Hopefully this article on what is available this year and what I personally recommend will help point you  in the right direction.

The guitars in this article will be budget/beginners style guitars so the scores out of 10 will reflect that.

I’ll be looking at Electric Guitars in this article, I’ll also in future articles be writing about Acoustic guitars, Bass guitars, Guitar Gadgets and Software. Hopefully just in time for the Christmas season.

So let’s look at what’s available for between £100 and £250

Because this website is worldwide I’ll try and find links for USA and Europe for each item.

I’ll also try and get more than one link for each of my recommendations along with pros and cons and prices.

Electric Guitars Under £100

Nevada Stratocaster: During my teaching career I’ve seen a lot of guitars come through and none have suprised me more than Nevada. The Les Paul which used to be available at ToysRus was amazing in it’s build, tone and playability. The Stratocaster version is no different. Not in the same class as most guitars but in it’s price bracket you can’t go far wrong. Also the below price of £99 inclues an amp!!!

£99 @ ToysRus

Left Handed £129.99 @ ToysRus

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Squire Bullet Stratocaster: I’ve had a few bullets as stand by guitars and they’ve generally been of good quality. That said I’ve not seen an awful lot of them around over the last few years so picking one up may be difficult.

7/10

£99 @ Amazon

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Electric Guitars Under £150

Squire Stratocaster: The Affinity Stratocaster from squire is a well built guitar that is ideal for the beginner as it is about the right price and is functional.

Dressed in new eye-popping finishes, these Fender®-designed Stratocaster guitars have a great look and feel. With a contoured alder body, bolt-on maple neck with a rosewood fingerboard (and a late ‘60s headstock), three single coils and a standard tremolo system – the Affinity Series® Strat® guitar has all the vintage vibe at a fraction of the price.

7/10

£129 @ Dolphin Music + £6.99 postage

£119 @ Gear 4 Music

£130 @ Thomann

$180.99  @  Guitar Trader

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Affinity Squire Telecaster: Telecasters are my guitar of choice, they’re a workhorse guitar with a real twang to them. Plus they look cool.

More practical than the stratocaster they stay in tune better and don’t have a tremelo bar.

Great for chords and rhythm playing. The affinity also comes with a maple neck with will give you a faster playing surface and is great for lead playing as well.

Fender Squire Affinity Telecaster MN MR electric guitar – solid alder body, maple neck, maple fretboard, 21 frets, 2 single coils and chrome hardware. Colour: Metallic Red.

8/10

£130 @ Thomann

£135 @ Gear 4 Music

$180.99 @ Guitar Trader

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Ashton Electric Guitars: Ashton are a strange one, I first came across them as acoustics which were very well made indeed.

Their electrics are very playable but feel really light weight. Especially the strat versions although the ‘Rocker’ feels and looks heavy duty.

Value for money especially the Guitar pack itself. Although experience tells me don’t expect wonderful things from the amps in any package.

Turn up Ashton The Rocker and crank out a rocking sound, live or in the studio. From the classic double cutaway shape of the Basswood body, to the high output Wilkinson pickups, Ashton The Rocker is one guitar thats made to be played loud!

£119 @ Amazon

Ashton guitar pack includes guitar, amp, case, plectrums and book.

£149 @ Amazon

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Under £200

Yamaha Pacifica: Yamaha’s guitars have also been my recommendation for a beginners electric guitar pricewise they are much more expensive but from a build, playability point of view they’re as good as it can get. Comes in lots of different colours.

When the Pacifica 112 was launched in 1993, it turned the entry-level guitar market on its head. At the time, most guitars in its price-range featured low-grade appointments, often including cheap hardware, low quality pickups and plywood bodies.

The Pacifica 112′s quality hardware, custom wound pickups and consistently good setup said that this was a serious instrument built to sound great and play just as well. The striking natural finish gave away one more crucial feature – that this guitar had a solid body. In one move Yamaha had wiped away the certainty that your guitar would be made from cheap, heavy, bad-sounding plywood if your budget only stretched to £200.

9/10

£179@ Gear 4 Music

211 Euros @ Thomann

£179 @Dolphin Music

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Pack containing a Pacifica 012 Electric Guitar with a Yamaha GA15 amplifier, cable, instructional CD, Strap and bag.

