Long time no play!

[hawk]

New member here... hi everybody!

I used to play guitar but quit cold turkey ten years ago.

Well... now I feel like playing again but have completely lost touch with the "equipment scene". I have a feeling there must be tons of cool gadgets out there that lets me crunch/twang/strangle my guitar to my favourite music while using headphones to spare the rest of the family.

Simply put - give me some good leads on equipment to get me started. Money is not too tight but I figure an absolute max of 10-15'000 SEK for guitar, fx & amp.

Any takers?

[Xeero]

Well for guitar I'm not too sure...  My friend has a Jackson and I was playing it today, and it makes me want one.  His is specifically a Jackson DKMGT, linkij below.

For effects, there's a Line-6 Pod I believe it's called...  Something like that *checks*.  Yeah, Line-6 Pod, there are many different types of it, my dad has a Pod XT and his friend has an XT Pro...  Your choice there, apparently they're great, though I've never used it as I only picked up an electric today for the first time in months and months (I play a classical acoustic).

http://www.jacksonguitars.com/gear/gear.php?partno=DKMGT_Dinky
http://www.harmony-central.com/Guitar/Data4/Jackson/DKMGT-01.html - Don't get thrown off by the first comment, most of them are 8-10
http://www.line6.com/podxt/overview.html

Hope that helps.  Both are fairly cheap, I believe he picked up the Jackson for ~$400-500 and my dad got his Pod last year for ~$300-400.  Both of those are Canadian, I believe the exchange rate is x6.

[hawk]

Thanks for the feedback.

The Jackson seems nice so I'll definitely try one out when shopping around. Also had my eyes on a used Ibanez RT-650 but the jury seemed to be a bit divided on that one + Ibanez doesn't even list it on their webpage.

Important to mee is good action - not ultra low but just enough for a good "grip" for bends - and good tone. I used to play 0.10-0.56 for a meatier sound but think I'll go 0.09 this time around 'til my fingers get used to playing again.

Checked out the Pod thingie. Looks nice but the sound samples on their webpage didn't impress me. Good dist sounds are hard to fake I guess :-/
I'll dig out my old Digitech GSP-21 for starters and will just have to find myself a small mixer.

There was this Tascam thingie (Tascam CD-GT1) which seem to be quite handy but I'd imagine I can get most of those features in software using a computer nowadays. Anyone seen anything like that around?

[Xeero]

Right now my friends has .9's on the guitar, and the action is fantastic.  I showed it to my dad, he played it, and we both decided that the next guitar we got was going to be this one.

I've read a number of user-comment things on the net saying that .9's and .10s work great on the guitar, you can get killer bends and do hot licks with either.

I'm not too knowledgeable about pedals and effects, really.  The two guys in my band both have a DigiTech RP300, I'd assume it's a little outdated now but it's cheap and I've heard some wicked sounds come out of it...  The bad part is you have to make them yourself, though it's not all too complicated to learn how to work the pedal.

For computer effects I have no knowledge about...  The guitarist in my band is our technician and mixer.  The most I really know is we use Sonar 3 Pro on the computer and I can somewhat find my way around.  But as I said - He knows all the fancy stuff.  Software just isn't my bit.

[hawk]

Heh, if the RP300 is a "bit dated" then my GSP-21 is an antique!

Otoh, I'm not really looking to get too far into the technical stuff since I just know it'll distract me from playing.

I want a nice, clean sound and thick, crunchy dist. That's about it.
A good amp would probably be enough for me but that doesn't work at home in the flat.