Decent kid's electric?

[Jx2]

I bought my son a Majesto V in school bus yellow. Doesnt sound that bad when you can keep it in tune. He doesnt play it much but then again he's only 4. He will plug into his amp from time to time and jam along with me though.

Ive thought if I was to get him another if he took more of a intrest Id look into a ministrat.
http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/p...tar?sku=510421

If you want a acoustic how about......
http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/p...tar?sku=515880
Little more money but its not just a beginner its a traveler.

[Bloozcat]

Just how old is she, FrankenFretter?

Would it be worth it to buy her a full size guitar so that she doesn't outgrow it in a couple of years? Or, is she so small that she couldn't handle a full size?

Try looking into some of the SX guitars at Rondo. The $100.00 SST with 2-P90's I got from them is way more than just a crappy $100.00 guitar.

Edit to add: Ok, here's a 3/4 scale guitar/amp package that even a cheapskate like you can afford @ $99.95...
http://www.rondomusic.com/rst34bk.html

**Or**

If you wanted to go just guitar @ $79.95:
http://www.rondomusic.com/hawkse3ts.html

[aeolian]

Several years ago I bought a Jay Jr (made by Jay Turser) which is a 3/4 size guitar hoping my children would be interested in learning, but they never did. I did, however, found the guitar to be very nice to play. When I first got it the neck angle was a bit off. I shimmed it with a thin pick in the neck pocket and then the guitar had excellent action. The guitar was intonable, and the tuning keys actually held tune very well, and the maple neck was very nice to play on. Although my kids did not play it I actually played it quite often. The negative on my guitar was the pickup, which sounded muddy. I sold off this guitar earlier this year since my children are big enough to play a regular guitar (if they even want to). The Jay Jr I sold is this one:



I looked for Jay Jr on the web and after some effort found this:

http://www.musiclandcentral.com/jaytu34siste.html

I don't know if this has the same neck or tuners, and this has 3 single coils versus my old one with a humbucker. All I can say is that my experience with the Jay Jr is positive.

[Duffy]

It matters how old and how big the kid is as to what guitar to recommend or get.

A lot of people think that if the kid is like 10 or a larger kid at a younger age, that you should avoid so called, "kid" sized guitars. Obviously if the kid is five years old a small sized guitar would be good.

The reason many say you should get a kid a full sized guitar if the kid is of the right age, size, is that the necks are standard size the fret hand coordination and muscle memory develops correctly. When a kid starts out on a small guitar the coordination and muscle memory will not transfer directly over to a full sized guitar and this can make for a new learning curve and be a stumbling block, but not insurmountable. The kid can still learn basic chords and scales, but will have to adapt them to a full sized guitar later.

I would say that a Squire mini strat would be a very good guitar and not too expensive from MF, no affln, or elsewhere, if you want a small guitar. Another child's guitar is the Epiphone Les Paul Junior, now popularly used by many adults but originally designed as a Gibson student guitar. The Les Paul Jr. is a single humbucker equipped guitar in its present Epiphone form available from any of the online retailers and would probably make a great kids guitar.

If the kid is large enough to handle a full sized guitar, rondomusic.com, no affln., has a couple black Agile AL 2000 Les Paul copies of excellent construction currently on sale for 175 dollars. One has a slim neck profile that might be good for a kid but a regular neck profile has plenty of room on the fretboard for finger placement without your fingers getting in the way of each other. These are excellent guitars and are probably better built than most of the Les Paul copy immitations costing two or three times as much. These Agile AL 2000's have dual chrome covered humbuckers of good quality and are layed out like a Gibson Les Paul with controls and general layout, with some minor design differences, mostly imperceptible to the average person.

Then of course is the amp. For around a hundred dollars you can get a real good amp, like the VOX Pathfinder 15R for 119 at places like musciansfriend.com. Or a really cool battery or wall current operated VOX DA5 small modeling amp with lots of great amp models and great effects that are highly adjustable, plus it has a microphone input with a separate volume control so your kid can sing along or someone else can sing along while the kid plays. Very cool for 139 dollars at MF or elsewhere. Uses 6 "C" cell batteries for 30 hours on a camping trip or whatever and has a switch to change the power output from 5 watts, to 2.5 or 0.5 watts. It is a super great amp.

These are just some of my ideas and hopefully you will find them of some use in making your decision as to what is best.

I would avoid really low quality off brand name guitars and amps that will probably cost you as much as a Squire or Agile, or even a Vox. This is the golden age of guitars and amps and there are great inexpensive ones available, as was never before possible historically; because these excellently made guitars are mass produced in modern factories using robotics and computer controlled machine tools. Very consistent and high quality guitars are continuously turned out and competition among companies is very strong, keeping the quality high and the prices low, in most cases.

[FrankenFretter***]

Thanks, folks. She's nine, and small for her age. I think it's going to have to be a smaller guitar for her. The mini-Strat gets consistently good reviews, although I was kind of hoping for something really simple (one pickup, one volume). She saw the Daisy Rock kids' guitars and is now almost obsessed with them. If the mini Strat is going to be a better guitar (or an SX for that matter), then she'll just have to live without a butterfly guitar.

I own two SXs, a Douglas, and an Agile AL3000, so I'm quite familiar with Rondo, and had in fact thought of them first when I was starting to seriously look for a smaller electric.

Amphs: I have several small amps that she can use, so that's not an issue. I'm thinking about giving her my Vox Pathfinder 10 for her starter amph.

[Bloozcat]

Ding, ding, ding, ding....

We could have a winner here, folks!

The features you asked for, a fantastic price @ $69.95, and it looks like it comes with the old, more attractive headstock!

Well, what do you think?


http://www.rondomusic.com/product2202.html

[FrankenFretter***]

Ding, ding, ding, ding....

We could have a winner here, folks!

The features you asked for, a fantastic price @ $69.95, and it looks like it comes with the old, more attractive headstock!

Well, what do you think?


http://www.rondomusic.com/product2202.html

That's actually the one that caught my eye, BC. I just wish it was a hardtail, but I guess I can just not tell her about the whammy until she gets the hang of playing. Too bad Kurt doesn't have one in purple...

[NWBasser]

The kid that I'm teaching has a Laguna. I'm not impressed with it.

The intonation is more than a bit funky.

SX is probably a good choice as you well know.

[deeaa*]

The kid that I'm teaching has a Laguna. I'm not impressed with it.

The intonation is more than a bit funky.

SX is probably a good choice as you well know.

Why not fix the intonation, then? Takes 10 minutes?