I'm thinking of buying an electric guitar
I'm thinking of buying an electric guitar
I plonk bass and klink keyboard. I'm shite at both but it doesn't matter. It's just for fun because I need sorta meaningful things to entertain myself.
I live in an apartment so I'm playing with headphones. I've got the Nux Mighty Plug that sounds all right but the lag on Bluetooth audio is very frustrating. Playing along by ear is ok though annoying with the lag but it is literally impossible for watching video tutorials or play along to tabs.
I'm considering the Mooer S800 electric guitar with built in effects, amp sim and headphone amp with Bluetooth and hopefully not the lag. The idea is to be able to simply pick it up and shred away when the cosmic vibes align and then put it away again. No cumbersome setup or necessary clean up that kills the momentum.
I think €400 seems to be a fair price for the instrument considering it's all included to get started.
Should I consider other options?
Mooer makes some incredibly shrill sounding gear but if it sounds good to you, it is good.
You seem to have done your homework. I’d say realize the dream!
If you can get it with a return window so you can try it out would be ideal. I have a mooer prime p2 that I use but it has an annoyingly loud noise floor that makes playing clean very unpleasant. I used to use a joyo zombie amp with headphones and bt in and it worked pretty well. It's a bit more of a set up though. If you do get the s800 write a short review, we'd love to know how it fairs.
If your going to get a guitar with built in effects, I would also look into getting a keyboard amp. Your guitar will have digital cabinets built in, which sound horrible when played through a guitar amp.
When using the built in cabinets, your guitar will process the sound of a guitar speaker onto the signal from the guitar. Guitars are designed to be listened through guitar speakers, so they sound weird without them. The inverse is also bad. if you process your guitar signal with a guitar speaker then send it into a guitar amplifier with a guitar speaker, you double dip with the sound of the speaker and you get the opposite but equally worse problem.
If you want to play amplified with all the effects you have, then you'll need a keyboard amp. The speaker in a keyboard amp is designed to not affect the sound, which will let you use the guitars speaker simulations without double dipping with effects.
You could also just turn the speaker sim off, which is far easier.
Sincerely, someone who couldn't figure out why their guitar sounded horrible for a week.
I wasn’t aware this existed, very cool!
One thing I would say is Bluetooth is inherently laggy, though low-latency codecs help a lot.
If you have issues with latency again, I’d recommend buying a pair of RF headphones instead. Radio is super low latency. Downside is that the guitar would need to be wired to an RF transmitter but it’s an option.
If you want a guitar with built in everything check out the Fernandes Nomad Digi-Zo. I had one and it played really well, had an entire effects processor and a speaker built in. It even had a drum machine onboard. It had a headphone jack as well. The guitar itself is travel sized, and had really good playability. The fatal flaw that made me sell it was the fact that it needed to be plugged in, and the wire was only 1.5m so you had no mobility. It was set up for a 9V battery, but it would suck a 9v dry in 20 mins when using the speaker. I wish now that I had researched an upgraded battery pack or just gotten a longer power wire.
Another guitar that's being advertised a lot lately and that falls (more or less) in the same cathegory of the Mooer S800, is the Nova Go Sonic by Enya Guitars.
I didn't have the chance to try it personally yet, but I heard good reviews about it.