you too much, but a little later on you’ll really appreciate it.
On to number two.
Epiphone Les Paul Studio Electric Guitar Factory Restock Ebony
I’ve chosen these models specifically because they’re cheaper Epiphones without all the fancy quilted maples – which I love by the way, and extra trimmings, and because they’re guitars in the Epiphone range that have what it takes to last well into the future as trusted workhorses.
So yes, Epiphone does have cheaper electric guitars, but with these choices you can go from beginner to professional without stopping in between to buy a new guitar.
A guitar is worth so much more than the price you pay for it. When you’ve got something you’re proud to own that’s also a joy to play, it’s priceless.
I hope this post has been useful to you – Keep rocking.
