ItsaBass
New member
Re: Best $600+/- Guitar?
What I think is that your fear is not good. You love the guitars you already have, so play them or sell them. There is absolutely ZERO point in worry about nicking or scratching anything but the rarest and cleanest of vintage guitars.
That said, my favorite two "beaters" are my Melody Maker (2003, w/ P-90) and my Mexican Strat. Both are bone stock (have only changed the full set of strings on the Mexican Strat once in the six years I have owned it). Both serve as backups (the MM to my '83 black beauty and the Mexican Strat to my '59 Strat), so they get played live all the time. And they are the ones that get played the most around the house, because I don't mind leaving them sitting around in all sorts of convenient, but unsafe, locations.
I highly suggest one of the early line of modern Melody Makers. They are basically a cheap LP Jr. Very good guitars for what they cost. They came in flat black, flat red, or flat yellow, and included an ultra-cheesy gig bag. I got the yellow one, but always wanted to pick up a red one too. They are about $300 to $350 on the used market. With this choice, you not only get a beater (the finish is ugly to start, and only looks BETTER as the flat paint wears away...which it does very easily), but you get a truly quality instrument with a sound you don't get from your Teles...and oh, what a sound it is! Plus, you come in way under your budget.
This is an example what they look like. But they come stock with only two knobs and no switch. The one in the auction has been modded with a piezo bridge. (Do NOT spend that much for one, with ANY mod. Ridiculous.)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/GIBSON-MELO...C-/290611178107?pt=Guitar&hash=item43a9c6aa7b
As for the new Melody Makers...IMO, they are overpriced crap. I don't know what happened in the past 7 or 8 years, but they took a great guitar for a great price and made it a worse design and worse quality, all while raising the price. It used to be a $400 U.S.-made poor-man's LP Jr. that sounded exactly the same as the Jr. Now it is more like a "student guitar," but without a "student price," and it sounds like a piece of low-end Epiphone crap. You're far better with a Mexican Fender or a mid-level Epiphone, IMHO.
What I think is that your fear is not good. You love the guitars you already have, so play them or sell them. There is absolutely ZERO point in worry about nicking or scratching anything but the rarest and cleanest of vintage guitars.
That said, my favorite two "beaters" are my Melody Maker (2003, w/ P-90) and my Mexican Strat. Both are bone stock (have only changed the full set of strings on the Mexican Strat once in the six years I have owned it). Both serve as backups (the MM to my '83 black beauty and the Mexican Strat to my '59 Strat), so they get played live all the time. And they are the ones that get played the most around the house, because I don't mind leaving them sitting around in all sorts of convenient, but unsafe, locations.
I highly suggest one of the early line of modern Melody Makers. They are basically a cheap LP Jr. Very good guitars for what they cost. They came in flat black, flat red, or flat yellow, and included an ultra-cheesy gig bag. I got the yellow one, but always wanted to pick up a red one too. They are about $300 to $350 on the used market. With this choice, you not only get a beater (the finish is ugly to start, and only looks BETTER as the flat paint wears away...which it does very easily), but you get a truly quality instrument with a sound you don't get from your Teles...and oh, what a sound it is! Plus, you come in way under your budget.
This is an example what they look like. But they come stock with only two knobs and no switch. The one in the auction has been modded with a piezo bridge. (Do NOT spend that much for one, with ANY mod. Ridiculous.)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/GIBSON-MELO...C-/290611178107?pt=Guitar&hash=item43a9c6aa7b
As for the new Melody Makers...IMO, they are overpriced crap. I don't know what happened in the past 7 or 8 years, but they took a great guitar for a great price and made it a worse design and worse quality, all while raising the price. It used to be a $400 U.S.-made poor-man's LP Jr. that sounded exactly the same as the Jr. Now it is more like a "student guitar," but without a "student price," and it sounds like a piece of low-end Epiphone crap. You're far better with a Mexican Fender or a mid-level Epiphone, IMHO.
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