Best Beginner Gear: Entry-Level Music Equipment for Your Music
A clear guide on guitars, amps and more
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Our pick of the best beginner gear will help you craft your musical experience. Helping you to select what guitars, amps, and anything else that you may need on your guitar-playing journey.
Best Beginner Gear: Entry-Level Music Equipment for Your Music
Learning the guitar is hard enough without the stress of finding amps, tuners, picks and pedals etc. Allow us to remove some of that potential anxiety with this rundown of beginner gear.
Whether you’re learning to play the acoustic or electric guitar, we’ve got you covered. Moreover, if this purchase advisor doesn’t quite wet your appetite, *Thomann has plenty of other products available at your fingertips! What’s more, it’s their 70th anniversary, whereby there are loads of sweet deals to be had.
So, let us check out some of the best beginner gear to be had. Working our way through some cheaper alternatives, and some more expensive options.
Acoustic Guitars
Firstly, let us look at the perfect starting point when learning guitar. Acoustic guitars should be the bread and butter for all guitarists. Think about humble beginnings. A best-seller, one option is the Harley Benton D-120NT. A dreadnought acoustic, ideal for bright, loud low tones.
Despite offering a spruce top, mahogany body and a roseacer fingerboard, it is at the lower end of the price range. If you’re prepared to spend a little more, this Guild A-20 is another ideal beginner dreadnaught-style acoustic. Welcoming that bright sound, and a comfortable C-profile neck.
However, if you’re a younger beginner, why not check out this Sheeran By Lowden W03? Sure, it’s got a hefty price tag for a first guitar, but it does come with many benefits. Having a shorter scale, it’ll be easier to play compared to a larger acoustic. Moreover, it has an LR Baggs EAS VTC pickup system. Meaning that when you’ve got a few chords under your belt, you’ll be able to plug in and play live.
Electric Guitars
Our next look at the best beginner gear will be on electric guitars. Are you ready to transition from acoustic to electric? Or were you born to rock out?
The Fender Stratocaster is what most people think of when it comes to electric guitars. Introduced in 1954, this timeless design was way ahead of its time. Ideal for beginners, there are plenty of variations of this guitar on the market.
Companies such as Harley Benton and Squier offer faithful replicas of real Fender Stratocasters for a fraction of the cost.
What makes a Strat so good? Well, the signature Strat sound is thanks to 3-single coil pickups. Combined with a 5-way pickup selector, this guitar provides an incredible amount of dynamic range and customisation.
Humbuckers or Single Coils?
Although we’re looking at some of the best beginner gear, you want a guitar that’ll last over time. Meaning that it’ll still serve you when you’ve got a few more techniques to use.
Single coil pickups, like on Stratocasters and Telecasters, provide a clean and relatively thin sound. They do the job nicely, but what if you want something more powerful? This is where humbuckers come into the mix.
Essentially, a humbucker is a double-coiled pickup. Therefore, twice as powerful as a single coil. Guitars such as Les Pauls pioneered the use of these pickups. Allowing for a heavier, more powerful sound. Here are a few examples:
Best Beginner Gear – Amplifiers
Now that you’ve got a better idea of what kind of guitar you could go for, let’s look at some amps. Why do you even need one? Well, electric guitar amplifiers allow players to plug-in and increase the volume of their playing. Oh, and so much more…
The Boss Katana 50 MKII is a fantastic solid-state combo amplifier. When I learnt to play guitar, I had a tiny little crackly sounding amp with just a volume and a tone knob. In 2024, you can get your hands on this 50-watt amp with 12-inch custom speakers and 5 different amplifier types!
Mooer Hornet Black 30W
Although the Katana is impressive, it has a price tag to reflect its impressive capabilities. When looking at the best beginner gear, this modelling amp from Mooer is a great place to explore.
If I was learning the guitar all over again and needed a cool practice amp, I’d definitely look towards something like this. For not very much cash, you’ll be able to play around with chorus, phaser and vibrato. Whilst also utilising 3 different types of delay and reverb.
Additional welcome appointments include:
- 9-way rotary switch
- AUX input
- Bluetooth Capabilities
Battery Powered Beginner Gear
For on-the-move practising and jamming, battery-powered guitar amplifiers offer plenty of features wrapped up in a portable and rechargeable package.
Compared to a solid-state amplifier, you won’t exactly have the same power or control. However, most single-watt battery amps are enough for a quick bedroom jam. Furthermore, delve a little deeper and you could find your next busking partner. With some products boasting several hours of runtime…
Pedals
Although modern amplifiers provide a wealth of digital effects, guitar pedals are a right of passage when it comes to learning the guitar. From chorus to flanger pedals, let’s dig through our next instalment of the best beginner gear.
· Source: Harley Benton
Kicking us off, multi-effects pedals are a brilliant way to switch up your sound. Even though they’re more expensive than a stand-alone pedal, they give you tremendous value for money.
This DNAfx GiT Pro from Harley Benton features a 5-inch colour display which provides access to overdrive, harmoniser, chorus, phaser and many more digital effects. We’ve even got speaker simulations and a MIDI output for recording. Why is a multi-effects ideal for beginners?
Getting your hands on a multi-effects pedal will allow you to experiment with different sounds. Helping you craft your musical taste as you learn your craft. Furthermore, one pedal won’t take up a lot of space and means you only need one power supply.
Drives and Reverbs – Best Beginner Gear
Aside from multi-effects pedals, as a beginner I always relied on two main pedals to help me out.
This Marshall Bluesbreaker will, at the flick of a footswitch, provide some harsher overdriven tones. This authentic reissue of a legendary pedal, features overall gain, tone and volume controls. When you look at soloing, this will be perfect for making your guitar stand out in the mix.
Reverb pedals will also switch up your sound quickly, cheaply and effectively.
On their own, a guitar straight through an amp often sounds flat and dull. However, reverb pedals create an eco-like sound which brings life and space to your playing.
This reverb pedal from Flamma provides you with 7 different reverb types for very little cash. Comprising of decay, pre-delay, high and low cut controls, this is a great piece of beginner gear.
Tuners
It can be hard to know which tuner to buy as there are so many options. Luckily, we already have a comprehensive guide on what you could go for. Mobile apps are all well and good, but you can’t beat a real guitar tuner for pitch precision.
However, while you’re here, you may as well check out a couple of examples:
Miscellaneous Best Beginner Gear
Okay, so we’ve covered guitars, amplifiers, pedals and tuners. We’re not quite there yet. There is an abundance of various accessories that you can get hold of to help you on your guitar-playing journey. However, the following could be considered somewhat essential:
Capos
Capos are compulsory for quickly raising the pitch of the guitar. Certain songs may even require the use of one.
Cables
Without guitar leads, you wouldn’t be able to access the weird and wonderful sounds from your amps and pedals. Moreover, a lot of pedals need power supplies too, along with patch cables to connect them. All of these are somewhat overlooked when it comes to beginner gear. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered:
Plectrums
Finally, picks! Guitar picks are so important for all guitarists. Metal or classical and everything in-between, you’ll need a good guitar pick to help you pluck those six strings.
There are loads of materials and sizes to choose from, so you’re best to experiment to get a feel for what works for you.
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Further Information:
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One response to “Best Beginner Gear: Entry-Level Music Equipment for Your Music”
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Rombo picks in the picture but not in the artlcle? Not really cheap but give them a try! A colleague has an MS-4 which is a joke, you cant seriously be recommending that thing???