How important is versatility in your gear to you?

[Andrew Lamprecht]

Take the question as you see fit, how much of a role does your GEAR, not your hands or abilities, your GEAR, play in your versatility. This isn't a trick question, I'm just wondering how many people have really simple set ups or really diverse setups vs something in between.

This question is just something I've been thinking about today. If you have THAT sound in your head, do you still work with your rig to expand or keep things as is?

 

[Myaccount876]

Re: How important is versatility in your gear to you?

I just like to have as many switches and complex wirings as possible. Mostly just to get cool sounds I couldn't get before. Not so much for versatility, though it is still nice to have.

 

[CTN]

Re: How important is versatility in your gear to you?

If you asked me a few years back I'd say not very.

Now, it's changed. Versatility is EXTREMELY important to me. The stuff I play now spans everything from folk to jazz to blues, rock, 80s metal to death and black metal, so my gear absolutely HAS TO be able to cover those bases.

 

[Myaccount876]

Re: How important is versatility in your gear to you?

I just make due with whatever now really. If Tony Iommi can play metal with P90s and amps made to play clean, I'm way better off now then he was in 1969/1970.

 

[Jocelyn]

Re: How important is versatility in your gear to you?

For me Versatility is the key. I like to keep things simple now ( unlike some years back). My next guitar is going to be a Tele .

 

[sosomething]

Re: How important is versatility in your gear to you?

That depends on how you define versatility.

Most people would probably think my rig is about as one-trick-pony as it gets.

I don't go in for a lot of pedals. I get 100% of my tone from my amp. And it's a pretty simple amp.

I do like to have a versatile compliment of guitars, though. I'm not one of those guys with 5 strats. I have a LP Traditional, ES-339, SG Classic, 52 Hot Rod Tele... and then I have a G&L Legacy with HSS and coil splitting on the bridge pickup, and it has Vol/Treble/Bass controls instead of Vol/Tone/Tone. And I have a Hamer Special FM with P-Rails and Triple shots... both of those guitars get used a lot.

So I guess you could say that tonal versatility isn't big on my priority list, but textural versatility is?

 

[some_dude]

Re: How important is versatility in your gear to you?

Versatility isn't important to me. I don't really feel the need to "nail" any particular sound and I feel it makes things more interesting if I adapt songs to suit my own particular taste in sound/playing style.

I do like a certain functionality in being able to footswitch between clean, moderate and high gain tones so that I can achieve the appropriate feel for what I want to convey, but for the most part I like the actual tonality to stay relatively consistent as I ramp things up.

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: How important is versatility in your gear to you?

For a live guitar or amp, extreme versatility by way of switches and such is not that important to me; I just won't bother to fine tune that much on stage. It can make recording a lot more streamlined, though. As an example, I love Strats, but I rarely play them live, opting for Esquires or LP Juniors most often. However, when recording, when you have time to fiddle, nitpick, dial in very specialized tones, make multiple passes, and constantly tune up, I love using Strats.

Same with Pauls – I am much more likely to use one for a recorded track than live. But that's for a different reason. It's because I find them to be restrictively non-versatile. They do the ''Les Paul thing'' like no other, but they're so inherently good at it that getting other things out of them does not come all that easily to me. They sound too thick to me for my own general-purpose use. I love Les Pauls, but they have never been my go-to guitars.

All that splitting of hairs out of the way, most of the guitar designs that have endured the last half century+ are very versatile. Teles, Strats, Les Pauls, P Basses, SGs, 335's, etc. Most things can be played on any of those guitars without much hassle.

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: How important is versatility in your gear to you?

I only ever play two different notes (one note sounds a bit strange in some keys, but the other one works in those cases). So my gear is simple. I have a guitar and amp for each of the two notes. I don't like complicated stuff, it all just gets in the way.

I avoid amps with master volume controls, and if i absolutely have to use one, i run it 'backwards' .... master up high, gain down low. I never use more than two pedals (overdrive and delay). I still prefer the simple old guitars and amps i started with in the early 1970s ... simple gear keeps me focussed on the music. Every now and then i've looked into new technologies, but always end up back with the old-style gear, I keep my knob-twiddling activities separate to music-making.

Plus i think that the more stuff between the guitar and the listeners' ears only detracts from the core sound, which starts off more as a total environment more that simply 'sound' .... there's a life, a vibrancy, when the signal path is very simple and the amp is of the tube variety. The more complex it gets, the more of the mysterious 'organicness' gets lost, leaving only a two-dimensional 'sound'.

