The best electric guitars under $1,000

These are the best electric guitars under $1,000 you can buy right now

1. PRS SE Custom 24 Floyd

Launch price: $879 | Body: Mahogany with maple veneer | Neck: Maple | Scale: 25" | Fingerboard: Rosewood | Frets: 24 | Pickups: 85/15 'S' humbuckers (neck and bridge) | Controls: Volume, tone (push/pull coil-tap), 3-way selector | Hardware: Floyd Rose 1000 Series Tremolo, PRS SE tuners | Left-handed: Yes | Finish: Gloss

The SE Custom 24 Floyd offers an affordable alternative to the classic PRS Series “Floyd” Custom 24, with a similar general vibe and design for players who can’t afford to drop more than three grand on a guitar. True to the original Custom 24, the SE “Floyd” Custom 24 has a 25-inch-scale neck with 24 frets and a mahogany body with a maple top (although on this version the flame maple is a veneer instead of a solid slab). Pickups are controlled by a three-way blade selector (instead of a five-way switch), master volume knob and master tone with a push/pull coil-splitting function.

In terms of feel, playability and tone, the SE “Floyd” Custom 24 is better than the early versions of the Custom 24 that PRS made in the eighties. With its Wide Thin neck profile and Floyd Rose tremolo, the guitar is certainly “shred-worthy,” but its looks and tone will equally please vintage-minded players. Paired with a high-gain amp, the SE humbuckers can produce aggressive metal tones, but the guitar can also go in an entirely different direction through a clean amp setting with the coils split, which delivers bona fide country twang and bluesy bite. An impressively versatile instrument that can handle the roles of three or four different models and in most cases outperform them