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Lately i've been wondering about getting a more mid-pricerange streamlined guitar for sitting-at-home fast riffage - which is basically the only kind of riffage i get lately - and also, if any, the only kind of riffage i'll get in the foreseeable future (kid nr.2 coming in June yayyy)

I love my Hinds Flying V but playing it sitting down it's a pita for my back, REALLY. My old B-tone les-paul-like is good but has a chunky neck, plus pickups and general setup are for low tunings (currently in B). The Strat and the Guild Starfire are not exactly the right guitars for bringing the chugga.

I am still not gravitating towards a specific brand. Noted a few models but before going any further and spoiling them i want to gather some suggestions for the ILF-fam.

- comfortable
- 12mm radius
- 25,5" scale
- no active pickups
- no pointy stuff
- fixed bridge
- thinking 1k€ tops

Bring me them riff machines (while i drink some tea sitting on the couch..)

perhaps the tremolo-free base model of the Guild Surfliner could work. they're like a more ergonomic Jazzmaster, and from what i've seen live (James out of the Manics and the guitarist with This Is The Kit use them) they take pedals quite well.

I've got an ESP/LTD guitar that's quite comfortable in the neck and it seems like they have a variety of aesthetics and features.

But what type of neck? Vintagey, jacksony? That’s normally what really separates things.. also, body? Fendery, gibsony, small? Big?

Case in point my best chugga guitar next to my v is a early 90s epiphone Sheridan 2 with a bareknuckle warpig followed by a old burny sg with black winters:thumb: personally I tend to go with guitars I like the playing of and over all sound and if I need more metalz I swap pickups

I used to have a Charvel desolation dc-2 that may tick all your boxes aside that is has active pickups- or they look like active pickups anyway. Extremely comfortable to play though, and a really nice neck.

https://reverb.com/p/charvel-desolation ... lAEALw_wcB

https://www.guitarcenter.com/Used/Charv ... JdEALw_wcB

They made a skatecaster version too, never played it but looks cool:

https://www.guitarcenter.com/Used/Charv ... SwEALw_wcB

Any of the Sterling stuff could fit your bill- I’m sure the Petrucci model is comfortable, even though I think it looks dumb. The Mariposa is pretty sick I really liked it when I played it. And it comes in pink.

Otherwise, Squier has this contemporary telecaster that slaps:

https://www.guitarcenter.com/Squier/Con ... 0340608.gc

As stated above, you can get a solid LTD under a grand that will do everything you want- here’s my pick, pointy headstock notwithstanding:

https://www.guitarcenter.com/ESP/LTD-M- ... 0368898.gc

Also I played this jackson once it was very good:

https://www.guitarcenter.com/Jackson/Pr ... 0256681.gc

le lambin wrote:Any of the Sterling stuff could fit your bill- I’m sure the Petrucci model is comfortable, even though I think it looks dumb. The Mariposa is pretty sick I really liked it when I played it. And it comes in pink.

I was thinking about suggesting this but I noticed the Sterling stuff doesn't offer as many non-term models as Musician a non-term sterling stingray would be a cool guitar... but to be honest, if you want a conventional shaped non-term bucker loaded musicman for not a bunch try and find a SUB 1 https://reverb.com/item/65741152-ernie- ... gIDsPD_BwE
https://reverb.com/item/73703177-ernie- ... gJhmvD_BwE the guitarist in my old band got one as a backup for their main which was a custom Silhouette and ended up using the SUB more. I just picked up a 5 string bass Sub and it's as good as any of the high end stingrays.. you just have to not hate to weird textured finish and find one that isn't played to death.. they are workhorses and most people use them that way

Hey thanks everyone for the feedback.

Yeah, ESP/LTD and Charvel are two of the main options i am investigating at the moment, some of the suggestions we're already in my radar, happy to see i am already pointing towards something that makes sense.

Shape-wise i want something comfortable, with the upper part of the neck easily reachable. Big or small is not a problem, as long as i can play it sitting down: the Guild semiacoustic has been my main guitar for 10 years, and that's definitely a BIG body.
Regarding the neck i want something in the middle: not too fat as my Blacktone but not super-thin like the jacksons. What they usually call "rounded C" should do.

I don't like pointy horns but that single pickup LTD that le lambin linked above is quite appealing (headstock aside).
I like the Charvel San Dimas shape, the problem with Charvel is that there aren't many options with humbuckers + fixed bridge, unless with terrible colors.

Even if i don't care at all about Jim Root, its Jazzmaster V4 looks hot. Super clean white look, pearl blocks, 25,5", 12" radius, locking tuners..though it lacks a tone knob and active pickups. Probably the neck is quite thin too.

