banner

Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

I have a few words about brands and people who judge them.

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Chickenwings
    replied
    Re: I have a few words about brands and people who judge them.

    Originally posted by Gainstage View Post
    I have never heard of anyone going out and spending $8K on a '59 Les Paul who could not play.
    lol. I have quite a few students in exactly that category.

    on a side note...what is it about Gibsons and blues lawyers?

    Leave a comment:


  • Gainstage
    replied
    Re: I have a few words about brands and people who judge them.

    Originally posted by Phantasmagoria View Post
    ...except you can have boutique equipment coming out of your ears and still sound bad & boring.
    And yet what are the odds the shoe is on the other foot? Usually a person who establishes a fairly costly rig has taken some years to attain and develop a sense of technical expertise a neophyte cannot manifest. You can play to the limitations of your gear or play to the limitations of your imagination.
    We are not speaking of persons who have vast resources and buy things beyond their range of ability, I think that would be the extreme rare exception. Most I have seen over the years have slowly grown in their quality of gear and abilities. I have never heard of anyone going out and spending $8K on a '59 Les Paul who could not play.

    Does one play well and improve because of their gear or in spite of it?
    I am a firm believer in using whatever you like or can afford and make the best of it. I did it all my life, now that I can afford things I only dreamed I could ever have, I am now expected to use $30 pedals and untunable guitars? ?

    The notion nice things are a waste of money can only be a mindset of those who have nothing.
    Interesting axiom:"Money cannot buy you happiness." Daniel Tosh, "Really, do you live in America?"
    As always, "do not hate me because I am pretty".
    Last edited by Gainstage; 06-24-2016, 12:12 AM.

    Leave a comment:


  • ThisDyingSoul76
    replied
    Re: I have a few words about brands and people who judge them.

    Use what gets the sound that inspires you. Price is irrelevant. If you're happy with your sound, you want to play more... And if you play more, you'll get better.

    I use a mix of Boss pedals ( particularly the 80's MIJ stuff when I can find it reasonably priced ), Dunlop/MXR, Visual Sound pedals ( my go to pedals are VS ), boutique ( Timmy and a Solid Gold FX treble booster ), and a number of MIC clones. I bought everything because I liked how it sounded and I'm pretty sure there are very few types of dirty tones I can't get now.

    My Guitars are USA made Gibsons and Fenders and a Korean Ibanez modded to my liking... My SG faded is under the knife (drill and soldering iron to be more accurate) to make it suit my needs.

    My amp is an inexpensive 15 watt 1x12 combo. It doesn't really fit my needs and I couldn't afford a new amp so I'm making due by making changes I can afford, like using closed back speaker cabs (a single 1x12 at the moment but looking at either adding a second 1x12 or switching to a 2x12 or 4x12), and switching out tubes. Once all these are exhausted, I'll go to a different amp and keep the cabs I've gathered together in order to keep my rig scalable as different cabs will better suit certain situations.

    How much you pay for your gear is irrelevant. What sounds good to you is subjective, but if you make it work for you, that's the important part.

    Leave a comment:


  • Rand-O-Monium
    replied
    Re: I have a few words about brands and people who judge them.

    I've totally had to re-think my rig,seeing as all of my MIDI Controllers are on the fritz,so no Rocktrons...

    Making due w/what I've got on-hand,Marshall VS100 combo,a coupla Dirt boxes & a Chorus(yes,coupla Boss's in play) & a Delay...

    Still sounds like me,just not as "smooth",FWIW...

    Player > Gear
    (usually)

    Leave a comment:


  • BriGuy1968
    replied
    Re: I have a few words about brands and people who judge them.

    Originally posted by Phantasmagoria View Post
    ...except you can have boutique equipment coming out of your ears and still sound bad & boring.
    +1.

    "Bad" or "boring" would have more to do with player ability or song choice than specific gear from an audience's standpoint.


    [emoji450]Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk [emoji441]

    Leave a comment:


  • Phantasmagoria
    replied
    Re: I have a few words about brands and people who judge them.

    ...except you can have boutique equipment coming out of your ears and still sound bad & boring.

    Leave a comment:


  • Gainstage
    replied
    Re: I have a few words about brands and people who judge them.

    They know what sounds bad or boring.

    Leave a comment:


  • Funkfingers
    Guest replied
    Re: I have a few words about brands and people who judge them.

    The average audience member (remember them?) neither cares nor understands what equipment or techniques are used to produce audio entertainment. They quite like it if the guitar shapes seem to fit the thrust of the music genre. That's about it, really.

