Kids these days :)

[Primo]

I'm giving my son weekly guitar lessons at home and have him use my JP12. Heck when I was young I used a cheap Strat clone on my very first guitar lessons. That was such a pain to play. I eventually got a better Jackson/Ibanez clone hybrid with a Floyd which was a step up I guess (mind you that clone guitars were cheaper when I was living in the Philippines). I eventually got a Japanese made Ibanez RG550 which I guess was my first "real good" guitar. Stuck with Ibanez guitars since then. EBMM guitars didn't really appeal to me until I started seeing ads of Steve Morse and then Eddie Van Halen. I mean I know about the EBMM basses being badass instruments, but their guitars just didn't caught on with me. Then I see Steve Lukather going for EBMM guitars, and eventually John Petrucci. That pretty much sparked my interest for EBMM guitars which then led to me having three EBMM guitars in my arsenal. (Next up on my purchase list is an Axis )

So I guess having my son use the JP12 for his guitar lessons is like teaching him how to drive in a Ferrari. I'll eventually get him his own guitar though.



So with that, what was your first guitar and what made you go for Balls?

 

[mystixboi1]

Lucky kid

My first guitar was an Aria Pro ii.

I first got into Balls because of EVH. My first Ball was an axis in sunburst.

 

[joe web]

evh - and this was also my first ball i got.

 

[peterd79]

my first guitar was/is (still have it) 1957 Gibson Les Paul jr. Double cut away...

i then got an OLP MM1f (still have it) which lead me to this forum which lead me to buying my 20th Anniversary Silhouette

been hooked ever since.

 

[dkannen]

I had an epiphone SG. The thing went out of tune so easily that it actually turned me off to playing the guitar at first, since it was so frustrating. Finally I got a low level ibanez with a locking nut. It finally stayed in tune... but getting it in tune before I locked the nut was the hard part! at least the knock off floyd had fine tuners.

I saved.. and saved... and saved some more and found my black BFR in the back of Guitar Center in the used section. everything about it blew me away- and I'll never go back!

 

[Razzle]

Sounds like he's spoiled (and if my son played, I'd spoil the h$&^$ out of him).

I had a no name. It was stolen, I got a 70's Gibson Les Paul to replace it. It was stolen. Many since (but not stolen).

I got my first ball because of Mr Eddie Van Halen, and the Axis (ironically it wasn't his guitar).

 

[JasonT]

My first electric guitar many years ago was a Westone strat-style guitar, which is long since gone.

Although I was aware of EBMM guitars, it wasn't until I played a Rosewood Axis Super Sport hardtail in late 2006 that I actually bought one. I was blown away by the great variety of clean and dirt tones. I used it in the cover band I was playing in at the time. I later sold it to another member here.

I've owned (and sold) a number of EBMM guitars since then, but I have really connected with the LIII model and, in particular, the Bali Burst LIII. It's my #1.

 

[Gio_Force_One]

My first guitar was an 80s harmony electric guitar that oddly enough had a truss for wheel like ebmm. My first real nice guitar was a 92 strat that I still have but it's so beat up now and doesn't get played all that much.

About four years ago I had a 2007 les Paul classic that I had put up on Craigslist and it was up there for awhile and one day someone offered me a y2d in trade and i love the colour purple and instantly fell in love with the colour. So I did some research and it seemed like a great guitar so I met up and traded with him.
It took about a year to really bond with it but once i did it became my number one guitar and now I have two other y2ds.
Great guitars and they took my playing to a new level.

 

[VinSun]

Simple for me.

1982 - I don't know from which "brand" this "baby was.

 

[Primo]

<snip> The thing went out of tune so easily that it actually turned me off to playing the guitar at first, since it was so frustrating. <snip>

I had the same issue with my very first guitar as well.

 

[ksandvik]

The Sterling SUB series is excellent as intro guitars, affordable, good sound. Cheap investment, too, in case the kid is ultimately more interested in baseball.

 

[Tim O'Sullivan]

My first electric was an Aria pro II CT Series Superstrat type guitar, which was soon replaced by a Aria PE1200. Great axe, though I recently gave it away.

