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Sale Price: $179.95
Today's Bonus:
- Everything you need to start rocking, including a black Stratocaster guitar and 10-watt Squier amp with 10-foot cord
- Classic Fender Stratocaster guitar for all styles of music
- Synchronous tremolo bridge for subtle shimmers or hard-core whammy
- Three single-coil pickups paired with a 5-way pickup selector switch; volume and 2 tone controls for wide range of tones
- Package also includes strings, picks, strap, gigbag, and instructional DVD
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My parents gave me this guitar for christmas, and I've had this guitar for about 5 months now,and I have loved and hated some things about the guitar. let's start with the short list, the hated.
Hated: The strap is garbage, The wammy bar causes the guitar to go insanely out of tune, for about 2 weeks the frets cut your hands to shreds, When using one pickup, the amp makes a really annoying buzzing sound, so use the second to bottom or top setting on the pickup selector switch. The guitar does also go out of tune fairly easy by itself.
Now onto the loved: EXTREMELY STURDY AND STRONG. My guitar was dropped by one of my friends onto a concrete floor and the only damage done was a small chip in the finish by the neck. Amp is fantastic for it's size. Loud enough to fill a gymnasium full of screaming students. The tuner is fantastic, and the picks are incredibly strong. Strings sound good and are strong. Extra strings are a good bonus, just make sure you put them on right.
Overall a great guitar package for about $200, I'd recommend to any beginning guitarist. With a name like Fender, you can't go wrong!
Buy Fender Starcaster Strat Pack Electric Guitar with Amp and Accessories (Black) Now
I got this kit for my birthday because I want to learn guitar. It is totally ridiculous to invest much more than about $200 at the start of a new hobby. At the beginner level, you have no idea what you need, what you want, whether your even going to stick with it, etc. Luckily, Fender is selling this little gem.
I'm not going to lie--in this $200 package, you will not get a $700 guitar with a $150 amp and a Monster cable. What you do get is a guitar that sounds good and that you can learn on, an amp that makes your practice audible, and a DVD that... well, sucks. The DVD is really bad.
I highly recommend this package for the beginner.
(As for the DVD sucking--it says it's for beginners, but it moves much too fast. Get a book and teach yourself or, better yet, get lessons. Don't count on the DVD.)
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I got this for my fifteen yo son (aka "Even After Dinner, Giant Boys Eat"). (Okay, not because I was clever enough to think of it ahead of time, but because I stumbled onto one of Amazon's "lightning deals" at holiday time.) Perfect.
As you suspect from reading the description, this package has everything you need, which was really a blessing from my perspective. As others have suggested, we'll gradually replace things as he wants... strings, of course, the strap, maybe some new picks. I didn't realize there was even a tuner in the set, which is great.
One thing extra I feel we immediately need is a stand for the guitar. This is partly because things can get a little rambunctious in our house (e.g., the dog and the boy chasing each other around) and I want the guitar to be safe. I also don't really want him to put it away; I'd like to leave it out in the living room so that he's more inclined to pick it up and play.
I like the DVD, though I'm writing this just as soon as the gift has been opened, so we've only just started. To me, the lessons seem good, though my son is a trumpet player and played piano when young (so he knows musical things) and I've also played instruments (including acoustic guitar) before. We are far from being musicians, but it's not totally new to us, either. You're going to have to replay them a few times to get it; that's part of the learning.
Tips for beginners:
1. Tune your guitar to the DVD initially and don't mess with the electronic tuner. Everything will sound wrong if you're not tuned the same as the DVD guy, but trying to play along with him. Also, you should learn to tune your guitar to the low E string anyway (as he teaches on the DVD).
2. Make sure your low E and high E are actually the same note after you think you're done tuning (but yeah, in different octaves). My son thought he was tuned, but this test didn't pass so we adjusted.
3. Like everything else, you're learning to tune. But if you don't get this reasonably right, when you go on to chords, they'll sound like cr*p.
4. The first chord you're shown is a minor chord. (I question this choice, but there you have it.) This chord might not sound right to you anyway.
5. I think one strategy is to plow ahead till you get to an easier chord to listen to, maybe the regular E or the A. And then you might want to fiddle around a little bit between adjusting the tuning and trying the chord till the chord sounds right.
6. Note that you can find chord charts online for the "open chords", such as the one at Guitar for Beginners that I just found. Those first five chords should sound right if you're properly tuned (remember not to play all the strings for some of the chords).
7. You should maybe do just a little bit each day at the start (15 minutes or so) till your fingers build up calluses. This can also help pace the frustration factor of getting to the point of those first few chords.
8. Once you get those first few chords, you're on your way! Then it's just practice, practice, practice.
p.s. Some musical friends have confirmed that this is an excellent guitar for a beginner. One points out that what you lose in this line (as compared to other Fenders) is the quality control. This was an interesting observation for me -it's true of so many products, but I didn't apply it here. I think this might explain some of the variation in the reviews. Remember that you're buying from Amazon, and if you notice anything wrong, just Send It Back.
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Ok, first off, even if you are a beginner, I do not recommend this guitar.
Why?
One, this guitar has highly incremental buzz. Most people will tell you when you ask, that this is because of the amp, but this is because this is essentially quite cheaply constructed, and the parts aren't as good as a lot of others. The strings are too close to the fret, and this is one of the reasons.
Two, cheap materials, as I stated, are troublesome. After owning the guitar for one week, and having to take out and screw in the whammy bar, the screw part of it got stuck in the hole. Not shortly after that, we returned the guitar.
Three, the frets. Many people stated this, and this is a very big problem for anyone. The frets are NOT smooth at ALL and after just one week of use I had scars and a ripped up palm on my hand.
But if you want a good guitar in this price range, for beginners, here's what I recommend. Get a Fender Squier. At most sites, the base Fender Squier costs $119. About $90 less than this does here, and it has much smoother fret board, but it still has some of the buzz found in this guitar. I also recommend a beginner Epiphone Les Paul or SG.
Got this guitar package for Christmas (in midnight blue, but oh well), and I am liking this a lot. As other reviewers have stated, you are not getting a $300 guitar and a $100 amp you are getting a cheapo beginner's guitar with a wimpy amp.
THAT BEING SAID, it is worth much more than the measly $200 you spend! This is a GREAT package to get for a beginner to the electric guitar. The guitar is sturdy enough to handle some rough playing, and it seems to stay in tune somewhat well. The amp, while not loud or sturdy enough to use in a concert, is fun to mess around with and start experimenting with distortion, etc. I'm sure the picks are fine I prefer hard picks, so I didn't even look at the ones in the package. I also didn't look at the DVD included, having known how to play acoustic for a few years prior.
The bad news: The strings died very quickly for me (both the already string ones and the replacements included). The tuner is finicky at best. The amp will die if you crank the volume and blast away for very long. The strap comes off if you glance at it.
However, for a beginner, this package is perfect. Once you get some practice and feel like moving on, you can get a new tuner, a new amp, and even a new guitar one at a time at your leisure.
TL;DR: This is a great deal for a beginner, well worth the $200.
