Funny story about a guitar shop, pedal shopping, and my komet...

Young Angus

Kometose Tonologist
Well i am in the process of shopping for the right pedal to put in front of my komet for a nice hot (or hotter) lead sound, just really something to add a different flavour to it for a bit of a push rather than an entirely different sound...anyway i found this guitar shop that stocks t-rex pedals among other things like bad cat stuff and a fair bit of other boutique gear. So i rang them up and they said to bring my amp down and just try some stuff.

Now firstly i thought that a place who called themselves "boutique specialists" would have heard of a komet before...nope! Anyway so the guy took me into the back room with all the bad cat amps (which looked pretty sweet mind you ;) ) and i plugged the komet into a greenback H&K quad.

I told him to watch himself as he turned it on because it was really loud, and i dont think he believed me till he fired it up and the sound hit him in the face...that was pretty amusing :D Anyway, as soon as he realised it wasnt master volume and that it would just keep gaining up as he turned the volume on it up he had pretty much decided that no distortion pedal would ever work with this amp. Anyway, he plugged the Dr.Swamp t-rex pedal into the amp and played it for all of what might have been ten seconds and thought that it "$hit itself" and that no distortion box would work with this amp, so based on this he didnt even try the mudhoney or the bad cat extreme distortion pedal, he was convinced it would have been a waste of time. He then spent a minute twiddling the komets knobs from min to max (except the volume) and after going through all of them once really quickly said "yep, now i know your amp". And then went on to explain to me about how this amp just wont work with a distortion pedal with its own voicing...and i must admit there might have been some credence to what he was saying because he brought out a route 66 overdrive/compressor pedal and put that in the front of the komet and i really liked how it just pushed it some more without altering the tone, and it sounded pretty good and i'll actually probably look into that now...but still he was pretty quick to say that no distortion pedal would work with the komet.

Also he was playing the komet and thought it was really weird that he could kinda hear what he thought was a clean sound as well as a distorted sound when he played one note, and i think he thought there was something wrong with it and was telling me that he didn't know what was going on......i didn't feel like explaining to him what an overtone was :smack:

And he wasn't interested how the komet worked at all, with the touch response switch or the way the volume knob on the guitar reacted, so i didn't bother trying to explain anything to the guy...i just thought id take the opportunity after that to check out some bad cat gear :bigthumb: And i was impressed, but what was funny to me was that he was showing me some bad cat stuff and telling me how well they were made and everything like he thought id never come across a well made amp before...HA! I have no doubt the bad cat stuff is absolutely top notch and id love one of them too, but he was just one of those music shop rock stars who was only really interested in what he knows...and what he thinks.

Also he gave this H&K amp a plug, and i said "yeah ive got a multi channel big ENGL head" thinking he might be interested in which one i had...but instead he just called ENGL amps "billy hyde pieces of crap" (billy hydes is the only melbourne music store that sells ENGL), and said that ENGL's were an amp that sounds good in the store and then crap when you get it home...and then shortly after he said how he had never played an ENGL, just going off what people had said...id be interested to know if those people that said those things had ever played ENGL's either???

Just thought id share :nervous:
 
Re: Funny story about a guitar shop, pedal shopping, and my komet...

Well... this made me feel like a total idiot myself.

Sorry for going off topic, but how does a non-master volume amp work compared to a master volume one?

I'm one stupid mf'er :D
 
Re: Funny story about a guitar shop, pedal shopping, and my komet...

I know all about those types of people that work in guitar stores.. there is a real character here in lubbock that owns a place called the Guitar Garage. Guy actually had a mark 2C+ combo in hardwood, and a modulus bass + many many nice vintage amps, but the guy was extremely opinionated in what he liked and didnt like; almost like your dad telling you what to do and not do without you even asking. My friend and I felt like ants after we walked out of his store lol!
 
Re: Funny story about a guitar shop, pedal shopping, and my komet...

I think i understood the difference between master volume and non-master volume amps:

Master volume: You have a preamp gain button that regulates how much power that goes into the preamp tubes, and a "master volume" which regulates how much power that goes from the preamp to the poweramp.

