Oh, and the only guitars I've ever played are:
A Zephyr standard. I got a Zephyr package years ago, guitar and amp, for $350 - and they sound how you'd expect them to sound for that price.
Oh, and the guitar had back-loaded strings, which ALWAYS broke every time I played the damn thing! You shouldn't break 2 strings for every half hour of play! Grr.
Epiphone Les Paul 100. It's the one I currently use. It sounds alright, much better than the Zephyr, but I'm still using the Zephyr amp, so it's not that great at the moment. Fortunately, the strings load in the front, so I break way less strings. Like, I can get about 3 or 4 hours of hard play in before I break a single string. Much better.
The Cort EVL series (the K4 just looks the best out of the ones in the series, at least to my eyes) is actually made for metal musicians, so it'd sound closer to what I want than the Epiphone would, even on the Peavey amp. It also has that special string load thing, whereby it's doubly-strong, so you break fewer strings again. I forget what that load is called...
And then I've also played a random (very cheap) bass guitar... Can't remember which brand, but it was a starter package, so not very great.