Another one that caught my eye is the LTD Sparrowhawk: the shape is weird but somehow haunting, it has a simple two-knobs-two-humbucker setup,with coil-split, which is a bonus feature i'd really appreciate. Radius is 12", the scale would be 24,75", but i could close an eye on that and just put slightly heavier top strings to increase the tension a bit. It's above my price range and not many units in the used market, at least in EU. Weirdly enough i found out it's a model designed with Bill Kelliher, i didn't even knew that. I seem to gravitate towards Mastodon's guitars without even wanting to, i guess my taste is similar to theirs.

Honestly the whole Musicman & Sterling lines really don't vibe with me at all, both shape and finish-wise..

(warning: now taking the memory lane)
Now that i think about it, when i was 16-17 and LTD Viper was my main and only guitar for 2-3 years: it was my first "serious" guitar, meaning it was the first guitar beside the sub-standard un-tunable squier inherited by my cousin, on which i moved my first step in the guitar world.
It the first time i think about that guitar since forever, i don't even know what were its specs, but i remember trying it in a shop and thinking it was the best guitar ever, especially compared to my previous one. Now strings were really close to the neck, and not hanging 1cm over the fretboard! it was about 400€ or less, new, paid with my savings and a little help from my parents.
My setup was that guitar, a tiny 15w yamaha practice amp or whatever was available in the rehearsal room, a big box Big Muff, og EHx Small Clone, Boss BF3, Ibanez Soundtank delay: ahhh, the glorious noise floor going "ghshhhhhhhhhhhhhh" 99% of the time...but life was waaaay simpler.

Well.. might want to look at the Jackson shadowcaster, similar to above mentioned skatecaster/surfcaster, Rob was in Anthrax for a while so it should do what you might want

https://www.jacksonguitars.com/en-US/gu ... 04592.html

Edited for couch content sorry/not sorry


As far as Jackson’s go, I thought the 90s mij Kelly I had was a good sitting on a couch guitar, I just never could deal with that fucking recessed Floyd combined with my normal setup.. tuning to B standard with 16-70 strings, it was always a compromise… I even tried blocking it more than one way before finally trading it…

There are some fixed bridge EVH models and what I seem to gather (though I could be completely wrong) is that they're basically all the same neck shape, and that might be in the same zone as the current Charvels. So more options, and often seem to be on sale new.

Some Godins will fit on scale length and bridge, and the necks tend to be a modern take on a smaller Fender vintage C profile with flat radius and for the past 20 or so years rolled fretboard edges. I think these can still be done cheap used, but people are picking up on the quality.

EVH wolfgangs have wonderful, extremely comfortable roasted necks (the newer, lower prix models might need fret werk outta th' box), though they appear chunkier than they actually are IRL Only caveat is that some can't jive with the smaller (but heavy) body shape, or the mostly-Floyd appopriated trem (Sterling sells a similar shape w/ a standard bridge, but I know you aren't interested in those - also, the necks aren't as uniformly as good/great as the EVH).

I dunno how well they'll fit sitting down, but the Jim Root Jazzmaster seems ideal for that kind of classical-style fitting. It has a compound radius and is not particularly thin, kind of like a Fender take on speed racer kind of situation (that Fender C profile, so if that's something you're alreddy used to, this is like a smoother, faster version of that).

Also, you can also never really go wrong with a used Ibanez (all shapes n' sizes, pick yer pleasure) - just keep your eyes out, and one is bound to pop up at a reasonable prix (at least in the $500 range, usually much lower), will have a great neck, adjustable tone bone zones, & probably lighter than any ESP or Cjarvelackson (to soothe thine achin' back).

Yah also on those Godins, if you can find a Redline I wood recommend (this one is closer to a Nuno, but you get the idea). Ppl are gettin' wise to those Canadians!

coupleonapkins wrote:EVH wolfgangs ….. (Sterling sells a similar shape w/ a standard bridge

There is a reason for that..,,

He left MM supposedly because they weren’t pumping out enough EVH models
When he went to peavey he thought he could take the shape and design with him…
Sterling wasn’t having any of that, so part of the deal with peavey was he got to own the design of the Wolfgang guitar.. so the next time he decided to abandon a company on a whim he could have the next company make his same guitar… like he did with fende….sorry EVH I remember reading in guitarworld or guitarshop (now premierguitar) they had issues getting the Wolfgang to sound like the Musicman because they went with the arched top vs the flat top on the Musicman… so the Wolfgang is basically a modified Musicman Axis…

I don’t like the asymmetrical EVHneck profile personally

hey thank you all for the suggestions..
I barely got time to investigate the specs of those models so far but i will asap. I already saw that a local shop has two of the suggested guitars in store, including the Wolfgang, so hopefully i'll be able to check them out in person, which is always a good thing.

In the meanwhile I dug out my trusty old Blacktone, which I barely touched in the past year or so, to see if I could turn that into a more tight-riff machine.
While the neck is more comfortable than I remembered, the mix of woods (Mahogany with Maple top) and specific pickups (alnico+ceramic) make it a quite dark sounding guitar with a specific sound in my arsenal, and i don't want to modify it.