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This is meant to be the "non-magical" bit of the forum so, on a non-magical topic, do any of you guys play guitar, what gear have you got and who are your favourite guitarists? Anyone under 40 who says "Eric Clapton" will be ignored and possibly mocked.

I'm a PRS and MESA guy myself.

...and worship at the guitar altar of Vai, Malmsteen, Gilbert and (the one all time great) Eddie Van Halen.

Six strings that drew blood.

I've been known to dabble, but then I play most things, to varying degrees of ineptitude.

In terms of guitarists? A tricky one. I used to get all excited by the usual suspects... now I appreciate a finely crafted song more, the whole rather than the parts.

So... I guess Warren Ellis or Blixa Bargeld? Blixa especially. Any of the Bad Seeds really

In the technical sense, I suppose Mr Page gets my vote, George Harrison too. In a modern sense I'm quite fond of Jack White's riffages.

I have an Ovation Anniversary edition.
And I think I'll put Jimi Hendrix as my favorite guitarist.

EADGBE is one of the greatest religions. I've owned a few decent guitars in my time (inc a nice honeyburst Gibson Les Paul, which sadly got nicked), but now resort to a Maverick (think of Ibanez) and a Yamaha.

Joe Satriani and Steve Vai used to by my idols, but i've turned my back on shredding and focused more on songmanship. Jimmy Page is in my opinion, is up there in terms of pure musical creativity (I urge you all to savour the 25 minutes of pure aural ecstasy in the live performance of Dazed and Confused at New York's Madison Square Gardens in In Concert and Beyond by Led Zeppelin.

I hope to make a big announcement about my own music on Talk Magic in a few months... watch this space!

well lets see. I have a five string Ibanez SR series bass(my band bass) and two washburn tarus basses. one is a T12 fretted(my first) and the other a T14 fretless(my fav) I own a Peavey MAX 115 amp an ibanez fuzz box, a dunlop crybaby wah.

And I have a jackson standard 101 electric guitar and a harmony classic guitar that my great grandpa left me. I rarely play either but they are decent instruments.

And for fav artist lets see..... Victor Wooten, Dave Pybus Peeter Steele, Paul Gray, that guy from The Faceless, Cliff Burton, Justin Chancellor and the list goes on and on and on.

Guitar wise Jim and Mick from Slipkont, Vai, Malmsteen, Satriani, John Petrucci(sp), Ollie from ATR, Herman Li and Sam Tottman from Dragonforce, and again the list just keeps going.

John Petrucci

Yea there you go. Great player, great band. Everytime I listen to Dream Theater play, my brain explodes a little.

I play guitar, my band is doing another short tour of the West Coast USA in February.

I have a '62 re-issue Fender Strat ( 16 years old she is ), an Ibanez GAX 70, two Squier Strats, a Peavy Falcon and my workhorse is an Epiphone 335 Dot Studio. Oh, and i dabble on the banjo.

For ampage i use either a Fender Stage or a Line 6 Spider 2 x 12.

The greatest solo for me is on Cardiac's song Fiery Gun Hand, played by Zappa freak Random Jon Poole. But, it's all down to taste innit? There's nowt wrong with a bit of shredding, but i also love people like Dave Gilmour and Mark Knopfler for their tasty bends. You gotta mix it all up and get what you can out of it.

Flaw07 - so you're a bassist, rather than a musician

And TheStoner - PRS and mesa, eh?! Sweet... I hope you can play half decently my friend, to justify the dear gear!

Yup, I play. Played classical until grade 5 (hating every minute of it due to a very bad teacher - still a teeny bit bitter about all that...!), then got my first electric, an Epiphone Les Paul custom, followed by a Marshall valvestate 275. After busting my ass lugging that around for a while, I realised a smaller but pure valve amp would be better, and got a Laney LC30, which I still have. I love it - IMHO, Laney are a little known secret - great quality, great tone, but great value too. I got mine second hand in perfect condition from a friend for £180... I'm not going to say "it'd beat any Fender Twin" but it's a pure class A amp, so even at only 30 watts there's still almost too much power there - I certainly never struggle to be heard

Somewhere before that I got a mexican Fender Telecaster 50s re-issue - lovely guitar. I always preferred the Gibson-style neck cross section and was put off buying a Fender because the neck on my friend's stratocaster seemed bulky and clumsy, but the Tele is more like a Gibson in some ways - shallower I think.

