neutron619

Thank you both for your replies - they are appreciated. In response to the bits I've picked out (although all was appreciated): Yes, certainly "master of none". I've come to the guitar through a variety of instruments, most of which I ended up being "very intermediate" at! It took me a long time to accept I was never going to be brilliant at any one of them (although I did sing professionally when I was younger, which I suppose is as near as I got to being "good" at anything). However, it means that, now I'm over that psychological hump, whatever progress I make with whatever I'm playing, I'm happy with - but I do have to make some progress, I think, keep things fresh, or else I end up moving onto something else anyway. The reason for saying all that isn't outrageous boasting (I promise!), but to acknowledge the 100% of popular opinion so far that says "go with the acoustic". I'm happy to be led. Either choice would probably be "fresh" but the acoustic (this one, in case anyone is interested - https://www.andertons.co.uk/alvarez-artist-parlor-acoustic-electric-non-cutaway-eq-tuner/ ) does offer a bigger departure from what I've been doing and more scope for new technique than a new LP as you've observed. I particularly wanted to say that I appreciated your comments on "rhythm playing". To be frank, musically, I've ended up doing things in completely the wrong order. Again, intended humbly, I grew up in a classical background and for various reasons relating to early education, my theory knowledge is good and was in place long before I was ever good (or intermediate!) at playing anything. But on the flip side, much more significantly, the repertoire of music that I know for guitar is very, very limited (worship songs, mostly), even in terms of listening (I'm trying to remedy this) and I find lead guitarists / shredders / anyone who can move around the fretboard at speed downright intimidating! Being brutally honest, I lack both idiomatic sense for any particular genre and much of the experience of listening to bands, knowing their songs and trying to copy / learn them and so on. As such, I've sort of defaulted to trying to learn rhythm playing and chord progressions as it's the closest thing to traditional harmony you can do on a guitar and probably the thing that matches up best with my previous experience. No doubt my constant looping around satisfying progressions irritates my family and the neighbours! But I have been working slowly through Rhythm Guitar 365 by Troy Nelson and to be honest, it was the exercises marked "Acoustic Guitar" in that book that put the idea for acquiring an acoustic into my head in the first place. Whatever it is I do, it's enough for a few songs at church (not my thing either TBH, but it my wife's and I love to play) every now and again. So in a sense I have an advantage as far as attempting your suggestion of trying chord substitutions, which I will try to incorporate: at least I'll understand the instructions and should be able to apply them sensibly! I'm going to have to look up "drop-two chords", but the rest of your pointers I think I can follow and although some of them are within what I already try to do, I'll use your suggesting them as an opportunity to refocus on technique and less on playing personally-pleasing, but probably not developmental things for the foreseeable. Sometimes, I guess, you need someone else to tell you to do what you know deep down you should be doing but let slide. ATB.

Hello chaps. I'm a very occasional poster here, although I lurk a bit from time to time - please be kind! I'm trying to work out what direction to take my playing and I'm looking for advice. I've been trying to learn electric guitar for about the last 4 years. I've been doing pretty well and am approaching an "intermediate" kind of ability (at least in rhythm playing), but I know I still have practice to do / things to learn before I can properly back that up. For example: I've been able to play a few services at my local church when they've had no other instrumentalists available, but I'm not always particularly comfortable doing it. I'm usually their bassist and often in the "just me" situations I'll still sometimes play piano in preference to guitar, depending on the music. I also sometimes play rhythm in a little trio I've got going with a couple of mates, but again, they really prefer me to play bass, as do I. So, mostly with the church thing in mind, I started looking at the start of the year for an electro-acoustic, thinking that having one would probably be another string to my bow as far as church band goes. Some of the repertoire just seems a more suited to acoustic tone (although I have a Helix and various other bits and pieces for tone shaping, so an acoustic would be a nice-to-have rather than a necessity). Not liking the size of a dreadnought (or anything large) I picked out a nice Alvarez parlour guitar and put a deposit down on it, started saving up etc. Due to delivery / customs issues, it won't be here before October, but I thought I'd use the time to ponder whether I really wanted to spend the money and I'm in no particular rush. I even put some 11's on my LP to improve my finger strength a bit in anticipation of its arrival (it's working so far!). Obviously the waiting time has given me space to think about other things. The main thing is obviously whether spending £400-500 on a(n acoustic) guitar is the best use of the money - a decision made harder by my choice last year to upgrade my other guitar - a strat. Moving from a cheapo £100 strat copy to a Fender Player was something of an eye-opener. Before that purchase I was again concerned whether it would be a wise use of the money - would I end up with the same thing at 6x the cost for the name on the headstock? Afterwards, I saw and felt the difference: playability, tone, tuning stability etc. - all vastly better (even on a MIM) than anything I'd ever played before. So now I'm sitting here wondering whether, rather than buying that acoustic, I should be looking to upgrade my current LP - an Epiphone Stuido LT (pickups Warmanized) instead. Up until recently, I've always been really happy with it. In fact, even post-new-strat, I've tended to use it in church as the tone is fuller and it just seems to work better in lots of songs. But it does also have it's annoyances - tuning stability has never been great (which a new nut didn't cure) and although I've made one or two aesthetic modifications, it was always "what I could afford" rather than "what I wanted" (or at least, "could justify"). On the flip side, it's got some humbucker-sized P90's in it and sounds amazing with the other kit I have. Having moved away from humbuckers, I'd worry that I'd be going back in a direction I'd tried and disliked if I upgraded to a better quality Epiphone (or simillar) that had them. And if I put the P90s in a new guitar, why am I upgrading at all? I'd also be giving up - at least for the foreseeable - the prospect of developing my playing into acoustic guitar and learning the styles and techniques for that. So there's a bit of new kit desire going on, but also a wider question about developing as a player and whether it's better to focus more on what I'm doing already, or branching out into something new. I'd appreciate hearing any experience / opinions. Thanks.

