hey all

Hello & welcome. I can't say anything bad about strats, since they are my fav guitars. SG's are very good too. For metal though, I find the necks abit fast 'feeling' on ESP's and Ibanez's and they are both good guitars. I used to own an Ibanez 540 saber which was a screaming guitar. Also owned an ESP Mirage custom which was also very nice.

My opinion (and that's all it is), I love my strat's tone, but for metal I gotta go with Ibanez.

I'd reccomend an Sg, an Ibanez, Jackson, etc etc because a single coil is not for metal.

Yeah, Ibanez seems to be a versatile model for high gain playing. Though I've never used one, so I can't say too much. But I've heard good things.

Welcome! :D

Matt

I'll say go with one that has a Floyd Rose double locking tremolo. They take time to get use to and practice to become proficient with.

Joe

I think you should just get the guitar you like. It's absolute horsecrap that you can't play metal with singlecoils, no matter how popular that opinion is. If you are thinking about using a vibrato system, go with the FR as Joe suggested. If you are not, go with a hardtail.

I like Strats, with humbuckers. Lighter than LP or SG and can get some pretty good tones.

Forgive me Arjen, I have no idea what I'm talking about because I don't prettycularly like metal, and I have a strat, but all I've heard from people is "Singlecoils Suck!" and "Singlecoils are so wimpy!" etc. etc from the local metalheads around here.

Dosen't the guy from Metallica play a strat?

Yoyo: Oh, I know exactly what you mean. But know what? Those metalheads got that nonsense from others as well. They ask around when shopping for their first guitar, hear that buckers are the way to go, and just never bother to try proper SC themselves.

The other way is true as well: check out blues, and you'll see everything come around, Hendrix' 'red house' SG, Clapton's strat and BB's semi-hollowbody. If your skills are good enough you only need to worry about what feels good instead of what sounds good...

And I can say, from personal experience, that the opposite is true as well.
My electric has dual humbuckers and I was told by several long time players that my guitar was only good for metal type stuff.
I have found that with proper tone adjustments both on the guitar and amp I can play about anything I want and it sounds just fine.

Okay -- Let me steer it away from tone for a moment, because I agree that's a specious argument, as tone may be twisted and reshaped very easily. Nevertheless, there's a far more compelling case for using humbuckers in metal: high gain and hum do not play well together -- and one can't always rely on noise gating to deal with hum either. So quiet, hum and noise rejecting pups are a good thing to have. Humbuckers happen to be the most commonly available pup that does this. Many active pups work well with high gain for the same reason.

Sorry to tilt it back to tone, because Greg makes some excellent points about hum, but I'm going to have to chip in here and cast my vote for the Les Paul style guitars. Like any guitar, they are capable of any style, but the particular way they do metal and hard rock really speaks to me. Typically much fuller, darker, more rounded bass response. It's something to check out if you're into it. Of course, it's a matter of personal taste.
Yoyo: Oh, I know exactly what you mean. But know what? Those metalheads got that nonsense from others as well. They ask around when shopping for their first guitar, hear that buckers are the way to go, and just never bother to try proper SC themselves.

Right on, Arjen. I think it was Motorhead who used Teles(!) for a good portion of their early career. If it gets the sound you want, tell everyone else to stick it in their ear!