How to buy your first proper electric guitar? For most fledgling guitarists, price is the bottom line. Or maybe you are a gigging musician looking for the best bang for your buck?

Back in July 2009 we solicited your opinions in a quest to find the ultimate entry-level electric, and the resulting bloody battle saw Epiphone's ES-335 Dot come out on top of 20 other instruments to be crowned the best guitar under £300.

Fast-forward to 2012 and we're paying more for petrol, clothes, food and guitars too. To reflect inflation and the wallet-troubling effects of the global economic nosedive, our ceiling price went up to £400 street.

After receiving hundreds of nominations we compiled a shortlist of the 20 most popular suggestions, then opened the voting in what proved to be a hard-fought poll. Thousands of votes later, we have a winner. Across the following pages we present a countdown of the 20 best budget electric guitars in the world today, as voted for by you. First up, it's something for the metalheads...

Dean's ML model is most commonly associated with the late, great Dimebag Darrell, and while more ostentatious variations are available, the ML XM is a stripped down heavy rock machine that can currently be found on UK shores for considerably less than 200 notes.

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BUY Dean ML XM currently available from:
UK/Europe: Gear4Music
USA: American Musical