Electric Guitar Information - More info on electric guitar for beginners

The previous page gave you some basic electric guitar information to help you make a somewhat informed decision about what to buy.

Let me just re-state that the information here is solely the opinion of this author.

So you've bought a guitar, so what else do you need? If it were me, I would say you would need the following:

• A foot switch for clean/dirty channel on your amp.
• 3 or 4 cords of varying length.
• Possibly a wireless unit (if you're going tobe playing shows).
• Guitar picks (duh!)

This is obviously an abbreviated list and there are probably more things you'll need

Now the question becomes one of effects. Well I have a Digitech RP-7 (which is about 4 years old) and while its a little tedious to program it has a lot of different effects...more than enough for my needs. I would say that the only ones I use regularly are the wah pedal, chorus, flange, delay, and some extra distortion/overdrive from time to time. In other words...

Whether you choose to use effects or not is entirely up to you. You can spend $79 on a delay pedal, or you can have an entire system thats worth $10k+. But what I will tell you is that you should not rely on them if you're a beginner. Yes, they do make you sound better than you are, but you don't want to use them as a crutch. They are not a substitute for practicing. Let me summarize effects the following way...

If you have Eddie Van Halen's exact set up, you still will not sound like Eddie...but Eddie will sound like Eddie with a $50 practice amp!

I hope that makes sense...

Beginners electric guitar - A basic guide to buying your first electric guitar