What setup did you start out with?

[drdoom8793]

I started on a Schecter Omen 6 and a 15 w Peavey Vyper. The schecter was surprisingly good for the money but the Peavey was garbage.

 

[tonyvenn]

My first real setup was a Japanese El Degas Les Paul copy into my father's red Supro amp.

 

[Bowtiefanatc]

First guitar was a bright red Fender Squire, in retrospect it was a lot nicer than the crappy Jackson I traded it in on. And I had a small little Crate solid state amp with a 10" speaker.

I didn't get my first PRS until about 2 years ago, after lusting over them for about 16 years

 

[Lee B.]

I started with a Yamaha Pacifica as probably most of the guys who live in Europe. It wasn't exactly what I liked (was more of a heavy fan back then) but I kept it fore a long time as it was a great guitar for the money. Guitars that followed: Ibanez PGM, Gibson SG special, Esp horizon, self made tele and CU24. The last three are still with me.

Those Pacificas were great guitars, especially the MIJ ones back in the early 90s. "The One That Got Away" for me was a trans black 1990 Pacifica 812 with HSH DiMarzios, a compound radius maple fretboard, and Yamaha's Floyd-style bridge. Probably the best $300 I ever spent, and I will go to my grave regretting how I traded it toward a vintage tenor sax I ended up pawning.

 

[garrett]

Peavey Predator (Strat copy, bought new) through a Peavey Pacer (pawn shop find, with a Radio Shack 15" speaker where the original 12" should've been), but I really started on Mom's 1975 small-bodied Yamaha acoustic a little more than a year before. Five years after getting the Peavey, I bought my first PRS.

 

[Alan Manning]

I started with an Avon Rose Morris Japanese LP copy which I still have although it's looking rather sorry these days ( back in the 70s) and a 30 watt tube amp "cant remember whether it was Marshall or not " bought from a work mate at the time.
Happy Days.!!!

 

[Lee B.]

My first guitar was a second-hand hohner arbour strat copy in black running through a Marshall shred master, arion chorus ,Ibanez ts9 into a Marshall valvestate 10watt amp... Use to borrow a friends Laney linebacker 30watt amp for gigs but hated the tone out of it so did the same as Sreamingdaisy an bought ts9 to make it sound more tube like..
Wish I still had the shred master an arbour strat but they went ages ago though I did blow up the Laney an was so so upset about it...

Man, have you seen what those 70s-80s Hohner Fender copies have been going for on eBay and Reverb? Unreal. And I bet it's gotten even crazier since Prince left us.

 

[gasmansteve72]

Yeah I know I'm guttered as I traded it in for a epiphone pearl white flying v with a crappie copy Floyd rose trem which exploded into bits after a while .... Wish I still had the hohner but taught me the lesson of if you like it keep it don't trade it..

 

[andy474x]

Good stories!

Started at 14 on my dad's old dime store acoustic, tuned it so I could play most of "The Star Spangled Banner" and hardly fret any notes! When my parents decided I had the drive to make something of it, they got me a Yamaha Pacifica kit with a black HSH strat kind of thing, and a 1x8 Gorilla amp, and added a Zoom 606 multi-fx, worst modeler you've ever heard! But the Yamaha was actually a pretty nice guitar, considering. Moved my way up through a MIM Strat, 1x12 Fender Frontman, 4x12 B52 AT100 half stack... and then one fine day, all the way from Daddy's on the east coast, to Michigan, a cherry burst SE Custom 22. That's when it all REALLY a started

When I first got the itch to get a guitar, my dad rolled his eyes and said, "Yeah, right, like you're going to teach yourself to play guitar." He really wanted me to dismiss the notion, but became more supportive as he saw me learning. By the time I was in college, I was playing in the church band, and had unintentionally gotten a reputation for being pretty good. My dad learned to run sound because he didn't think the other guys turned the guitars up loud enough, and I would call him the Deacon of Decibels. It was pretty cool.

 

[KrisCHS]

I started with a white squier strat and a peavey rage 158