Your First Guitar(s) and Such---

Re: Your First Guitar(s) and Such---

1985 Aria Pro II. Invader in the bridge, HS-3 neck.

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Re: Your First Guitar(s) and Such---

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2005 MIM Strat. It's completely stock, and always will be, I think. After all these years, and 5 Fender Strats later it's still probably the best guitar I've got. There is something about this one, someone must have dopped some Custom Shop parts somewhere in with the Mexican stuff or something, because the body and neck are so resonant, moreso than I've ever felt in any guitar.
 
Re: Your First Guitar(s) and Such---

My first was an Ibanez GRX40. HSS strat looking thing. I changed the bridge and neck pickups on it. My godchild/niece has it now.
 
Re: Your First Guitar(s) and Such---

Is that a bullet? That's what my first guitar was too, but mine was red with a white guard. Probably the reason why I hate red strats with white pickguards, but it really was a decent guitar. The bridge pickup was bad though, especially for a metal kid, looking back I should have just put a humbucker in it. I ended up trading it to my buddy for an HM strat that was in pieces (that I never put back together either). He used the neck on an Ibanez body, if I remember right. If mine had been white with a black guard I'd probably still have it.

It's a '50's Strat that had EMGs in it when I got it.
 
Re: Your First Guitar(s) and Such---

My first guitar was a gift from my dad and I was young...too young to get anywhere on it so I later gave it back to him. It was a Silvertone am in case just like this one and I wish so badly that I'd kept it!!

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Years and years later I decided to try guitar again but this time I started with an acoustic...a mid 70's bolt neck Epiphone. It was a true hunk-o-****e and to make matters worse as I started doing open mic nights I needed a way to be heard so I needed a pickup...I bought a Teisco for $40 from the local pawn shop and robbed the single DeArmond Gold Foil pickup from it and screwed it right to the face of my Epi. I knew nothing about things and was too proud to ask my dad for help so I wound with 13-56 gauge strings on it and an action that I could have slid the palm of my hand under at the 12th fret but it got the job done...

First electric rig (after the Silvertone) was a cherry burst Hondy LP...bolt neck, hollow plywood top and single coil pickups under chrome bucker cans!...it lasted a week or so until I traded it and $25 for a Lincoln bolt neck LP...it was still junk MIJ but was MUCH better than the Hondo I then picked up a set of DiMarzio buckers for it and set out to buy an amp.

My first amp was a Radio Shack 35 watt SS PA head that I used a single channel of into a Peavey 112 International PA bin (with the horn bypassed) and for dirt I used either my dads DeArmond Square Wave or a borrowed DS-1 until I got my first Big Muff and my first Pro Co Rat wasn't far behind that. My drummer gave my a Crybaby wah and I borrowed my dads vintage EH Poly Flange...

Truth is it sounded like poop but I was a happy guy for a long time with that rig...
 
Re: Your First Guitar(s) and Such---

A $150 Alvarez acoustic. The thing is absolutely beat to crap and almost unplayable. But I'll never get rid of it.
 
Re: Your First Guitar(s) and Such---

My first guitar was a Dynatone or some no name brand that my Bro got from some guy for $15. Thing didnt stay in tune, sounded worse than bad.
My parents got me a no name accoustic that had 2inch action. I never played it cuz I couldnt chord it.. (in hindsight, I shoulda worked it hard and built up my hands.
no pics of either of those.

When I was 16, I bought a Kramer Striker. Midnight blue. Not a bad guit. I didnt commit myself to it. I learned D, A and G and thats it. I had a crappy sears amp that everytime Id turn it up and hit a low note, it would seize up and just hum til I shut it off.
I then bought a PV Special 130. I had a couple other guits over the next few years. Kramer Focus V and a really nice Japanese Charvel, but again I was lazy.. (Again, if I could turn back time, Id have woodshedded my a$$ off during my teen years)

Then, marriage, pawned all gear.. No guitar for 11 years.