Non-Master volume: You only have a "preamp gain"

Am i rigth, or am i stupid? :)

-Erlend
 
Re: Funny story about a guitar shop, pedal shopping, and my komet...

A master volume amp just means it has exactly that...a "master volume". Older style amps like the komet only have one volume knob, where as newer style amps have a volume knob, and a master volume. Sometimes the volume knob might be called "gain" or something to that effect. In simple terms (which is all i can put it in anyway) it means you can put the volume or the gain all the way up and leave the master volume down so that you can overdrive the amp more but at lower volumes.

A non-master volume amp means that you only have a single volume control, so if you're pumping the amp to get the overdrive sounds...its gonna come out pumping the volume as well.
 
Re: Funny story about a guitar shop, pedal shopping, and my komet...

Ah, i were right then! :)

Thanks,
-Erlend
 
Re: Funny story about a guitar shop, pedal shopping, and my komet...

I just smirk at those salesmen, and treat them like a shoe salesman......"can you plug up the 4 I'm interested in, thanks, I'll play them all for awhile, and let you know if I'm buying one....thanks again!"

I'm sure one of those pedals he had would work well with your Komet, and if you didn't get one, he must be a terrible salesman.
 
Re: Funny story about a guitar shop, pedal shopping, and my komet...

Why don't you email Hogy at Komet and ask him what pedal he recommends? Nothing like going directly to the source.
 
Re: Funny story about a guitar shop, pedal shopping, and my komet...

Yep...sounds like a salesman....
 
Re: Funny story about a guitar shop, pedal shopping, and my komet...

Scott_F said:
Why don't you email Hogy at Komet and ask him what pedal he recommends? Nothing like going directly to the source.

Yep, from the vibe I've gotten from the man on the Gear Page, he's more than willing to bend over backwards to help any of his customers. He's very knowledgable about what's out there, so I'm sure he'll be able to more than help :)
 
Re: Funny story about a guitar shop, pedal shopping, and my komet...

Scott_F said:
Why don't you email Hogy at Komet and ask him what pedal he recommends? Nothing like going directly to the source.

Now thats an excellent idea!
 
Re: Funny story about a guitar shop, pedal shopping, and my komet...

Gearjoneser said:
I just smirk at those salesmen, and treat them like a shoe salesman......"can you plug up the 4 I'm interested in, thanks, I'll play them all for awhile, and let you know if I'm buying one....thanks again!"

I'm sure one of those pedals he had would work well with your Komet, and if you didn't get one, he must be a terrible salesman.

Thats the stupid thing! He plugged the Dr.Swamp in for ten seconds and decided it wouldnt work with the komet, and based on that judgement he didn't even offer to try the mudhoney or the bad cat extreme pedal and instead went on to show me how good the bad cat stuff was.

Like i said above, i just gave up on this goon and thought id take a listen to some bad cat stuff. I even just saw my guitar teacher in the gym and told him about it and he said that he's been there before and they are notoriously idiots! Just so soaked up in the fact that they are the only stockists of bad cat and t-rex stuff that they think they're rock stars and they know best simply because they are the middlemen who sell these rare products. ROCK ON SALESMAN!
 
Re: Funny story about a guitar shop, pedal shopping, and my komet...

Oops one other comment from the salesman i forgot to tell you all about...after playing the amp for five minutes not even past half volume he told me how the komet was really made for blues players and thats about it.


!!!
 
Re: Funny story about a guitar shop, pedal shopping, and my komet...

Zerberus said:
Yep, but a really crappy one.....

There are two folks I've found that work in guitar shops.

Salespersons and guitar players that happen to work there.

Both can be flawed at times. But typically salespersons are more worthless than 40 inches of **** and more prone to straight out lies to get you to buy something....anything.

If I go to a guitar shop on a Saturday morning and see some guy who's bleary and stiff I know I can trust the place; it's someone who gigs and understands the real world when it comes to being a musician.
 
Re: Funny story about a guitar shop, pedal shopping, and my komet...

Well, obviously he tried to make you think that your amp (the Komet) was a peice of crap, and with that trying to sell you something much more expensive (an amplifier) than a pedal! :D

Classic!
 
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