THIS MONTH, MUSIC U.K. BEGINS A NEW SERIES FOR EVERY HARD-UP MUSICIAN. WE'RE CALLING IT 'BUYING ON A BUDGET'. IF YOU'VE JUST BEGUN TO PLAY, OR MAYBE NEED A SECOND INSTRUMENT AS A SPARE; IF YOU'RE THINKING OF TAKING UP AN ALTERNATIVE TO YOUR MAIN INSTRUMENT, OR JUST WANT A NEW MODEL AND ARE FINDING MONEY TIGHT - THAT'S WHEN THIS NEW SERIES WILL HELP.

OVER THE NEXT FEW MONTHS WE'LL BE LOOKING AT AMPS, DRUMS AND KEYBOARDS - BUT WE'RE STARTING WITH GUITARS. WE'VE SET A PRICE LIMIT OF £150, AND HERE'S WHAT WE RECKON IS THE BEST YOU CAN GET WITH THAT MUCH TO SPEND.

We're not all Jimi Hendrix", writes reader R. Steward from Little Wakering, in Essex. "I'd like to see a few pages on the right equipment to buy to start, how to get a group together etc."

Well, Mr. Steward, thanks for your letter. Your point about us not all being Jimi Hendrix (painful though it is for us to admit it!) is very true and, although we always try to balance the prices of the equipment we review, that doesn't always answer a direct question like — how do I get going on a shoestring budget?

True, it's fun to sit around daydreaming about that brand new custom guitar or 100 watt valve stack, but in reality most of us have to set our sights a great deal lower than that, either because we're just starting-up playing, and don't yet know whether we'll stick at it, or, maybe even more likely, because we don't have enough money to fulfil our dreams.

So, what can you get in the way of guitars for a basic sum? We've decided to set a level of £150 as our upper limit for this guide. You can certainly pay less than that and (especially if you're buying your first guitar) maybe you should. But £150 or a bit under will buy you a guitar which should see you quite content for a year or so — maybe longer if you're lucky. It could also buy a more experienced player a decent spare, either for an alternative sound to his main guitar, or in case of accidents.

The first decision you have to make before you even put on your coat and start hunting round the music shops is whether you'll be looking for new or secondhand instruments. We're assuming that you'll be buying from dealers here because, unless you know what to look for, buying privately can be a risky business. You've little comeback against a private seller if anything you buy from him goes wrong, whereas a retailer has legal duties to sell workable goods and, more importantly, a reputation to protect. You may be paying a little more when you buy secondhand from a shop, but unless you're confident about your ability to spot a duff instrument quickly, that little extra money is very well spent. It's paying towards some sort of comeback if things go horribly wrong a week or so after you've got your new axe home.

So, do you want to look at secondhand guitars, or does that gleaming new Kwaki-HaHa have an overwhelming appeal for you? Frankly, there's much to be said for buying either. Choose a secondhand guitar and you're buying something which was originally costing more than you can afford for a new model, buy a new one and you're getting the latest technology, and probably a year's guarantee. Furthermore, as many guitars don't hold their prices well once they come onto the secondhand market, you could get a pretty expensive guitar for substantially less once it's secondhand. Furthermore, the guitar market is badly depressed currently and new guitars are probably (Pound for Pound) better value than they have been for many a moon. The gap in value between new and old is pretty close and so you're probably better off to make your decision between individual models, just allowing the pros and cons of new versus old to add into your reasoning about which you buy.

Obviously, you should watch out for sales and special offers. Retailers sometimes have tremendous value offers to clear slow-moving stock. One recent advertisement in a weekly music paper from a fair sized dealer boasted copies from around £30 and a well-known Japanese range for under half the recommended retail price. Evidently there were some great bargains going here!

Anyway, down to specifics. To be honest about it, although there are a few guitars around selling brand new for a recommended price of under, say £80, it's not our experience that many of these are suitable for someone who takes their potential guitar playing seriously. Acoustics (especially beginners' classical models) are one thing, but electric guitars with an RRP as low as £50 do have to be watched particularly carefully. It may not be impossible to find a playable, reasonably decent sounding guitar for this sort of money — but it's difficult!

Choosing a guitar made by a manufacturer with a good reputation is always a bright move. Having a known brand name on the headstock when you eventually come to re-sell it will help you to get a fair price and, because the 'big name' manufacturers have a reputation to live up to, even their bottom-of-the-range models have to be of a certain standard.

