The Easiest Guitar to Play

[pingu]

What was the easiest playing guitar you ever played ?
not sound
not quality of build
not materials

just the guitar that was easiest to play

ta
mine was an Ibz joe pass
wish I'd bought it ....

[lammie200]

So far it has to be my ES-390. Hard to describe but my hands feel like they touched beauty after playing it. It could be from playing it for 15 minutes or two hours. Doesn’t matter. Almost like an honor.

[sgosnell]

Sub $200 DeArmond 7-string SG copy. Plays like butter, barely takes any force to fret anywhere on the neck. On the downside, it's a plank with 7 strings.

[cosmic gumbo]

My Yamaha Pacifica 120s.

[entresz]

My 1983 Epiphone Emperor is my best playing guitar, perhaps the best sounding too?

Not sure why, maybe it's the geometry of the instrument- I can get the action unbelievably low.
Compared to my other archtops it has a fairly shallow neck angle - perhaps this is part of why it's more comfortable to play?

It has a very nice neck profile, quite beefy but so easy to play. Too thin a neck makes my hands cramp up.

I have guitars which are in some ways better and probably worth more money, but this one does nearly all my gigs. I can play it for hours without getting hand fatigue.

[vintagelove]

No contest, the hands down winner is the Carvin DC127



I can do things on that guitar that should be impossible. The action is so low I can look at the string and it frets. It does this while simultaneously being able to bend at least a step and a half.

A close second is my Greco Les Paul. I had it refretted and was very hard on the luthier who worked on it until it was perfect. It flies.

[Ray175]

I have two guitars that are incredibly easy to play (for me) but, surprisingly, they have very different neck profiles.

The first is a Peavey Omniac Jerry Donahue - basically a souped-up Tele, with a strong V profile that flattens out progressively as you go up the neck. For big and/or multiple-string bends (sometimes in opposite directions), its relatively high frets seem to make difficult finger-positioning a piece of cake.

The second is a recently acquired 2008 Custom Shop 1961 strat (NOS) where my fingers just fall in place for almost any kind of music (except for a few "stretch" cords).

Sonically I prefer different guitars for different styles, but these two are the "easiest to play".

[marcwhy]

Forshage "Orion."

[It also sounds great and is high quality build/materials!]

[Jabberwocky]

It has to be...the PRS JA-15.

[Tom Karol]

I looked back at my list of everything I've owned since 1960.
I guess it would be my Godin Montreal Premiere (roundwound 11's).
My Eastman AR403ce (roundwound 12's), after a really good pro setup, is also a joy to play.
So, I guess I'm lucky - 2 of the 5 guitars I own are the easiest to play (in my experience).
Of course, my tenor ukuleles are even easier, but ...

[GNAPPI]

"Easiest" to me may be different than what the OP means. For me, balance, comfort in the arms while sitting and standing as well as ease of play on the neck all add up to easiest.

That said, the Ibanez AS series are of the best I've owned, in every respect. Gibson semi's are historically body heavy, necks are finicky getting action suitable and thickness is all over the map.

[Tal_175]

Which ever guitar I play most frequently at any given period in my playing history, has always become the easiest guitar to play.

[fep]

Ibanez RG470, not expensive but very comfortable, low action, "wizard" neck (thin).

[Bbmaj7#5#9]

Which ever guitar I play most frequently at any given period in my playing history, has always become the easiest guitar to play.

It’s the same for me. I feel my main guitar is the easiest because I playing it all the time. If I’ll start playing a ES-175 with heavy string gauge, that’s going to be the easiest after a while. Everything depends on how long ”relationship” you have with your instrument.

Back to the question. Otherwise, one of the easiest guitars I’ve ever played is a Fender Telecaster Thinline ’72.

[rpjazzguitar]

Not even close. The Yamaha Pacifica 012. That's the cheapest guitar in the Yamaha electric line. It sold with amp, case, strap and book for $179. I see them regularly on CL for about $75.

I use it regularly and have played many gigs with it.

The neck is slim in every dimension. Scale length is 25.5 but it feels smaller. Radius is around 14, I believe.

It stays in tune better than my Comins GCS-1. I have the floating bridge screwed down all the way, but even when it floated the guitar stayed in tune dramatically better than my genuine American Fender Stratocaster -- on the Fender the guitar was useless (because it wouldn't stay in tune for 10 seconds) until I screwed the bridge down hard. The claw all the way in and 5 springs.

I've heard better sounding guitars than the Yamaha, but it's far from bad. I can get my sound if I remember not to pick too hard on the high E string above the 10th fret. I bought mine used -- with replacement tuners. I have had to replace some of the other hardware. the bridge HB died. I had to replace the switch and the output jack. Pots are original, I believe, and work fine. My guess is that they made a very nice guitar in terms of the woodworking and got the price down by skimping on the hardware.

[A. Kingstone]

I've not found one. It's always difficult.

[citizenk74]

My 1986 PRS Custom 24. Ergonomically flawless (as it is indeed in all other respects). It gets the tones I want without fuss, muss, or cussin'. And looks like a million bucks.

In the "More Typically Used in a Jazz Context" category, my 2006 Gibson ES-175. Beautiful neck, sweet-to-sassy tones, very comfortable with the right strap (mine says "Gibson" in tooled leather; yes, I'm a fan). Fits me like a glove. I am in a word, enamored.

[Ozymandias]

It varies. Tal's comment above about it being whichever guitar has been getting most recent play strikes a chord, but then again sometimes I pick up a guitar for the first time in ages and it feels better than the one I've been mostly playing.

There are some common factors. I like a low action and tall fretwire and have these on all my guitars. Generally I prefer Gibson scale length to Fender. But I currently own 6 6-string electrics and every single one of them would have been my pick as "easiest to play" at some point.

If I was really forced to pick one though I'd probably go for a PRS DGT I recently sold. Arguably it was the best playing and sounding guitar I've owned but I'd always ended up taking a more traditional looking guitar to gigs and it seemed pointless having an expensive guitar I'd never take out of the house.