    Neil says it better than I can.

    "hit you in a soft place
    a melody so sweet
    a strong and simple beat
    that you can dance to."

    "orchestrate illusions"

    Leave a comment:


  • Gainstage
    replied
    Re: I have a few words about brands and people who judge them.

    I do not really get at all how such simple things get so misunderstood and confused as to what was said and what was never said.
    Personally I do not give a flying **** what anyone uses. If you like whatever you like have at it. Whether or not someone puts down high end gear or whatever is of no value at all.
    If your thing is cheap gear then that is your thing.
    Does not matter to me.
    No one is suggesting one buy things you cannot afford or have to, but nothing wrong with trying to have better gear, guitars and whatnot. Like instead of my Les Paul's I should just keep playing that cheap Strat copy my mom bought me when I was a teenager?
    The quality of various circuits is what it is and it is not subjective reality. Do you have to spend a fortune, no not really, something like a Rockett pedal burns the hell out of stuff like Boss and does not have B class buffers.
    The Bad Monkey is a great pedal by the way, a better circuit than the old original tubescreamer also not expensive. So really it is not how much you spend necessarily it is your taste and judgement of gear that is a problem.
    Some things cost like Strymon and my $300 Palladium, but Seymour Duncan's 805 OD, really not expensive and kills a whole lot of other drives in the tubescreamer mode. Some drive like a PettyJohn and such is very expensive but they are amazing sounding and no budget mini pedal or otherwise is going to be close to it.

    Everyone should use and do what they like, and funny thing is they will. I do not personally hate anything, there are just some things I have no interest in using anymore not because of some unfounded baseless notion but simply because having used them, they do not do it for me. Understanding the internals of why that was so is also of interest to me as well as improving my playing. Some things are just crap if you have not reached the point to where they seem like crap then how is that a wrong view? Maybe that notion will never be experienced and one can continue using the same first pedals they began. I do not get it myself but I do not have to.
    Last edited by Gainstage; 06-23-2016, 06:21 AM.

    Leave a comment:


  • Phantasmagoria
    replied
    Re: I have a few words about brands and people who judge them.

    Cheap stuff works for me. I could (& do occasionally) afford higher end gear but the cheap stuff is what floats my boat. I like working on it/ customizing it and basically getting it to sound incredible (which I always do..haha) it's a lot more fun frankly & yep, I get a kick out of it. The whole you can't polish a turd thing is rubbish..as is the assumption that price & country of origin automatically constitute a turd in the first place.

    I don't consider myself a 'reverse gear snob' because I don't feel the need to put down higher end gear. I will however provide a few surprises & uncomfortable home truths to those who try and put down mine

    Leave a comment:


  • Mincer
    replied
    Re: I have a few words about brands and people who judge them.

    I don't dismiss inexpensive stuff- I have owned plenty of Boss pedals, a TS5 plastic Tube Screamer, and my current cheap fave is a Bad Monkey (I use the mixer out).

    Leave a comment:


  • Securb
    replied
    Re: I have a few words about brands and people who judge them.

    I hate it when people dog on a brand or gear. It makes me scratch my head knowing most of the golden tones of guitar were recorded and played on budget gear. Our guitar heroes didn't care about pickup magnets, true bypass or analog vs. digital. They wanted an amp loud enough for the audience to hear and a guitar that would stay in tune. Zappa said it best.

    Leave a comment:


  • Gearjoneser
    replied
    Re: I have a few words about brands and people who judge them.

    By the way, as someone with a huge OD stable, the Boss OD-3 is a modern classic worth owning before Boss discontinues it.

    Leave a comment:


  • Demanic
    replied
    Re: I have a few words about brands and people who judge them.

    Sometimes, the best is what you happen to have with you.

    Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Tapatalk

    Leave a comment:


  • Gearjoneser
    replied
    Re: I have a few words about brands and people who judge them.

    Right there with you, and because of what I know, in conjunction with it being a buyer's market, I make the most of it.

    While others are buying Chinese crap and common fare from GC, I scour the used market for things I know are good. Don't enlighten people. Keep it a secret, so it doesn't drive up the prices of classics you and I know are worth buying. I'm your age too.
    Keep your mouth shut! LOL

    If I showed you pics of my man cave, you'd **** your ******* pants! It's because I know what to go after, while guys who argue over Boss pedals flail in the wind, wasting mental energy.
    Last edited by Gearjoneser; 06-22-2016, 11:33 PM.

    Leave a comment:

Working...
X