Taking a few specific examples, Aria could well scrape into your budget with their Cardinal CS250. This has an RRP of just over our target price, but you'd probably find one for what you had to spend. The CS250 is obviously made to a price but it would be a nice guitar to start on. Another of Aria's models we've tried and liked (and which, again, you might just stretch to) is the TX200, which we reviewed in Issue 12. Fitted with single coil pickups (the bridge one we found was particularly 'hot') we came to the conclusion that it was a fine instrument for a beginner or someone who already owned a twin coil pickup guitar and wanted a single coil type as a spare.

Westone is another of the big names who have several models with prices inside our limits. The Paduak (an acquired taste visually, we'd admit) is a stunning little guitar and can be got for under £100 in some shops. But perhaps more conventional is the Concord (we looked at the Concord II back in Issue 6) again, a really tasty guitar for a beginner. The Concord II currently has an RRP of only £139.95 and so it must represent one of the best value guitars on the market today.

Even the recently launched Raider electrics are low priced enough to come into our reckoning. We looked at the slightly more up-market Raider II versions (in both guitar and bass format) in our June Issue — but the Raider 1's have RRP's of £169.96 and (if you can live with the crazy colour schemes!) you can probably pick up one of these excellent models within your budget. Possibly the most specialist manufacturer of guitars for this area of the market is Hondo. Their range is far too big to cover in detail but, once more, we've looked at several of their models over the months, including the (still impressive) H1010 model (reviewed as far back as Issue 3). This is a Japanese made guitar (as opposed to some of the other Hondos, which come from Korea) with an RRP of just £119.00. For the price we'd still reckon that this model is just about unbeatable, so if £150 is too much for you then the 1010 (now only available in a black finish) must be at the top of your shopping list.

If something more 'over the top' appeals, then the Hondo 2-Shape models have a lot to offer. Once again, we've reviewed these in the past (a guitar and bass came under the magnifying glass in Issue 15) and, although the bass had a couple of setting-up faults, the guitar (jet black and emblazoned with a white spider's web, no less!) comes at an RRP of just £132 and (to quote from our review) "Weighing all the considerations up, looks, neck, finish, sound and price, we'd say that it was a really sensible buy — a fair old bargain in anybody's language!" It has to be said of Hondo, though, that not all their instruments come out equally well set-up judging by those we've seen and tried. Here is another of those cases where buying from a good retailer would be advisable — someone who will set-up his instruments before selling them. Bearing in mind their excellent prices it's hard to complain about Hondo not always being of an equal standard — but it is something to watch.

Nonetheless, with a huge range of models to choose from within our price limits, Hondo have to be considered as one of the most obvious choices and, by and large, we're highly impressed with those models that we've tried on a value for money basis. Another South Korean brand which has a fair bit to be said for it is Harmony. Harmony guitars were once made in the U.S.A. — they weren't ever in the Gibson or Gretsch league but they certainly had their appeal and we recently spotted an old Sovereign model going secondhand in a London shop for just over £100 — which shows that they are still reasonably well thought of.

But (as with another American name, Washburn) the Harmony line is now made in the Far East and the range comprises some reasonable models at sensible prices. They aren't regrettably, as common in some parts of the Country as they could be, so you might have to look hard to find one if it appealed but reports we've heard from dealers suggest that quality level of this line has been improving steadily over the last year or so and, seeing as we were favourably impressed with the only model Harmony we've yet reviewed (an acoustic, back in Issue 9) they could be worth looking out for. So, who's left among the manufacturers catering for those of us without an oil well in the back garden? Obviously, Ibanez must come into our reckoning, although they don't have too many models with RRP's under the £150 (mind you, if you have a scout around then you can sometimes pick up a bargain). The Ibanez Blazer range can frequently be found lurking at around the upper echelons of our limits and there is possibly no finer instrument for the price. We have to admit, however, that we haven't had the experience with the Ibanez range which we should have done. The importer of this line has, until recently, not been over keen on supplying guitars for review (which is why we haven't reviewed any Ibanez models to date). This situation has now, we are told, changed and we hope to be able to look at some Ibanez models in the not too distant future. Most of our comments about Ibanez are based on guitars we've looked at in shops (probably no bad way to look at instruments, of course!) and we'd be inclined to reckon that any Ibanez you can pick up for under £150 has got to be a good buy.

