My Gear, Part 1 - The Guitars

As it's the Christmas break, I thought it would give me a good opportunity to tell you a bit about the gear I use when trying out picks. Being on the budget of a student, I can't afford to go all out on my gear choices, but like all guitarists I love to shop around and find bargains which are priced at much lower than what they seem to be worth!

So let's start at the beginning. My first electric guitar is a 2006 Squire Fender Stratocaster - the standard three single coils, bolt on maple neck with rosewood board starter electric guitar with dodge electronics but that I can't bring myself to get rid of. Whilst this guitar by no means sounds excellent amplified, it's good enough for rough strat tones for a guy who's not that into single coil sounds (at the moment!), and is comfortable enough to play. It's also finished in a gorgeous wine red finish which has a hint of sparkle in - it looks good hanging on the wall!

My next electric is a 2009 Epiphone Les Paul Studio, finished in wine red. I bought this guitar with the intention to upgrade the pickups and machine heads, but have yet to got round to do anything about it. I love playing this guitar though, the setup is great and I love the feel of the neck. Plus the shorter scale length gives a totally different feel to my other guitars - it is a pleasure to play, and I look forward to the day when I have enough money to upgrade it to it's full potential.

My number one electric is a black 2014 Gretsch Electromatic Pro Jet with bigsby. The feel of this guitar is great, and with clean and dirty tones to die for, its definitely 'my thing'! The chambered body with arched maple top gives that brilliant Gretsch tone, and the Filter'tron pickups paired with the bigsby really make it a great guitar (even if restringing it is a bit of a pain).

When I venture into the land of acoustic guitars, I either use my 2008 Crafter (I don't know what model) or my girlfriends 2014 Sigma 000. Both are electro-acoustics with single cutaways, and play very nicely. The Crafter has a pokey mid range and is louder than the Sigma, but I tend to prefer the more balanced tone of the Sigma, and it's unfinished neck is a lot more comfortable to play.

So there you are, the guitars that I use! I also own a few other guitars that I use left often, kept for sentimental value. In the comments, suggest pickup choices to put in my Epi Les Paul!