Modelled on the best-selling Pacifica 112, the new, even cheaper 012 has a similarly contoured double-cutaway body, and the firepower of a raunchy bridge-position humbucker plus two clear-toned single-coil pickups. The five-position pickup switch permits selection of those classic in-between sounds, while the vibrato bridge is a well-proven vintage design with six individually adjustable saddles for accurate intonation and a slinky set-up.

For an inexpensive yet high-quality introduction to the world of rock guitar, you ll not find better value than the Pacifica 012.

9/10

£199 @ Gear 4 Music

Thomann do a bundle package at £226 but what a bundle,

Pack Includes:

1 piece(s) DADDARIO EXL110

1 piece(s) GHS FAST FRET

1 piece(s) THOMANN GURT6,4B

1 piece(s) MILLENIUM GS-2001 E

1 piece(s) YAMAHA PACIFICA 112 BL

1 piece(s) KORG GA30

1 piece(s) THE SSSNAKE GKP6

1 piece(s) THOMANN ELITE GIGBAG E-GUITAR

259 Euros @ Thomann

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Electric Guitars Under £250

Squire Telecaster Deluxe: So ok it’s just over £200 but there’s an awful lot of bang for your buck, plus ain’t she a beauty…

The Tele® Custom is an affordable hybrid of two popular Telecaster® designs. Fusing a ?72 Tele Custom with a Tele Deluxe, this guitar has two high-output humbuckers, a three-way pickup selector switch and independent volume and tone controls. The Squier Tele Custom also features a solid agathis body and bolt-on maple neck with maple fingerboard.

9/10

£209 @ Gear 4 Music

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Related Links:

Buying Advice: Electric Guitar

Guitar Accesories Under £10: Capos

Guitar Accessories Under £20: Tuners

‘The CM-505 is a 24 note-polyphonic VST drum synthesizer. The instrument is designed specifically for creating synthetic drum sounds; no samples are used to create its sounds, not even a single cycle. The sounds created by the CM-505 have their roots in classic analogue drum machines. Although the CM-505 can replicate many of the sounds of these classic analogue drum machines, it also extends them into new sonic territory.’

The CM-505 comes bundled with loads of other free vst plugins on the disc that comes free with Computer Music every month.

Also the articles, reviews and tutorials make the magazoine worth it’s cover price alone.

The DVD disc crammed with lot’s of music making goodies just makes the magazine a great buy.

Computer Music

Success in songwriting for me is not represented by how much a song makes in monetary returns or how many back slaps I get.

Success for me is in how honestly I feel about the song – I love all my songs – there’s something about everyone of them that I personally enjoy.

Success for me is being able to smile when I hear my songs finished and enjoy them.

Writing music is easy, writing songs presents much more of a problem.

Lyrics can for some be painfully slow in working out, whilst the melody is easy to come by.

For some though it’s the other way around.

Some find the idea of both nearly impossible to comprehend.

But with time, patience and practice writing music and songs can come.

I’ll be honest there’s no science to it, it just takes a lot of practice a bit of grimmacing and an awful lot of self editing.

Structure, dynamics and arangement are all important factors in songwriting.

Alongside melody and lyrics they can be what grabs the attention – the style in which you perform the song is also a huge factor.

Imagine a disco song performed by a death metal band – um probaly not the best example as that would probably work on some level, but you get the drift.

Once you’ve got a song together you may be looking at recording it, now how you record your song depends on your arrangement.

I’ll be writing about each component in songwriting and composition over the next few weeks.

I’ll be talking about structure, arrangement, chord progressions, key changes, lrics, melody, dynamics, style and ideas.

There’s a whole lot more but I’ll hit those as I go.

Truth is there is no set way to set up your mastering effects.

It’s all about your ears, does it sound right?

2 previous articles on this site.

Mastering for fun – Primer(link)

Mastering How?(link)

——-Mastering Setup——

Let’s look at mastering for the beginner.

Add a Limiter to your fx chain, typically the limiter will go at the end of you mastering fx chain.

Why?