Most of our recommendations are based on official RRP's and average selling prices. These days there is considerable fluctuation in actual shop price levels and it pays to search around and see what you can pick up. It's hard to be specific about what you might find as, of course, retailers do tend to adjust their prices frequently. It's not impossible though to see more up-market models from the makers we've outlined above just creeping into the top range of our budget prices plus, occasionally, the base-model Fender Bullet, one or two Washburn models and a few other bargains. On the secondhand scene it's even harder to be precise. As one retailer put it to us, "There's a lot of Japanese tat at around that sort of price." It's certainly true that you have to be a bit careful. There's not a great deal of profit to be made for a retailer in a secondhand guitar selling for under the £150 mark and it does tend to be the province of the private seller.

Careful scouting around is called for, but you could probably reckon on getting one of the better quality Japanese 'copies' made around three or four years ago (before they abandoned the copy in favour of own design models). Ibanez, Aria, possibly the now departed Antoria range would be typically on offer at around this mark. With a decent amount of luck you might even get your hands on a battered newer-vintage American Telecaster, possibly one of the Fender Squier Series, an Ibanez Iceman or similar. Whether these are actually significantly better guitars than some of the more expensive of the new guitars we've mentioned above is open to debate — buying secondhand always calls for a pair of sturdy shoes - if you're prepared to hunt around you could always pick up a bargain.

Bearing in mind that many readers who are going to be looking for guitars at around this price are likely to be newcomers to the instrument, a few guidelines on what to watch out for when faced with a possible candidate for your money might be a good idea.

These rules apply equally to secondhand and new guitars, although you're more likely to encounter problems with older instruments than with fresh out of the box ones (assuming the retailer you're buying from has done his job, of course.) These guidelines should certainly be followed when buying privately, where you will probably have no right of redress against the evil-hearted friend who flogged you a bent neck, a cracked body and six rusty strings!

Check the tuning of the guitar first. Turn the machine heads and see if their action is uniform — sometimes you'll find one or two badly worn ones — especially on cheaper guitars. Make sure that the neck feels stable at its joint with the guitar's body. Bolt-on necks always flex a bit but beware of any guitar where the neck has a lot of movement in it.

Have a look at the neck, then, paying particular attention to the frets. Too many players still believe in the old myth that a neck should be dead straight, but this just isn't true. Each manufacturer designs his necks to have a slight bow, the amount varying from maker to maker and model to model. Don't worry about a small bow in the neck, then, but you can certainly worry if there are several dips or humps in the neck, when viewed looking straight down it from bridge to nut!

Run your hand up and down the neck and see if any of the fret ends protrude and snag your fingers. Play the guitar up and down the neck, listening for fret buzz in certain places. This can either indicate unevenly worn frets, or possibly, it can be another sign of a neck warp or twist.

Next off check the intonation. Sound a harmonic by lightly touching each string directly above the 12th fret. Listen for the ringing, high-pitched note — called a harmonic. Then play the note again, this time by holding the string down normally fretted in the same position. The two notes should be the same. If they are not it's very likely that the guitar needs adjustment at the bridge. This can be achieved by moving the string saddles backwards or forwards to provide the ideal string length. The rule is (are you watching us, SPOGDIP?) that if the normally fretted note is lower than the harmonic note, the saddles should be moved forward (hence shortening the string). If the fretted note is higher (sharper) than the harmonic then move the saddle back (thus lengthening the string). However, one should treat any manifestation of a problem with extreme care as there are other (much more serious flaws) which can cause intonation problems. The bridge may have been put in the wrong place, the frets too could be misplaced. Most often, though, all the guitar needs is a new set of strings! A little learning...

Perhaps the golden rule for buying any guitar is to be certain that it plays in tune in all positions, that the intonation is correct, that the action (the height of the strings against the fingerboard) feels comfortable for you. If you are confident that what appears like a flaw is just a minor problem which you can sort out later — well, it gives you room to haggle, doesn't it? If you aren't 100% certain that you know what you're doing, it's probably safer to leave the guitar alone and buy one which seems to be right in the first place.

Whether you go for a guitar with twin coil (humbucking) pickups, or single coil ones, whether you opt for one pickup models or twin pickup ones, these are all matters of taste and you should try as many different guitars as you can (keeping your eyes on reviews in the Press, of course!) and find the guitar which suits you.

£150 will buy you a pretty decent guitar today. Following the above guidelines on what to watch out for, trying the models we've recommended, and, above all, sampling as many different guitars as you can get your hands on is the winning formula. Happy hunting!