AquaeGrannus

Actually have had it for 6 months but been so busy playing….
Got the Fender Mustang 1, bought it new for $99 bucks at Guitar Center. It kicks ass. Plug the USB into the computer, download Fender Fuse, and a near infinite amount of presets. It has a headphone jack, (gotta get another set of studio phones…dog ate em), also ready input for a switch pedal,(which I havn’t needed yet), and a 1/8 aux input which makes it a really badass ipod speaker…at parties I plug my nook into it and run Pandora.

Speaking of the Nook….Got by now tons of songs in word document format…now they’re all on the nook…grab the little travel guitar and hit the park. or grab the music stand, the Dreadnaught and hit the porch…no pages to fly in the wind, no klunky laptop to drag on trips. Plus the wifi/web feature allows me to find new tabs and listen to them on youtube on the fly.

I think that besides the headphones and the foot switch, I’m good on gear for a while.

And man I do love that strat.

Although I still adhere to the principle that you can learn with any playable guitar…I gotta say….get a strat. There’s a whole world of music on this thing that I didn’t even know I could do. After a really solid six years, I believe that with the proper guitar you can make more progress, faster. It took a lot of learning and practicing to get to where I could appreciate the quality of this instrument, and oh if I knew then what I know now.

Had thought about upgrading my electric but decided that I could only afford an intermediate,(less than $300) so I would just wait and research, and save. Well, day two of obsessively researching, I stumbled on an eBay auction with 13 minutes left on a Fender Strat, Mex/Deluxe/Lonestar. I threw in and got it for $309. The MSRP is $899, but I’ve seen them as low as $799. Still a deal no matter how you slice it. I was lucky to have my wife’s ebay expertise to verify the seller, bid at the right timing, etc.

In addition to gushing about my happy aquisition, just wanted to post to show that a “Graduate Level” guitar can be had for far less. The key is to know what you want from having done the homework…read reviews, work your Google, it pays. Same goes with learning how to play. Youtube is a great source, also the Library for instructive DVD’s and Music CD’s that you can rip and return.