Well it’s not a set in stone rule but if you’re trying to get your track to level out and increase the overall volume of your track a limiter or limiting effect will with a little care and good ears get this for you.

Some setups will include placing a compressor set at a low rate at the beginning of your fx chain.

Free Limiter Plugins(link)

More about the Limiter – Setting Up(link)

What you place inbetween is down to choice, typically this is usually an EQ effect.

So a simple setup could be,

Compressor – EQ – Limiter.

That said removing the Compressor at the beginning is not out of the question.

If your track is well mixed and your eq is spot on then the EQ can be removed as well.

It’s about what suits.

Usually an EQ is added to lift a track in some parts(boost) or to remove problems(cut).

Free EQ Vst Plugins(link)

If you do boost – be gentle – if you find yourself having to correct too much then you need to look at your mix.

Using EQ a roll off around 40hz(link) can usually give you a bit more room for volume as the lower frequencies tend to take up much more room in your overall levels.

What does ‘Rolling Off’ mean?(link)

Other than that messing around with eq is again up to taste, but be careful with your boosts – whatever you boost has an effect elsewhere in the track – gentle boosts are a safer way of massaging your sound. If you find yourself doing more then you may have a problem in the mix.

Learning more about bandpass filters and types of eq is necessary – get your ears used to what happens to instruments and mixes when you apply eq – drastic and dramatic settings can be helpful to tune your ears but they will be often be damaging to your master – if in doubt leave it out.

Use eq for gentle lifts and cuts only.

—Adding Other FX—

There are many other Effects that can come into play when mastering,

Multiband Compressors

Distortion/Tube/Tape Saturation

Maximisers

Exciters

Reverb

Each of these effects have their own uses, the order in which you use them again is down to taste.

For example a Reverb before an EQ will be affected by the EQ so decide wether that is what you want.

Remember It’s all dependent on sound not so-called rules.

Imagine a big reverb going through a limiter – what will happen?

If you compress a high pass eq what happens?

Adding distortion into your mastering FX chain does exactly that – think about it.

Sometimes it can have a warming effect – too much and it will distort.

Be gentle but at the same time keep in mind what you want to achieve.

A good mix can be killed by bad mastering.

Start off simple, listen and learn.

1. Decide on the sound you want – will it be part of an album of songs?

2. If so that has a bearing on your mastering – eq’s have to match – your volumes will depend on the order/playlist of your music.

3. Take your time – bounce your mixes first – find the order of your songs – then listen on as many different types of stereo listening equipment as you can.

4. Were all the songs recorded around the same time/studio/equipment? Look at point no.2

5. Get a few commercial songs to A/B and Compare against – take notes – use analysis plugins – LISTEN!.

6. Take a few weeks off – don’t master straight away – yeah I know me neither but run a basic master off if you must – just to listen to – but then take a few weeks away – do something else and go back to it – if you have a few songs to record finish those off before you master any more.

The following list is the equipment used when testing.

Recording Equipment:

Studio Projects – C1 Condenser Microphone

t.bone SC-300 Session Master SCM 300 Condenser Microphone

Trakstar Pen Condenser Microphone

Joe Meek VC3 Compressor

AKG N62E PhantomPower Unit

Behringer Xenyx 1622FX

Guitars Used:

Fender 1990 Silver Series Squier Start – Black

Danelectro U2

Fender Mexican Telecaster w/seymour duncan bridge pickup – Cream/White

Samick Greg Bennet Design Royale RL 1 – Semi Acoustic – Blue

Especially as a birthday or christmas present.

As a guitar teacher I get asked a lot about the best acoustic guitar to start on.

My advice goes like so,

Spend no more than £150-£200 and no less than you can afford.

The Guitars listed here are Under £150

But be aware a steel string acoustic guitar that costs around £50 – £60 brand new is more than likely not going to be very well made. The ‘action’ – the height of the strings on the guitar will be suspect – this is the main consideration for kids and absolute beginners.

Nylon string guitars are great.

Little fingers tend to get sore. It’s a fact also kids tend to lose interest in things pretty quickly.

In my experience as a guitar teacher it is best to (1) get a guitar suitable for kids fingers and (2) not break the bank.

