To be fair, Knopfler is 69 years old and has been a gigging musician (at volume) for most of those years. As great a guitar player as he is, I'd be shocked if his hearing is as good as your average 50 year old, let alone your average 20 year old . . . so I'm not sure his endorsement really means all that much.
Many "touring professionals" used PODs too.
I don’t know about anybody else but my tone goal isn’t to have a guitar tone that is “good enough for the audience”. I serve a higher critic...me.
Man, I hate when I hear musicians talking only about pleasing a bunch of barroom drunks. So some disgusting slob can grind up against a pole because you’re playing “Crazy B*tch”....
This is why I always show up with the lightest rig possible and wireless transmitters so I can run around the stage and do guitar swingsSafe to say that if you show up with a Gorilla practice amp, the crowd is going to gravitate towards the other dude with the stack...
Man, I hate when I hear musicians talking only about pleasing themselves. So some overly ego-centric guy with a guitar can spend half a song futzing with knobs on an amp and the floor, and frowning the rest of time on the verge of tears, and you’re playing some Robin Trower song that nobody in whole bar gives a damn about or knows...
See how that works the other way too? And seen it more than enough times to believe that when we are arguing about the sound of a POD vs a Kemper vs a Vintage, we are way the other way. In a blind test, on that stage, you likely couldn't tell a POD from Kemper, let alone a Kemper from an amp.
I get what you are saying - but at some point you have diminishing returns. IMO, after POD 2.0 it was there IMO. Yeah - I love it when I can hear myself, the band, and everything sounds great. I like to play and sound my best. But again - at some point, there is more than the performance: Load in, load out, cost, space, maintenance, flexibility, blah blah, blah.
Man, I hate when I hear musicians talking only about pleasing themselves. So some overly ego-centric guy with a guitar can spend half a song futzing with knobs on an amp and the floor, and frowning the rest of time on the verge of tears, and you’re playing some Robin Trower song that nobody in whole bar gives a damn about or knows...
See how that works the other way too? And seen it more than enough times to believe that when we are arguing about the sound of a POD vs a Kemper vs a Vintage, we are way the other way. In a blind test, on that stage, you likely couldn't tell a POD from Kemper, let alone a Kemper from an amp.
I get what you are saying - but at some point you have diminishing returns. IMO, after POD 2.0 it was there IMO. Yeah - I love it when I can hear myself, the band, and everything sounds great. I like to play and sound my best. But again - at some point, there is more than the performance: Load in, load out, cost, space, maintenance, flexibility, blah blah, blah.
But I do take a certain pride in having a good tone. Even if I’m the only one that cares.
I’m not ok with having a “good enough” tone
I want to clarify my above comment about having a good tone for my sake....
I don’t want anyone to think that when we gig it’s all about my tone....
It’s absolutely about putting on a show.
We are all over the stage, interacting with each other and the crowd. The singer is out in the audience doing his thing...if the stage has risers we are up on them playing solos etc....
In no way are we playing obscure songs that nobody knows. Every song we play is or was a radio hit on some level.
None of that is lost on me.
All I was trying to say is that I need good tone for me...and by having that, it translates into good tone for the audience and a good overall band sound.
That’s win-win.
I’m not ok with having a “good enough” tone for a bar full of people that probably don’t know any better anyway. Hell, most people (non musicians) couldn’t tell the difference between a guitar and a bass in a mix anyway.
I knew what you meant.