So, you've got a grand to spend on gear.

[Mick]

A hypothetical question for you.

You have a grand to spend, you need to buy a guitar, a amp, and two pedals, (including leads etc)

What would you buy?  This can be new, or second hand, or a mix of both. 

[Hinfrance]

Guitar:
Epiphone Les Paul Standard Plus Pro £290 (or Harley Benton L450 Plus VB in Honey Burst £121 - love mine!) If more on the guitar budget then an Epiphone Prophecy GX £367 (and it has a hard case included in the price)

Amp:
Roland Cube 80XL £245 or GX £303, or Fender Mustang lll v2 £255, or ideally Fender Mustang lV v2 £370 (Fuse is brilliant and with the Fenders you can programme a completely clean channel so you can use your effects pedal as it was intended, and they come with Ableton Light). I bought a secondhand Cube 60D as a 'spare' the other week for £100, it sounds really good.

Effects: Can't see the need for two pedals, so I'd go for one do-it-all unit, a Zoom G3X, 'cos I've got one and it sounds good, it's tough, it runs on batteries or USB as well as mains power, loads of amp models, more than 100 effects pedal emulations, 40 second looper, good acoustic guitar emulator, and expression pedal. Comes with Steinberg Sequel 3. Only drawback is no direct access options or bypass (at least if it has these I haven't found them yet!) Bargain at £143
Or Vox Tonelab EX £216. The real McCoy effects processors are loads more expensive.
If you have to have two pedals then I would add something like a Morley or Dunlop volume/wah unit, around £100. But the zoom does a reasonable wah so my Morley is in the cupboard.

So my ideal list would be:
Epiphone Prophecy GX £367
Fender Mustang lV v2 £370
Zoom G3X £143

Total £880, leaving £120 for sundry leads, guitar strap and a really good night down the pub. Or a Harley Benton L450 VB, almost.

So all I've got to do is save up for the Mustang lV and I'll be there. That'll take ages, and I have got a wish list of other stuff as long as your arm already ahead of it

[Guitarglasgow]

So, I've been thinking about this for a week now. And here goes.

Guitar - Epiphone G-400 Pro Cherry approx. £250. Never had an SG of my own but I rather like the ones I've played and it's on the shopping list.

Amp - Laney LC50-112 £359. Plenty of crunch and loud enough to manage in a practice room. Not too loud to make miking up at gigs a pain too. The clean tone is surprisingly nice too.

Effects - Electro Harmonix Holy Stain. £79. Does absolutely loads, including adding fuzz, pitch shifting and tremolo. Always been a fan of EHX. Secondly it has to be the only thing on this list that I actually own currently. The Fulltone Clyde Wah. By far and away the best wah I've ever heard or played. Smooth creamy swishing wah and the biggest action on the pedal that I've ever felt. Important to me with my HUGE feet!

I make that £883 quid, so I've got £117 pounds left over to get some leads, a strap and whatever else. Lovely!

[Mick]

If more on the guitar budget then an Epiphone Prophecy GX £367 (and it has a hard case included in the price)

Amazing how the prices change, I know you said recently the price of the Epiphone Prophecy had gone up, but it's best part of £200 more now.   I guess that still leaves room for a very decent amp etc. so still in the running.

[Hinfrance]

If more on the guitar budget then an Epiphone Prophecy GX £367 (and it has a hard case included in the price)

Amazing how the prices change, I know you said recently the price of the Epiphone Prophecy had gone up, but it's best part of £200 more now.   I guess that still leaves room for a very decent amp etc. so still in the running.

Just about the only thing I've ever bought that seems to have appreciated a little bit.

Although I see that Rickenbacker 4003s are around £2k now, and I sold mine for a song - but that was jolly long time ago.

I dug out my old mk1 Digitech bass whammy pedal the other day, only to find that the erratic fault it has always had was now permanent. So I looked on eBay and saw that they were selling for £300-400. Good grief - the new, and in many ways, much better version is less than £200 new.

[Scarebear]

When you say one grand, I assume you mean in that UK currency 

I'd get this ...

Epiphone Matt Heafy 7 string
Blackstar HT-1R
MXR M169 Carbon Copy Analog Delay Pedal
MXR M116 Fullbore Metal Distortion Pedal

That's everything I need and would come to £1008.00

I'm sure I could talk that down to just under the one grand

\m/

[AtrumKithara]

I have only planned one guitar purchase in advance where I had a budget and specific one in mind before going to the store.  It was a Warlock, a limited run at a really good price and the last one I could find in stores.  I still tried half the guitars in the store up to just a little higher than comparable price to make sure it was the one I wanted.

Otherwise, everything was the result of going in and just finding stuff that ended up coming home with me, sometimes planning to buy something like a cheap guitar or a new effect but not more specific than that, other times... it wasn't my fault that they had something cool for a really good price.  That is why I try not to go to music stores too much.

But without picking specific models and assuming that I wouldn't have access to my current gear for this situation, I would have certain things I would look for based on that scenario:

A six string (vs. 7 or more that seem to be becoming popular these days), maybe an SG style or an Explorer style. Probably spend about half the budget here. 

Tube amp.  Probably have to be very small to fit the budget.

Two pedals, I would probably go with a Pro Co, Boss Metal Zone or similar distortion and a basic chorus pedal.

Ideally I would be able to try the whole setup together since I was making it all one purchase.