The following guitar is a 3/4 size nylon strung guitar and it’s ideal for kids.

It’s also a cheap travel guitar for adults!

At £32.99 it’s a no-brainer really.

Acoustic Nylon Guitar@Amazon £32.99

You should also look at the Elevation Junior,

3/4 size junior classic guitar.Natural finish.Plywood fretboard.Fitted with nylon strings.

Half price tuner, stand and 1/3 off starter pack with guitar.

£29.49 @ Argos

Under £100

A 3/4 size guitar is perfect for kids but think about it – how big are you.

Might sound strange but I know plenty of people who love playing 3/4 size acoustic guitars. They’re not just for kids.

If you are on the small size or find full size guitars too big then this might be the solution for you.

Remember t’s to learn with…

Squire 3/4 size steel string acoustic

The Squier MA-1 3/4-Size Steel String Acoustic Guitar is a fitting choice for the beginning player who needs the MA-1′s smaller profile to play comfortably. Built with an agathis body, rosewood fingerboard and bridge, chromeplated machine heads, and 22 frets, this acoustic is a remarkable value!

£69 @ Dolphin Music

The Ibanez V50MJPNT JamPack Quick Start is fantastically low-priced package with everything for the beginning guitarist. The V50 natural-finish acoustic guitar features a spruce top for fantastic tone. The package also includes an accurate electronic tuner, gig bag, guitar strap, and accessory pouch…everything you need! THIS IS OUR BEST VALUE STARTER PACK – BUY TODAY!

The package also includes an accurate electronic tuner, gig bag, guitar strap, and accessory pouch

Ibanez 3/4 @Dolphin Music £77.31

A full-size instrument is too big for very young learners of the guitar, and the little JR1, modelled on the dreadnought lines of Yamaha’s famous FG design, is the perfect answer. Its short, 540mm scale length is easy to play for even the smallest hands, while the compact body depth feels comfortable on the lap.

Despite its size, the JR1 has an authentic and enthusiastic acoustic sound, which has also made the instrument popular as a go-anywhere strumming companion. For this purpose it comes fitted with two strap buttons and is supplied complete with a gig bag.

Yamaha JR1 3/4-sized Dreadnought 3/4 @Dolphin Music £99

Epiphone DR-100 @ Gear 4 Music £89

The Epiphone DR100 6-String Dreadnought Acoustic Guitar, Natural Finish. Affordable dreadnought with a select spruce top for sweet tone and projection.

The Epiphone DR100 acoustic guitar builds on Epiphone’s great tradition of affordable acoustic guitars. A select spruce top for sweet tone and projection is the hallmark of the DR-100. The Epiphone DR-100 features a select spruce top, mahogany body and a set mahogany neck with rosewood fingerboard. The neck profile is comfortable with dot inlays, while the bound body, plus chrome hardware make this guitar a comfort to play and watch. The Epiphone DR-100 provides affordable sweet tone and style to inspire all musicians.

The main features of the Epiphone DR100 include:

Affordable dreadnought with a select spruce top for sweet tone and projection

Under £150

Vintage V400:

The Vintage acoustic dreadnought guitars offer an open and expansive acoustic sound with crisp definition from their brightly-toned spruce tops.

£109 @ Gear 4 Music

£109 @ Dolphin Music

DR-90S ACOUSTIC PLAYER PACK – Player Pack Collection:

A great value on a classic, the DR-90S Acoustic Player Pack features a dreadnaught acoustic guitar with Mahogany back and sides with a Solid Spruce top for superior tone. Included are a gigbag, pitch pipe, strap, picks and Instructional DVD. [Also available- DR-90 with Select Spruce top

£139@ Gear 4 Music

Under £200 and over budget but worth it…

Recommended buys

Epiphone Hummingbird:

Epiphone Hummingbird Artist Limited Edition VS Acoustic Steel Guitar, Spruce Top, Back & Sides Mahogany, Rosewood Fretboard Splitt Inlays, Plain Tortoise Pickguard, Limited Edition Logo on back of headstock, Kluson Style Tuners, Finish Vintage Sunburst

£149 @ Thomann

$299 @ Music 123

The Bright, crisp sound of the Dove has been beloved for years, and the trademark dove on the pickguard has been the companion of countless legendry artists.

