Once again one of my blogs hits the FP. Thank you @rambo (I think you're the culprit this time) and @missy, @kiley or one of the other staff members if @rambo wasn't the one.
That Squire looks awesome, I keep telling myself that one day I'll get a Tele or a Strat, though where i've been learning some metal licks i've even thought about getting an ibanez. What's that jackson like? I've played a few flying V's and i've noticed the amount of space that there is feels awkward at first. Also what's Rocksmith like? I've been thinking of getting that when it's in a sale. Can you play any song on it? Or is it just a few that it comes with?
@cardinalfire... to answer your questions... The Squier has really cool graphics. I bought it off a co-worker in 2008. It was a promo made for Rolling Rock beer that his son one. He let me take it home and try it out. There wasn't anything wrong with it other than the strings were rusted. I paid $150, which was the going secondary market price at the time. I don't play it often because it has medium gauge strings on it. I need to change them to light gauge. Someday I intend to put better pickups in it too. I like Ibanez guitars. They used to have a bad rep, not so much for poor quality, but because they were less expensive and weren't Gibson or Fender. But that's not the case anymore. Lots of guitar players and shredders play them, notably Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. The Jackson RR series of guitars are awesome. They have fast necks... built for speed. There are two drawbacks with the Jackson RR series guitars though... 1) they are difficult to play sitting down... they will slide up your leg toward the neck and putting your leg in the V kind of makes the top end of the neck hard to reach. So I usually play it standing up. 2) It doesn't fit in a normal case. The only case I've found in which it will fit is a Coffin Case, which aren't cheap and are huge... hard to fit in my Mini Cooper. I have both Rocksmith editions. They come with a lot of different songs included and you can buy more as DLC. There are also mini games and exercises you cam play to work on specific techniques. But you can't play any song that's not in the game with the game.
Thanks for that @deadguitarist Re Rocksmith - I thought that was the case, I was hoping I could upload some blues songs and practice my licks, though I still hear the game is good learning tool, do you feel its helped you as a player? Yeah the only reason i've considered getting an Ibanez is because my friend has a hollowbody one and because I love Satriani - Steve Vai has some good tracks too. Plus I feel that if I got a Strat or Tele, I would be restricted to just blues playing, where as I like to try different styles at times. Good blog btw! Congrats on getting front page.
@kyriee, thank you! @cardinalfire, there's no rule that says you can't play rock and metal with a Strat or Tele. Dave Murray of Iron Maiden plays Strats as does Glenn Tipton (Judas Priest). Check out John5. He plays a Tele and played with Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson, as well as some solo stuff. I think Jim Root of Slipknot also uses a Tele. As for Rocksmith, in all honesty, I haven't played it much at all though I do like it. I do think if I keep at it, I'd definitely improve my technique, but right now I'm working on a song and would rather practice it and work out the various guitar parts I need for it. The biggest problem I have with it is that it automatically increases your difficulty level if you do well for a little bit, which messes me up and then it'll drop back to the previous difficulty level
Yeah tbh i'm leaning more towards getting a Tele, just because of the look of it, the feel of them and i'm a big Springsteen fan haha. Yeah I know there is no fast rule, yet some models do just feel better for certain things, maybe its my technique, though trying to learn sweep picking on my Strat copy is really difficult, feels like the action is too high on the strings. I imagine with a model like Ibanez or Jackson, its more geared for those techniques...
@cardinalfire, you're probably right in that Ibanez, Jackson, LTD, Dean guitars and others are set up for playing metal and shredding out of the box. But you can take your Strat copy to a good guitar tech and have him/her lower the action for you and make sure the intonation is spot on. I know the intonation is out of whack on one of my guitars (I forget which one, but I think it's my Westone).