The only other guitar I would forseeably splash out on one day in my life would be a heritage sunburst Les Paul

In terms of favourite guitarists... I was quite into classic rock for a while, then moved to indie, and now listen to all sorts of stuff. Still love Zeppelin and Hendrix, and in terms of best guitarists, to me it has to be Hendrix. Sure, Satriani and Vai are just insanely skilled - I saw Steve Vai at the Apollo once - but it just gets a bit academic and show-offy for me... there's no tone, there's no soul! Hendrix pioneered that wonderful sound - the fusion of rhythm and lead - and loaded it with passion and feeling.

When I finally diverted my full learning to the electric, I had goal based on three songs: Little Wing by Hendrix, Under The Bridge by the Chilli Peppers (John Frusciante plays a lot like Hendrix) and... of course... Stairway to Heaven

When I got to that level, the stuff beyond it was going into jazz and finger tapping, and I just wasn't interested. So that's the level I stuck at!

In terms of pedals - I've really pared them down over the last few years, otherwise it gets silly... I've got a basic boss distortion, a Marshall vibratrem, a Cry Baby wah and the most technical of my pedals: an Akai Headrush E2, which is a fancy delay pedal you can also use for real-time loops etc.

Oh, and a Korg tuner. Because everyone has boss tuners and I wanted to be different

junior Les Paul sunburst

guitarist-Carlos Santana

Deep Purple-rock (dueling lead)

John Lee Hooker-blues

1 Black Ovation
4 Ibanez guitars
1 Fender Strat
1 Mini Taylor for traveling (need to get the truss rod adjusted, at the moment)

I've had my eye on a very nice Telecaster, recently.

Play through a crate and/or Fender amp - depending on moods. A few pedals here and there, but my Morley Bad Horsie Wah is my favorite.

Malmsteen, Vai, Satriani, Eric Johnson, Joe Stump, Metallica, Slipknot, Al DiMeola, Christopher Parkening, SRV, Chet Atkins, Blues Saraceno, Jesse Cook, Jack White, Joe Perry, the list goes on and on.

My current favorite - whom I listen to non-stop, is John 5. That SOB can play!

Say what you will about Clapton - but I think he's better than Van Halen. Jimi never did it for me. I appreciate his influence, but I just never got into his music.

Farlsborough wrote:TheStoner - PRS and mesa, eh?! Sweet... I hope you can play half decently my friend, to justify the dear gear!

Yeah - luckily I'm fairly brilliant. Check it out at http://www.soundclick.com/mikestoner - I'd suggest listening to "Shedding Crocodile Tears for Dinosaurs" for my version of a Vai instrumental, "Monday Blues" for a short blast of British shred over a tasteful backing or "Vogon Fast Blues" for my take on Gary Moore.

At a normal gig I take two PRS Custom 24s, a couple of MESA Dual Rectifiers (or maybe a DIEZEL Einstein), a Genz-Benz 2x12 cab and a bag full of pedals.

Next gig is at The Rising Sun in Slough tomorrow night at 9.30pm!

You've got 5 PRSs?! It must be paying the bills then!

Glad to hear you're a decent player - I've seen several gimps with PRSs playing very basic rhythm... it's like, "if you're just going to strum the bugg*r, give it to me!"

Worse, I saw a guy with my desired guitar (heritage sunburst les paul) in some avant gard punk type band, doing nothing with it except make weird sounds, playing below the bridge/above the nut etc.

I did actually go up afterwards and ask whether he really needed that guitar to make a load of unintelligible noise... he looked a bit sheepish and said "no, I suppose not, I just find it easier to play..." - whatever

as a guitar player for 22 years, I'm afraid you must all suffer a mark lewis style sermon...

ahem...

no to shredding, or any super fast playing that sounds like old machine-code being played very loudly...

i think you'll find the very best guitarists in the world were/are (in no particular order):

jose feliciano
jimi hendrix
stephen stills
bert jansch
richie havens
rory gallagher

even stevie winwood beat clapton and hendrix in the 1967 (i think) NME awards for best guitarist...peter green put it best i think, "it's the notes you don't play...not the notes you do..." but then again, he went loopy and put cheese in his hair...

i don't subscribe to branded guitars, i prefer to find one that sounds good to you, and learn to love it...i've played the same make and model of guitar, loved one, hated the other...a guitar should be part of you...

it genuinely broke my heart to have to sell two of my guitars a few years back...one i'd had for ten years...a cheap brand, but it sounded soooo warm when i played it...

where's all the decent lead guitarists gone these days eh?!

Steve Winwood-Traffic? killer band.

still think Carlos Santana belongs there somewhere.

Hendrix-guitar savant