£199 @ Gear 4 Music

$249 @ Guitar Center

All of these guitars are totally suitable to learn on.

Save your money and get a few months and lessons in before you think about parting with lumps of cash on something that could potentally end up being an expensive ornament.

Remember, guitars are made to be played not viewed…

Related Articles:

Buying Advice: Electric Guitar

Budget And Beginners Guitars Under £200

Guitar Accesories Under £10: Capos

Let’s face it most project studios are potential money pits ha ha.

Anyway here are some drum programming tips to hopefully help get the best out of your recordings.

(I’ll update as I go)

1-o-> Metronome no, drum beat yes -

Getting your groove on when recording can be difficult when trying to play to a metronome – in fact I find it near impossible.

So first thing I do is setup a basic drum beat, usually kick, snare and hihat. That way I can zone in on the kick.

Using midi to control my drums means that I can edit the drums afterwards to get a bit of variation in there.

Don’t spend too much time trying to get the drums correct before recording, just a loose version will do.

Fills,extra programming and sample choices can be made later.

2.-o-> Creative Drum Programming -

Programming drums can be tiresome so get a collection together or buy some books on drumming.

As I’m not really a drummer midi drum programming was my only way – but searching midi files is a long process and auditioning each file is a pain.

So instead I decided to learn how to write drums using the drum notator in Sonar.

First I bought some drum books – each book had examples of beats and fills.

I programmed some of these as practice and listened back to get and idea of how they sounded.

It’s all about the ear.

Oh and a very simple rule – if you want drums that sound like a drummer only use the limbs a drummer has.

It’s obvious but it’s impossible for a drummer to hit a Tom, Snare and Hi-Hat all at once.

Also be physically realistic with your beats, think about how a drummer would play it, can he play it?

2a.-o-> Creative Drum Programming – part 2

Creating a realistic drum track can be quite hard or very easy – it all depends on the song – use your ears.

Sometimes a simple oompah oompah will do the trick.

Simplistic drums allow the rest od the music work – over worked drums can be tiresome and sometimes will detract from the song.

That said simple drums can become mid numbing so variation is needed.

A simple trick I use is to create my basic drum track before I start recording, I try and make this so that I can play along.

I record everything.

When I’m happy with that I then start to tinker with the drums.

Most of the time it’s just a case of adding a simple fill here and there, usually end of verse and chorus.

For the verse’s I’ll usually have closed hi-hats with occasional open hat.

Chorus I’ll change the close hi-hats for open and add extra cymbals.

On verse and chorus  I’ll look at the kick and decide wether I can drop or add for each bar – I solo the bass sometimes and try and program so that the kick and bass are together -

I know should be like that in recording but remember a basic drum is more for getting going.

The beauty of re-programming your drums afterwards is that you can zone in on whatever the bass is doing – adding and taking away.

Same goes for snare and toms.

-o->

Really there’s a lot you can do with midi and a decent drum rompler.

Programming is fun, it shouldn’t be a pain and a decent drum track can make or break a recording.

Simple is best, if you’re not too confident stick to simple rather than over egg.

Finding a decent midi library of drum fills and beats is a way to go.

Personally I’d rather program from scractch.

Each to his or her own though.

Have Fun…

Basically as above picture shows the ‘graphic’ eq is a series of sliders.

These sliders are preset values/frequencies – the curve is created by moving the sliders up and down.

A cut would mean pulling a slider down and a boost would mean moving the slider up.

Other Graphic EQ’s include these free vst versions

The Voxengo Overtone GEQ vst plugin

and the

Karma FX Equaliser free vst plugin

It it will turn yellow

To assign the ‘Vst instrument’

Left Click the box the arrow is pointing at.

Choose Vst instrument.

For Vst Instruments that have several instruments assigned to different channels.

If you have setup your VST to have multiple instruments on channels 1-16 then you can assign a channel to this midi track.

- ‘Insert’

- ‘Soft Synth’

As you can see there is now a list of instruments now available.

I will now add ‘Cakewalk TTS-1’