What on earth, you are more than entitled to ask, is a modular guitar? Was it Shergold, now dead British guitar manufacturer, who used to make that funny six-string with plug-in modules for different sounds, making it look the musical version of a skip collecter lorry? Thankfully, this is not what modular means in this context.

For Bristol maker Kinkade the term Modular is applied to their cheap solid electrics, and means, simply, that there's room later to put more stuff on this basic, first-time guitar. Which is no more or less, surely, than what any other wooden guitar with the facility to have bolts screwed into it can do?

Right and wrong. Kinkade have sensibly left a routed-out gap under the scratchplate of their uncrowded single pickup Modular, and made sure that there's plenty of extra room in the hole round the back where the controls sit. There are volume and tone controls only when you buy the instrument and they look desperate for company in their vast trench.

Into that trench you could drop all kinds of extra paraphernalia as your wallet and sonic persuasion dictate: perhaps a new volume and tone pot or an extra pickup lobbed into the scratchplate gap, or some of Kinkade's push-pull pots for "dual sound" (series/parallel, thick/thin sounds), maybe even coil tap circuits or a pickup selector. Come to think of it, if you choose the vastly more popular Strat-shaped Kinkade, what about Adrian Legg's boost/bleed circuit, as published in the May issue of One Two? Why not have a soldering iron strapped permanently to your arm?

So here we are with a couple of examples to play with – the aforementioned single-coiled, one-pickuped, two-controlled guitar that is a study in simplicity, along with a slightly more elaborate version with two humbuckers, two controls, a pickup selector, and two dual-tone switches (one for each pickup).

The single-coil (its Brazilian mahogany body minimally finished to sideboard-like natural effect) is a finished version, so the K brothers tell us, while the mirror-ish black humbuckered one is a demo sample. Which lets off the black one's missing knob for the pickup selector, but doesn't explain the absent strap button on the upper bout of the, er, brown one. Easily lost these little bits and pieces.

Now let's look and listen to the basic no-frills brown 'un, all £189's worth. Well, basic's the word all right. We have here what we call a Les Paul copy in shape, though Kinkade have found the local demand almost totally in favour of the Strat-shaped option. They actually seemed surprised by this.

The Gibson-ness doesn't stretch much further than that: the bridge, though, is a roll-around ball-end-bar-fixing type, with no sharp angles, brass coloured saddles on a chrome bed, and intonation via front screws. You know the sort of thing? Then you'll know that the disadvantage is that action is modified by two bolts either side of the bridge, and not via individual height screws. The action as supplied was rather clankily low, so bolts were indeed turned.

It plays well. This one has a slim neck and low fat frets, a rosewood fingerboard and a brass nut, and encouraged prodding, jutting chords. With just the volume and tone to deal with there's no great range to be drawn from the object, and there's something of a metallic edge to this one, though things were improved when a little overdriven. Indeed an overdrive and compressor helped things along a treat.

The single-coil pickup attached here is a Kent Armstrong: toppy, with balls, and accounting for some of the metal-ness. Usually you'll get a Schaller pickup; the Armstrong will cost another fiver. Seems worth it.

So the looks I'll pass on, particularly the pickguard which looks like an artist's palette, more or less. But at under the ominous 200 quid mark, it's a good starting point.

Which takes us to the demo twin-humbuckered one. This is essentially the same: 22 frets, mahogany, same bridge, LP shape (Strat option), and differs in some major areas (black finish, two humbucking Kent Armstong pickups, and dual sound, or series/parallel, switching) and in some minor ones (a bone nut instead of the browns one's brass – this is an option – and differences in neck cross-section).

But anyway, into the jack socket we go. The supplied action is better here, and immediately the thicker neck coupled with narrower frets is evident compared to the little 'un.

The sound is more adept, of course, with a slightly higher output from the front pickup when you switch between the selector positions, but nothing to worry too much about. The difference in the dual sound switching offered here is quite nice too: series mode gives you a warmer, more powerful racket, closer to humbucking as you'd expect it, while parallel means slightly cutting, thinner sounds. Handy.

It's a good job for £239, this one. At this price there will be inevitable restrictions, although some, like the glued-routed-slot neck/body join, are substantial enough to preclude a greater outlay if you're buying a first electric.

So the Modular idea is good, if making a lot out of something which should be standard practice anyway. Two obvious problems loom. First, you're more likely to get involved in all this bolting and changing if you happen to live near the Kinkades in Bristol and environs. And – old chestnut that it is – how easy is a Kinkade to sell when you're fed up with it? While you've got it, though, it'll see you all right.

KINKADE modular guitars: £189 & £239