Simpler gear puts more onus on me, as the player, to make things interesting. Of course i fail completely, but that still doesn't make me use more complex gear. Having to choose between the two notes i play takes all my resources, i don't have enough skill to tackle more knobs, dials and buttons (I do like the lights though, makes me feel like I'm a member of the 'Thunderbirds' team). So yeah, less knobs, more lights for me thanks.

 

[Myaccount876]

Re: How important is versatility in your gear to you?

I only ever play two different notes (one note sounds a bit strange in some keys, but the other one works in those cases). So my gear is simple. I have a guitar and amp for each of the two notes. I don't like complicated stuff, it all just gets in the way.

I avoid amps with master volume controls, and if i absolutely have to use one, i run it 'backwards' .... master up high, gain down low. I never use more than two pedals (overdrive and delay).

The Edge is that you?

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: How important is versatility in your gear to you?

The Edge is that you?

Ha, I can't play all that complicated jazz stuff that he does. Unlike him, i keep it simple. I've even heard him use both of the two notes ... in the SAME SONG !!! Nah, i shy away from such excess.

 

[JOLLY]

Re: How important is versatility in your gear to you?

You couldn't even make it a week away from here, could you?

 

[CountFeedback]

Re: How important is versatility in your gear to you?

I like gear with a lot of usable range… if that makes any sense?
I like gear that is easy to get a lot of good sounds out of appropriate to the item; like a distortion box that sounds good from slight drive to full throttle distortion, or a flanger that does great chourus and leslie sounds. I’m not into an amp or fx box where it’s like “that’s the sweet spot” don’t move a knob or it will sound like ass. I don’t like gear that I can’t easily grab a knob and get is sounding right within 5 seconds while I’m playing the song, so no 999 preset multi FX or software.

 

[Aceman]

Re: How important is versatility in your gear to you?

Oh hey...welcome back Andy!

And versatility is completely absent from my playing, so it has no place in my gear.

 

[Aceman]

Re: How important is versatility in your gear to you?

You couldn't even make it a week away from here, could you?

I gotta dig up the over/under bet thread and see who won. :lmao:

 

[JeffB]

Re: How important is versatility in your gear to you?

I am a keep it simple stupid type of player. An amp, a couple of pedals, plug and go. Versatity in tone comes from widely differing guitars, I am not a fan of do it all guitars like HSH or HSS strats , or a humbucker in the neck of a tele cos they usually only do one thing well and the other pup positions suffer due to dramatic differences in output and/or style of pup.i am a traditionalist that way.

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: How important is versatility in your gear to you?

My gear is pretty simple compared to some I get my versatility mostly through picking dynamics and my volume knob

 

[Little Pigbacon]

Re: How important is versatility in your gear to you?

I do like some versatility. I'm not obsessed with it, but I try to build it in. When I'm working on a song and can't find a tone that at least fits and keeps me in the mood, I get annoyed and start thinking about what piece of gear would fix it. This is been less true in recent years, partly because I've gotten better as a player and can more easily wring something "close enough" out of what I have. I'll never been a one-guitar/one-amp or even a five-guitar/one-amp player, but I can be happier now with fewer options. I'm more likely to be happy with "close enough".

People get dogmatic about this stuff, because it gets into matters of personal finance, lifestyle, and hero worship. If a legendary player did great things with one guitar and one amp, does that mean that I can't do something worthwhile by exploiting the differences between two guitars, or by using an amp and a pedal or two? Do I have to do every single thing that's humanly possible with my first guitar before buying my second guitar? And who decides that? Me? My family? Someone else on an Internet forum?

 

[Robbiedbee]

Re: How important is versatility in your gear to you?

Honestly I like the idea of versatility more than versatility itself. In a live situation, I really don't bother with push-pull switches, lots of pedals and that kind of thing. Also, my hands are far too sweaty to be able to pull the knob on my Strat if I'm playing live. Need to swap them for push-push pots.

I own quite a few nice pedals, but I'd never take more than delay and perhaps a distortion to a gig. Too many variables in my opinion. The unfamiliar room/backline/acoustics are enough variables for me. It's also just something else that can go wrong.

 

[formula73]

Re: How important is versatility in your gear to you?

Not so important to me. Pretty much all I do is plug and play double hum geets and play with the guitar volume. Provided there's no treble loss, that pretty much gives me all I need: clean-ish and dirt.