Help a noob- first guitar for ambient/drones/doomy sludge and learning

[.jon]

Hope everyone is a having a fantastic late summer!

I've nurtured an interest in lonely guitar noodling for a few years now, and decided it's time to go for it and learn a new instrument. I'm mainly making ambient music, but a guitar would expand my horizons to grittier, gloomier territories inspired by sludge, noise, drone and doom metal.

I have a mixer with instrument inputs, but I'd also like to get some pedals (od, fuzz, delay and reverb), an expression pedal and possibly a practice amp like the Boss Katana, but most of the time I'd probably be playing into the PC and process there.

Now I know very little about guitars, and don't really know for sure if I like it enough to keep me putting in the hours to learn to actually play one, so I'd like to keep the initial investment small. I've looked into some budget options, and a Squier Bullet Mustang has caught my eye. It's small and short scale (good for a beginner?), cheap & simple to allow for later moddings, has humbuckers and based on videos, sounds appropriately dirty.

The questions are: is this type of guitar at all suitable for the styles I'm interested in, and is achieving the sludge doom sound possible in the box (as opposed to huge stacks of vintage amps and cabs?) I'm pretty sure the ambient side should work.

Thanks for your time

[vurt]

you need humbuckers and a fuzz.
basics covered.

doom/sludge as simple as it sounds isnt just basic guitar, theres some tunings to look at, drop d and even drop c.
some guitarists will use 7 strings or baritones.

but for starters, the mustang should be fine
donks recently bought one, long time player, was happy with it.

[CodeMonkey]

i think you're better off with a multieffect than with pedals. i bought the zoom g2.1 a couple of years ago,
and still happy with it. lots of presets, all effects you need to play around with, it has a tuner
function, a looper and some basic drum patterns. g2.1 from second hand should still be available for
about 100,- , otherwise zoom has current models from 100,- to 250,- (G1x, G3Xn, G5n)

[AnX]

ebow and flanger = sorted

[Zipede]

Some of your ambient music sounds great, I liked Cloudride, I happily left it playing. It isn't so easy to make ambient music coherrant and interesting, but you have.

I would go with humbuckers, although I use Charvel with J90c for this kind of thing. Single coil guitars probably aren't best for this kind of music, especially if you are new to guitar, you need a lot of feel to get the best out of them.

For the Bullet, I haven't owned a low end Squire, but I would imagine you'll need to learn how to set up the guitar for it to play nice and stay in tune, as I doubt they all come out of the factory with great setups at that price.

[GaryG]

The mustang, being shorter scale, will have slightly slacker strings so not quite as hard on your hands and not as 'bright' or snappy sound-wise as a strat for example. This could be what you're after, a darker, less defined sound. Not the best for country pickin' but guess that's not what you're after. I've only read good reviews of them generally, certainly seem better tuning-wise than some of the budget epiphones.

I think you'll be fine in the box. I'm pretty much that way, just a couple of home made overdrive and fuzz pedals (generally sound better imo) into my interfaces instrument input. And when you do ambient then you have all the reverbs and delays you can muster, cheaper than a board of strymons.

[donkey tugger]

I've got one of them there Mustangs as vurt says. Great little guitar, very easy to play, and decent enough pickups/electrics etc, especially at that price. Put some thicker strings on mine, but one thing you may like for doing ambient stuff, with the standard .9 gauge strings it's really easy to get a bit of pitch wobble with a bit of light pressure on the guitar body.

Wouldn't have any quibbles recommending one. Mine was setup ok as was out of the box - did a few changes to the action as a result of the thicker strings, that's all.

[zerocrossing]

i think you're better off with a multieffect than with pedals. i bought the zoom g2.1 a couple of years ago,
and still happy with it. lots of presets, all effects you need to play around with, it has a tuner
function, a looper and some basic drum patterns. g2.1 from second hand should still be available for
about 100,- , otherwise zoom has current models from 100,- to 250,- (G1x, G3Xn, G5n)

That’s what I was thinking. Or something like an old Vox Tonelab. I used to get great sounds from the first generation one... not the desktop, the floor model with the tube. But I don’t know what I’d get today. I’m using a Kemper, which is obviously too much for a beginner. I wonder if I’d just go with a software package until I figured things out.

Definitely buy an eBow, though. It’s a must... unless you buy a guitar with a Sustainiac on board, or install one.

[schpaeckulum]

Have you ever played a guitar?

Make a list with all the things you'll need and the cost of each. Even the poor man's options add up to a lot. You'll go by with one set of strings? New set every two weeks? Cheapest strings?

Totally designed by Fender!

[donkey tugger]

Have you ever played a guitar?

Make a list with all the things you'll need and the cost of each. Even the poor man's options add up to a lot. You'll go by with one set of strings? New set every two weeks? Cheapest strings?

Totally designed by Fender!

Nah, only widdlers change strings that often. Set of Elixirs will last for ages (had them on my Variax for over a year, still sound ok, and the intonation is fine). If the use is to put the guitar through loads of effects and mangle the sounds, then having not new sounding strings isn't really a bother either.

[zerocrossing]

Have you ever played a guitar?

Make a list with all the things you'll need and the cost of each. Even the poor man's options add up to a lot. You'll go by with one set of strings? New set every two weeks? Cheapest strings?

Totally designed by Fender!

The problem is that “a lot” is subjective. There are people who could walk into a shop and buy a full pro rig for the money they made on interest from their investments in a single hour. My dad got me a no-name guitar and Chessmen 60 amp for $40 in the 70s and it was junk. Now the Squire line offers really nice quality for what’s probably the same money when adjusted for inflation. I once bought a Squire Telecaster from a Cornell student that was graduating. It obviously spent it’s entire life unused in a dorm room closet and needed a little love, but when I gave it a good clean and set-up, it was actually pretty nice. I passed it on to another guy who was broke and had nothing.

Anyway, if you hunt around you probably could find some Squire in need of a little love on Craigslist for really cheap. Use a free amp sim and you’d be done until you want to start upgrading.

[vurt]

@donks
indeed.
im pretty heavy handed picking, using a fairly hard pick, dont need to replace too often.
maybe the ocassional 1st/2nd.

full string change is rare.
not like im gigging, so dont have to worry about old strings breaking or owt.

[Zipede]

I don't like the sound of new strings, and that's because if I did, then I'd have to change my strings more often.

[imrae]

I wouldn't pick out a short-scale guitar if the plan is to use low tunings; will be more difficult to set up a comfortable action without rattling.

Apart from that I'd say for a first guitar comfort is the most important thing. Do you want to play sitting or standing? How's your back? Doom guys often go for heavy guitars like Les Pauls that have lots of sustain. An SG will make a similar sound at a fraction of the weight... They don't suit me because I like to play keyboards as well and they neck-dive. I recently bought a Telecaster Thinline (Squier Classic Vibe) and I could play that for hours. May not have the smoothest feedback behaviour, though. Have you been able to try any friends' guitars?

[audiojunkie]

Pick up a decent second-hand Mustang or Jazzmaster. Look into the effects order that shoegaze music uses (ie, rev & delay before the amp, etc)...