Fads

Silence Kid

Silence Kid

New member
I'm not at all an 'old-timer' but when I started playing the guitar magazines had ads with the guy from Hed PE, or Dan Donegan or Coal Chamber. Also - Guitar Magazines. So I've been playing long enough to recognize some pretty silly bull**** that no one ever speaks of again.

Curious: Which notable fads are you now able to recognize as such?

The big one I remember is the Squier 51 . People had a really creepy, Beanie Baby-ish mindset toward them for a while- first looking for the more 'desirable' combinations of colors pick-guards, early models, first release models, etc. Even if you weren't a fanatic, you probably had one. I had one for a couple months, before I realized it really was a freaking Squier - no more, no less. Looks like they go for about twice the original purchase price now anyway (meaning still dirt cheap.) Didn't they have their own forum for a while? What happened to your Squier 51 ?
 
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A current fad is either everything is either super modern, or super retro, and magazines sort of make you feel like you have to fit into one of these camps, which is nonsense, of course.
 
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It was all shred guitars and super complex rack systems when I started.

Hard rock was there too when GnR brought back vintage guitar styles like LP's V's SG's etc

Then it went back to basic amps/heads and the odd guitars like Jags, Jazzmasters as grunge hit.

Then metal became chuggy and the super-high gain zillion channel amp hit.
 
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The current fad in my impression is oddball or boutique versions of guitars. But none of them sound unique, other than the oddball guitars sound weak and trashy, intentionally.

Guitars are visual now, an afterthought. You have to look bohemian. Sound comes from effects and processing. The instrument doesn’t matter. It’s all about energy, not music.
 
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Most of the fads I can think of at the moment that really aggravate me are too social/political in-nature to discuss here.


Gear "demo" vids that are obviously more to show-off than offer any meaningful demo or comparing,,,,,,,and then the guy plays noisy, sloppy and out of time,,,,,,and it's even worse when they prelude the video by saying "the playing is a bit sloppy I know, don't mind the playing" .
 
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A big fad is the same paid gear reviewers doing many of the reviews. The fad of magazine 'reviews' actually being reviews and not just product placement continues, unfortunately.
 
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I mostly seem to be aware of the “Boutique” craze. Both in amp’s and guitars/pickups.

And everyone’s Reverb/eBay ads that all say “Rare/Vintage” and then have a ridiculous price tag.
 
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Usually guitars that are advertised as "rare" are guitars that nobody wanted (because they were junk in some way) and therefore didn't sell, so not many were made. And most of the ones that were bought were disposed of.
 
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Probably not so much a fad as an obsession. Maybe both ... PAF's. Everyone seems to claim to make PAF replicas. From the larger companies like SD and DMZ to all the well known "boutique" winders to the small, unknown winders who sell on ebay or whose web page pops up on page 16 of some internet search. Hell, even the Chinese and Korean pickup makers claim to have PAF replicas. Now, I'm not saying that there aren't great sounding PAF "clones" out there being produced by both small and large winders. But, since the originals were notorious for being inconsistent, what exactly is a PAF and what does it, or more appropriately, what do they sound like?

Again, there are pickups that claim to be PAF clones that sound great, regardless of what they are supposed to be cloning and regardless of whether they actually pull it off.
However, regarding the clone thing in general ... PAF = Pure Adulterated Foolishness.
 
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^^If you consider that Seth Lovers, Pearly Gates, 59's, WLHs, A2Ps, and Antiquities are all vastly different takes on PAFs by the same company, it really makes hunting for a "accurate" PAF silly.

Pretty much any 42-guage plain enamel humbucker wound somewhere near 8k can be argued to be a PAf replica.
 
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Gtrjunior said:
I mostly seem to be aware of the “Boutique” craze. Both in amp’s and guitars/pickups.
Click to expand...

As an Offset player, this definitely exists; individuals who think every square inch of the guitar needs to get 'boutiqued' - Pickups by the hand-winder of the week, the most fashionable/least obtainable bridge/vibrato, super-specific tort. pickguards, custom control plates, custom finishes etc. (and a custom builder to slap it all together but still put a 'Fender' decal on.)
 
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So, I was not paying attention to the guitar/ped/amp industry for more than a decade because sometime around 2000 -I felt like I had everything I was every going to need to play and record for the rest of time -sounds silly now.

anyways, when I started paying attention again about 5 years ago (because perhaps all of the cool pedals?) -and this pre-distressed or antiquing industry had arisen in the industry while I was not at the watchtower guarding against this poseur bull****. Is this antiquing thing still popular now? or is it a passed fad? I don't know because every time I see this stuff I purposely ignore.

Play your guitar and be a spaz if you want battle scars
 
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Interestingly enough, Seymour Duncan was the first person I’d ever heard of deliberately aging new product, even before I ever saw any guitar companies do it. It was eccentric at the time, and was about getting a vintage sound, not a vintage look.
 
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Being a bit of a relic,I can remember some truly dumb fads that the guitar magazine's of the day told us were going to change the world....

One that really leaps to mind was the " No. 1 Stretch Strap"!
Apparently we were all going to spend the 80's leaping around the stage with our axe of choice suspended on a giant rubber band. Hmmm.......

The Spin Strap was another gem. ZZTop have a lot to answer for!! Fortunately,I spent more time removing these from guitars than fitting them.

Headless everything!! In the 80's,the guitar world was taken over by headless guitars and basses. Steinberger started it and EVERYONE followed the fad. Gibson even came up with the 20/20 Bass,a headless bass - with a headstock!
99% of them sounded like absolute crap! Strangely, some folks still think they are cool. But then again,some folk still think Hoola Hoops and Pogo Sticks are cool....

Picks!! Multi Picks,Triple Picks,Speed Picks,Stylus Picks,The Strum Rose.....Bloody Hell!!! Seriously,most of us either use a standard flat pick or fingers. In the 90's,I would have people asking for the latest fad picks on a weekly basis. Then,when they sold their guitar,you would find a collection of these mysterious devices in the traps box in the case.

There are lots more from the "Good Ol Days",just pick up a copy of Guitar World from the mid 80's,particularly if your under 25 and some of this stuff is new to you,and you'll find pages of useless crap that guitarists apparently could never live without.
Somehow,we managed to survive without most of it....

One thing I thought was going to be a major fad was relic guitars. When I saw the first ones in the mid 90s,I thought " This is really cool",but soon they were cropping up everywhere and I thought it wouldn't last much longer.
Man,was I wrong!!!!! Every other guitar I build,I get asked if I can "relic it a bit" .

Cheers,PJ
 
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Darg1911 said:
But, since the originals were notorious for being inconsistent, what exactly is a PAF and what does it, or more appropriately, what do they sound like?
Click to expand...

They are clones of individual pickups that existed....from the better guys of course. You'd be amazed how many PAF's have gone to heaven to make the industry, although a lot of the initial wave of winders had done re-wind work - so had documented the variability plus precise construction from fixing them.
And its amazing despite how many of those subtle variation make for different pickups that the broad brushstroke is quite similar.
 
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