Looks like I'm going in to the market. - HELP GUITAR!

Looks like I'm going in to the market.

Hay everyone. I hope you guys can help me make the best decisions, for all the equipment I'm going to have to get coming up.

Ok so here is the story, All my equipment has seen better days.

I will be asking each of the individual equipment questions on different topics.

If you could pleas post links to your what your advising would be most helpful.

so lets start with my guitar.

My guitar/amp was cheep and now I'm paying for it. SO I have to start from the bottom up, and I'm looking for it.

For starts I need an electric guitar.

I am fine with building my own guitar, and That is more of the way I would like to go. I'm am just has fine with buying one.
The denominator will be how much I will have to pay, vs. its quality.

If you think I should buy one show me some guitars that you think will work, or if you think I should build one show me the specs of the parts

So here is what I want, and some questions on things I don't know if I do want.

A solid wood body. for a month I play a few different ones and I'm sold. (if some one could tell me the negatives and benefits of solid bodys that would be helpful).

much like this Les Paul
http://www2.gibson.com/Products/Electric-Guitars/Les-Paul/Epiphone/Les-Paul-Standard.aspx

As for the neck I need something I can depend on!
My last guitar is dead now because of a crappy neck. I would like for a deeper sound so a longer neck would be amazing.

Then I guess it comes down to pegs, what are some good ones you know of?

Now do I want a wammy bar? Yes... but I could live with out it.
I love the look and feel of Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, but if you know of a better more dependable kine of bar let me know.

I know what string I'm getting, I love wild high tension strings strong feel powerful sound and great for low tunings.

I'm going to need a pick plat, now of cool ones? If I am making my own guitar I'm going to make my own.

now done to the fun stuff. The wiring, the thing I don't know much about.

I would like pickups clean powerful pick ups, I play a wide rang of music and my pick ups need to keep up with me. I would like tone control and volume control on each pick up, and maybe a cut off switch.

If I was building my own guitar building my own guitar I would like to be able to have my guitar be set to stereo, it would be vary useful for my own musical work. I have seen some really great things done with it. This would be done by having each pickup set to its own out but, but still be able to set to mono.

Studio/on the street set it to stereo
Band Mono

I will have to wire it myself, let me know if any of you guys have done this. I know guys who do it with acoustics but not that many electrics.

As for a finish I'm fine with blue, black, but I really want a Nice cherry red.

so thats the guitar I want hope you guys can get an image of what it looks like.

Thanks for what ever help you can give me.

Hey dude, you'd be better off looking for it via google or ebay... We can't make the decisions for you when it's something you want. But you should go to a number of music stores and try them out yourself. If it's something you really want - I think it's fair to say you should do the research yourself for it.

Not offense intended there man.

Get the stewart macdonald catalog and read it. It gives you perspective. I like Grover tuning machines but the Planet Waves self clipping ones seem really cool for 1 minute string changes.

What kind of music do you want to play? That might help in the thinking process. Basically all you gave us is "I want a whammy bar and a blue/black guitar". That's nothing on style of music you play or sound, which is the MOST important part of this process.

Now, I am not a gearhead, so I can't help you with most of your thinking from the ground up. I usually buy a guitar and then modify as I see fit. Sort of a different approach than what you've taken here.

But, if you can give me some information on the style of play you want to achieve out of this, then I think I can be of more help.

Go look at the Schecter website for a guitar you like, I, and several other members here, high recommend them

@JazzMaverick - Trust me I am doing my ownresearch, just wanted to see what you guys thought on this matter. Sometimes I get ideas or suggestions I would never have thought of on my own.

Its also hard because I don't know vary many guitarist that I can just ask questions to... the guys at the store go to, are not always as easy going.

@JustJeff Oh I forgot to put that in there, sorry Jeff thank you.

"I play a wide rang of music and my pick ups need to keep up with me."

Thats kinda the problem, I play everything from Hardrock, Jazz, to ever electronic. SO I need a guitar that can do it all I guess it what I'm getting at, but this will comedown to my playing. I just need a clean sound, high output, with good tone and volume control.

If you guys can help me out with what kind of pickups I should look into that would be great.

-High Out (high volume output in other words)

-Clean and Clear

-Good Tone and volume control

That's really what I need help on right now. Thank you guys.

@ Neomass, agreed - also, they'll try to big something up because they're only trying to sell it. They're not the best people to talk to. Glad you're looking, too. A lot of people don't really bother researching, so I wanted to make sure, since it's soon to be yours. :)

I'd highly recommend some Dave Mustaine Livewires from Seymour Duncan for pickups. They actually sound quite good when they are clean and deliver some great distorted tones without getting muddy(unless you use really bad settings :P)

Bridge pickup IS a Duncan JB(Sh-4)
Neck pickup IS a Duncan Jazz(SH something or other)

These just have batteries to juice up the output a little more. Clean tones are very nice when you roll off the guitar volume to about 3-4(on a clean channel).

They are expensive(I think 200 for the pair) but not much more than buying Gibby pickups. Just a thought man...

@case211 - thank you an that's really helpful, I'll go and take a look at it.

@neomass the pickups your lookn for are dimarzio d-activators,active sound without batteries,i have them on my guitar,and they are incredibly versatile,they usually are just bridge and neck,with a 3-way toggle,one volume,which is very sensitive to all changes,and one tone pot,it has a nice sweep range,kinda like a wah.just my 2 cents.

gs2112