I discovered EBMM thanks to EVH. Without him 'Balls would not have been on my radar!

My first EBMM was a 1994 purple EVH hardtail which I still have!

 

[Klon Solo]

I walked into my local guitar shop.and said - what's the best guitar for shredding? And money is no object...

They handed me the Luke BFR and the rest is history.

 

[Roubster]

My first electric was a fairly cheap Ibanez and then got a second one that I really liked which made me love Mahogany as a tone wood. After that I saved up and ordered my first Music Man Silhouette without ever playing a Ball. I just went off of the fact that Steve Morse played one and I got heavily into his music through Deep Purple. Rest is history, but now I need another as I seem to have sold off all my MMs.

 

[GoKart_MoZart]

I used to go to my cousin's house and play an electric guitar that he'd bought from Montgomery Wards -- no kidding. I thought it was awesome. I played a no-name nylon string parlor acoustic at home, which I would mic through my (cheap) stereo to get all sorts of cool distortion. Well, I thought it was cool anyway... My kids all learned on my JP6 or AL.

 

[Siddius]

My first was a crappy starter fender acoustic, but then it was a crappy Washburn x-20 super start. My first decent guitar was a a '91 Jackson rev dinky pro that I aptly named "Old Stoney".

A decade later, some kid at Musicians Institute was playing a maple silhouette and I thought it looked awesome. I asked to play it, and it felt even more awesome. Within the month, I walked into a Guitar Center and played/bought the only non-petrucci MM there, my SM-Y2D. The 1-5/8" feels so good on my poor, demolished wrist, and the necks are so smooth.

 

[Tonyp145]

My first was a cheap white Strat knockoff - terrible guitar, no idea who made it. I later traded it for a used Mustang and then traded that for a white SG (I like white guitars though I haven't had one for a long time now). So began a lifetime of buying, selling and trading guitars. Never satisfied.

My wife finally in desperation encouraged me to buy a really nice guitar. So I researched thin neck guitars (that's my chief gripe, I'm never happy with the necks on anything) and that led me to -- of all things -- the Petrucci model. I'm not a hard rock player, more blues and blues-rock but this guitar just seems to fit me, sonically, visually and in terms of playability. I just bought it yesterday so I'm still working the kinks out but this is obviously a great guitar.

 

[damirpuh]

I started playing on my uncle's cheap Melodija Strat copy. It was the sexiest cheap guitar I've ever seen.

Steve Morse was the first player I saw playing a MM guitar. It was quite interesting to see a guitar with a 100 different pickups, walkie-talkie style MIDI controller and such a small headstock. The name stuck and latter I found out that Eddie, Luke, Petrucci and Vinnie Moore were also associated with the brand.

A couple of years ago, I was searching for a new #1 axe, tried a bunch of different ones and the Luke I own now was the best fit for me by far. My original plan was to order a Silo Special (sunburst with white pearloid pickguard), but I fell for this one.

 

[Eric O'Reilly]

My first guitar was a memphis strat copy in sunburst, really nice looking and playing, believe it or not, i got it at 13 and I still have it in almost new condition, still play it and keep it set up for nostalgia since my Dad bought it for me and is no longer here. I later got another memphis strat that I gutted and put an old gibson neck humbcker with an A5 in the bridge and made a perfect black and white frankie replica, that thing smokes! And my workhorse is my sterling ax40, which i refinished the neck in the ebmm manor, love that ax40 in the process of dropping in the tonezone airnorton combo and a chrome toggle switch to make my poor mans axis! Lol, i love ebmm!

 

[Primo]

It's interesting that mostly everyone pretty much started with a "crappy" or "cheap" guitar when they first started playing. It made us more appreciate the jewels that we currently have and play. Do you guys think by having our kids learn to play with guitars that are higher in quality may spoil them and not appreciate such instrument? I mean even the mid level guitars such as the SBMM guitars are well-made enough to even rival some guitars that are more expensive. I for one don't want my son to struggle in learning the instrument, especially if the instrument is the one that is hindering their progress. I'm curious to see what everyone else thinks of this.