Bought a $129 Squier strat and started to learn a bit.
 
Re: Your First Guitar(s) and Such---

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Godin SdXt. Now has a set of EMG single coils (2 housed in humbucker casings). Sounds cool. Great starter guitar... I have my dad to thank for that.
 
Re: Your First Guitar(s) and Such---

This is my Squier Strat that I got with the SG in 2011. Everything's stock, but I'm planning to change that in the near future.
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This is what my Epiphone SG looked like when I got it.
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This is what the SG looks like now. I personally prefer the look of the nickel pickup covers and white knob on the switch against the black.
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Re: Your First Guitar(s) and Such---

My first guitar was a no-name $25 acoustic that I eventually passed on to a friend.

My first electric was this 1978 MIJ Ibanez CN250 in Midnight Olive, and so began my insane addiction to Ibanez guitars. It was my only guitar for about 7 years, and I put a lot of wear and tear on it. It always needed a fret job, but I didn't know any better at the time. I don't even know what I was thinking when I loaned this to my brother for a few years.

It is still beautiful even through the many layers of "mojo" that are stuck to it:

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Everything on this guitar has a name. The "Vine of Life" inlay:

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The "Flying Fingers" pickup cover:

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The "Gibraltar" bridge:

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Not my best player, but it'll probably be the one they throw in the hole with me when I die.
 
Re: Your First Guitar(s) and Such---

My first guitar was a synsonics terminator that was given to me in the mid 1990's. It was a basic strat shape with one single coil pickup and a built in amp and even though i didn't really take up guitar seriously until 2010 i'll always remember this one for how truly awful it was.
 
Re: Your First Guitar(s) and Such---

My first guitar was an acoustic guitar. The brand name was Marinucci. It had action about 1/2" high. I never personally owned an electric guitar until 1999. Of course I had bass guitars, but I never had an electric guitar. It's a Squier Telecaster, and I was just playing it last night.
 
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Re: Your First Guitar(s) and Such---

JJ,
I keep forgetting that you were a long time bassist before guitar.. You play D$#m good for it being your "second" language!!
 
Re: Your First Guitar(s) and Such---

MY first guitar was an Electra bolt on neck Les Paul with a plywood body. I got the guitar and a Gorilla CG-20 amp for 150.00 if I remember correctly. I still have the guitar it is playable but in need of more work then I am willing to put into it. The amp I sold to a friend and met a very slow painful death at his hands.
 
Re: Your First Guitar(s) and Such---

I started with a Hondo "not-so-precision" bass and a Gorilla (don't recall the model, with "Growl" button).

My first guitar and guitar amp are a Fernandes Japan Custom and a 100W JCM900 MkIII...
 
First electrics

First electrics

I don't have a photo of the $90 Kay acoustic guitar I started learning on in 8th grade. But a year and a half later when I thought I had practiced enough to go on to electric, my dad told me I could pick out an electric and he'd buy it. A friend who knew more about guitars highly recommended a Fender Strat. My first electric:
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After that, I thought I should get one with dual humbuckers for heavier tones. A local store had a deal on this:
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A Rennaisance, made in the mid/late 70's somewhere in Connecticut I think... somewhere in New England.
Over the years, I sold it to a friend, bought it back, gave it to another friend, got it back. It originally had Dimarzio Super Distortion and PAF pickups. Being from the 70's, they were microphonic, so they got replaced. I have a Dimarzio Steve Morse bridge pickup in it now, and it had a Carvin M22V in the neck at one time. Right now it has no neck pickup, and I'm going to try out a pair of Dimarzio EJ Customs in it.

One more guitar I had early on, which I miss today, but it went to a friend who was a guitar player and couldn't afford an instrument. This photo is from around 1992.
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Gibson ES347. I got it in 1986. Note the brass nut, coil tap switch, TP6 fine tuning tailpiece, block inlays, binding, ebony fretboard, headstock inlay, and gold hardware. And I loved that antique sunburst finish.
 
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