Thank you all for your comments and your welcome. I'm going to have to spend some time digesting them and doing some more research it seems. Douglas's points make perfect sense and can't (from my point of view) really be argued against - I do like the Fender sound. That said, a quick look at the Boss Katana range when I had a moment earlier looked positive - but obviously I'm going to need to listen to some sound demos and probably go and hear one at a shop somewhere too. Same with the Blackstar. Don't worry about muddying the waters! - there's no time pressure on this so if anything, it should be an enjoyable exercise.

Hello Chaps, I'm a noob here on the forum and with respect to playing a 6-string so I'm hoping to get some advice from more experienced folk about what to do in the situation I find myself. I think I might want to buy a new amp of some kind, but I'm an untalented guitarist and not experienced enough to know how to weigh up the factors involved. So - quick sit-rep: I'm a bassist by trade and play in a small trio band and the local church band. I play a little guitar (badly!) when I have to - e.g. to fill in some rythym / strumming if that's more helpful than bass on any given Sunday. My daughter is currently learning guitar and flying along with it. I'm doing my best to encourage her. I have a couple of guitar amps I've picked up over the years - a small Marshall Practice amp (10W, I think) and a Fender Champion 100. I don't like the Marshall amp - it's small, nasal and boxy (but I got it for free). It's currently on loan to a friend. I like the Fender amp very much, but it's far too big for home practice - we can't turn it up past 2 on either channel before we risk complaints from the neighbours / blowing the windows out / deafening ourselves. On the other hand, we've been using it quite effectively in both of my bands (in church-sized spaces) and all the relevant guitarists seem to enjoy it. My daughter currently practices on this one. I think I'd like to stop carting the Champion around and just leave it in the church which is far more convenient for both bands' practices. I think I'd then like buy a smaller practice amp for my daughter and I to use at home. On that basis, I've been looking at things like Fender Champion 20 / 40 Fender Mustang LT25 Line 6 Spider V 30 Line 6 Catalyst 60 Questions I can't satisfactorily answer: I already have a Helix Stomp which I use with both basses and guitars, so do I need to bother with a modelling amp? Flipped the other way: my daughter isn't capable of using the Helix as she's still small-ish, so perhaps a modelling amp with presets will encourage / excite her into making new sounds without the complexity of creating Helix patches? I like the whole Helix "ecosystem" so is it better to buy a Line 6 amp that has some of the Helix FX built in because it'll be familliar? Or, should I go with the Fender amps because they're cheap, cheerful and I like them, and, if I went with the Mustang, give me another implementation of "modelling" for an even wider variety of tones? The LT25 sounds like a good option: [+] it's the right size, power- and feature-wise, but [-] it only has an 8" speaker. Perhaps I'm biased as a bassist but isn't that rather small? Overall, the Catalyst 60 also seems like a good option: [+] it has a 12" speaker, which ought to sound better with modelled tones, but [-] it's hardly any smaller / lighter / less powerful than the Champion 100, but [+] it does have a half-power switch so I could run it at 30W at home, which sounds a lot more reasonable. [+] The app that runs it looks simillar to the Helix interface so it would be familliar, [-] but the FX / etc. on there are straight off the Helix, so there's nothing "new" - I could probably create an identical Helix patch for any sound it could make, so I'm essentially paying for a speaker in a box. If I were a more experienced guitarist, I could probably give weight to each of those considerations and come up with an answer, but as a bassist, it's not my area of expertise. Please could anyone lend some experience to the questions above? Many thanks in advance.