I need a good general all around guitar. Blues, Rock, and Jazz.?

Question

Wanting to upgrade from an Acoustic guitar to an Electric guitar. I need a good general all around guitar. Blues, Rock, and Jazz. Looking at these brands Epiphone, Ibanez, and Fender. I’m not going to play Gigs or professionally at anytime plus this guitar needs to be less than $600. Just want something that I won’t turn around in six months and wish I had bought another model.

Answer 1

Get an Epiphone version of the Gibson 335 thinline.  You can use it like BB King, Alvin Lee, and a few country pickers.  Versatile.

Answer 2

Megatron, Puller58 and jwenting have all given you decent choices to mull over. You really need to ask yourself what you're going to be playing as a main preference because each of the three idioms you've defined have very different sound requirements (and that's well before you get into all the various sub-stratas of those musical types).

Blues: the majority of top-line blues players all seem to gravitate towards Fenders - and Strats in particular. The single coil pick-ups lend themselves well to a keener tone and the five-way switch gives you easy access to that nice out-of-phase tone that works so well when playing clean (ie not overdriven - see Robert Cray as the main exponent of this). Basically Hendrix, Clapton, SRV et al all used (or use - sorry Eric) Strats because of their versatility. Through the right amp, the volume control can be used intelligently to roll off the amount of overdrive, so you've got all that range within flicking and rolling distance of your little finger. Not many jazz players go for strats: you can get an approximation of a classic jazz guitar tone by sticking with the neck pick-up and keeping the tone control pot down around 3-4, but it's not as full bodied in its overall feel as a twin pole pick-up.

Jazz: both the recommendations you got here (Ibanez - either AS73 or 93, and Epiphone 335) are twin pole pick-up guitars. They are also both semi-acoustic guitars, so the cutaways add a more organic woody tonality. You're now getting into quite secure jazz territory here (John Scofield has used his own signature model Ibanez for years - though he also uses an effects rack - I've seen the d**n thing - the size of your average interplanetary flight deck). Basically, for a classic jazz tone, take a twin pole pick-up guitar set to the bridge pick-up, put it through a nice warm tube amp without letting it overdrive too much (though a little slur here and there sounds great) and Robert's your father's brother. You can still play great blues on this kind of set-up: BB King is the obvious example, but also check out how someone like Larry Carlton makes such versatile use of a 335. Some older guitarists of note (Alvin Lee and Bill Nelson spring to mind) made good use of Gibson semi-acoustics as rock guitars but one word of warning - they are more difficult to control when playing live and tend to feedback too easily. Controlled feedback sounds great, but uncontrolled feedback is a nightmare.But they do have a nice fat attack when cranked up and using the bridge pick-up.

Rock: I'm a bit of an old duffer nowadays, so I'm a bit (wilfully) out of touch with newer makes, but my basic rule of thumb for rock is that if you can't do it with a strat, a tele or les paul, then it probably doesn't need doing (oh alright, a rickenbacker too for the more jangly stuff). Telecasters sadly still seem to be rather unfashionable, but the les paul/strat axis is pretty unasailable. Take your pick: Hendrix, Blackmore, Clapton, Page, Perry, SRV, Gary Moore (more famous for his use of a les paul, but no slouch on a strat), Townsend (ditto), Walsh etc - and others too numerous to mention. The conundrum is simple: power or subtlety. If you plump for a strat, you'll get more variety of tone but less power and therefore less overdrive, but if you go for a twin pole you'll get a lot more power but lose some tone. If you're playing "classic" rock, you may want to go for the twin pole. If you're more indie orientated, go for the strat (or a tele!).

Once you've selected your guitar, don't forget that your choice of amp, strings and even picks will all make a difference to both the way you play and the sound you make. They are important choices and you will only learn by making mistakes (much like learning the guitar). But as you asked specifically about guitars, I'll leave it at that.

Try to get into the habit of going to a good local guitar store as often as possible and playing as many different guitars and amps as possible until you get a feel for what you really like. Once the guys in the store get to know you, you'll be pleasantly surprised by just how helpful they can be.

Enjoy the journey - and keep playing.

Answer 3

Epiphone 335. Strats are comfortable but the tone is lighter than jazz players usually want.

Answer 4

Fender Stratacaster!   "Fender Srat".   Ibaniez are nice if you can afford one.  Epiphone,  not as cool as the work horse that is "The Fender Strat"!    An all around great guitar with the right strings (Ernie Ball Super Slinky) .  You can't go wrong!!

Answer 5

Look at an Ibanez AS73 or AS93 or Epiphone ES335.

They're pretty alround guitars, and offer good quality and value for money.