The Best Electric Guitars for Beginners

Yes, or something that does an amp's job. An unplugged electric is quiet and thin, and practising that way hides buzzes and muted strings you will hear the moment you plug in. There are three routes.

• A small practice amp. Compact modeling amps are the most frequent suggestion in beginner threads on r/Guitar; the Boss Katana and Positive Grid Spark lines come up repeatedly because they sound reasonable at low volume and have headphone outputs.
• Headphones. Many small amps have a headphone jack, which matters in apartments and shared homes.
• A starter pack. The cheapest way to get everything at once, covered below.

Whichever route you choose, add a cable if one is not included, and a clip-on tuner.

Packs put a guitar, a small amp and accessories in one box. The Squier Sonic Stratocaster Pack, which Fender lists with a Frontman 10G amp, gig bag, cable, strap and picks, is typical. The guitars inside are ordinary entry-level models from reputable makers. The amps are the weak link: across years of threads on r/Guitar and r/guitarlessons, the recurring view is that pack amps sound harsh and are the first thing replaced.

A fair rule: buy a pack as a gift, or for a child who may not continue. If the player is an adult who has decided to learn, buy the guitar alone and put the difference toward a better small amp.

Pickups shape an electric guitar's sound more than anything else. Guitar World's buying advice sums it up: single coils sound bright and clear but can pick up hum with heavy distortion, while humbuckers are thicker and warmer and cancel that hum, which is why rock and metal players favour them.

You do not have to choose forever. The Pacifica 112V mixes both, and its coil split lets the humbucker approximate a single coil. If you love clean, chiming parts, lean toward the Classic Vibe Strat. If your playlist is loud, lean toward the Sonic HT H.

Scale length is the distance from the nut to the bridge. Strat-style guitars use 25.5 in; Les Paul-style guitars use 24.75 in. A shorter scale puts the frets a little closer together and lowers string tension, which Guitar World notes can make a guitar feel easier for smaller hands.

For young children the difference needs to be bigger. The Ibanez miKro's 22.2 in scale is built for roughly five-to-nine-year-olds. Teenagers and adults with small hands usually manage a full-size guitar well; a slim neck, like the Pacifica's 41 mm nut, often matters more than a shorter scale.

A tremolo or whammy bridge lets you bend the pitch of whole chords, but it floats on springs and gives strings more ways to drift out of tune. Guitar World suggests a fixed bridge is often the more reliable choice for a first guitar. The Sonic HT H and the miKro use fixed bridges; the Classic Vibe Strat and the Pacifica have tremolos you can simply leave alone.

Budget for a professional setup, too. It adjusts string height, neck relief and intonation, and even a new guitar can benefit after months in a warehouse. On r/Guitar it is advice that turns up alongside almost every model recommendation.

Choose by who is playing and what they want to sound like.

• Not sure of a style yet: Yamaha Pacifica 112V, the widest range of sounds for the money.
• Tight budget, rock, punk or blues: Squier Sonic Stratocaster HT H, with nothing to fuss over.
• An adult who wants a keeper: Squier Classic Vibe '50s Stratocaster.
• A child aged about five to nine: Ibanez miKro GRGM21.
• A gift with everything included: Squier Sonic Stratocaster Pack.

If you can, hold your shortlist in a shop first. The right guitar is the one that makes you want to pick it up every day.