Jccobb2
Well-known member
Echoplex preamp boost pedals are superior to all other boost pedals.
Jccobb2
Well-known member
And if you need to skinny your tone down before the amp use a fucking eq pedal, not another damn tube screamer copy with gain on 0 and level on 10.
skoora
Well-known member
I just got the EHX LPB-3 driver and after an initial play it’s looking to be a pretty versatile tool. You have bass/treble cut and boost and mid range boost cut, with frequency sweep etc. Can cop a sort of Schenker like tone just by using the mid boost going for a more cocked tone.
Cutting the bass a little sounds great into a recto and you can do it pushing the output level as little and as much as you want.
cobrahead1030
Well-known member
In all honestly, I could sell everything except my Mark III and be perfectly happy with my sound.
shredi knight
Well-known member
Richard Gere once had to have a hedgehog removed from his rectum, not a gerbil.
He had had the hedgehog go up his butt to retrieve his wedding band that was stuck up there (this incident would go on to inspire the creation of the popular "Sonic" video game).
He had had the hedgehog go up his butt to retrieve his wedding band that was stuck up there (this incident would go on to inspire the creation of the popular "Sonic" video game).
V
VonBonfire
Well-known member
That's crazy. I could sell all my gear including my Twins and still be freakin' miserable.
N
nightlight
Well-known member
Tone isn't in the gear, it's in the fingers. The example of Nuno playing through EVH's rig and sounding like himself settled that argument for me.
Not saying you can sound like a 5150 with a Dumble, but you will sound like yourself.
Not saying you can sound like a 5150 with a Dumble, but you will sound like yourself.
DanTravis62
Moderator
Staff member
There's a reason so many people involved with the online guitar world don't write music, and don't learn to play new music, and it isn't that you don't have time
It's the same reason you listen to, and play, the same old shit over and over
It's the same reason every post is the old shit about EVH or Kiss or Metallica or _insert popular thing_
The reason you can't write music is because you don't really like music, and you aren't really a guitar player
You like the surface level nostalgia of cosplaying as your younger self with a guitar in your hands, and going through the motions of being a musician like a skinsuit you're wearing. And spending shittons of money on gear you don't need creates a self-sustaining pavlovian response to keep the charade going
It's the same reason you listen to, and play, the same old shit over and over
It's the same reason every post is the old shit about EVH or Kiss or Metallica or _insert popular thing_
The reason you can't write music is because you don't really like music, and you aren't really a guitar player
You like the surface level nostalgia of cosplaying as your younger self with a guitar in your hands, and going through the motions of being a musician like a skinsuit you're wearing. And spending shittons of money on gear you don't need creates a self-sustaining pavlovian response to keep the charade going
N
nightlight
Well-known member
Buying more gear than you can reasonably
Ouch. I did that and I regret it. Had abstained from buying more gear for a short while then got back in the habit.
But I mainly did it because as a non-gigging musician, it's hard to keep my interest levels up. Not a lot of dopamine from social media, so I get my kicks from just owning nice gear.
And cigarettes. I love smoking cigarettes, it makes me happy.
Sites like this one are partially responsible. Refer the "Why are Wizards so hyped" thread and you can see how someone might think, "What if I got one of those amps", for example.
It's like a sugary treat for a fat person. I just love guitar and gear. Do I deserve it? I'd like to think so, so who gives a damn about what other people think?
Ouch. I did that and I regret it. Had abstained from buying more gear for a short while then got back in the habit.
But I mainly did it because as a non-gigging musician, it's hard to keep my interest levels up. Not a lot of dopamine from social media, so I get my kicks from just owning nice gear.
And cigarettes. I love smoking cigarettes, it makes me happy.
Sites like this one are partially responsible. Refer the "Why are Wizards so hyped" thread and you can see how someone might think, "What if I got one of those amps", for example.
It's like a sugary treat for a fat person. I just love guitar and gear. Do I deserve it? I'd like to think so, so who gives a damn about what other people think?
DanTravis62
Moderator
Staff member
That's the thing though, as a non-gigging musician, do you love music enough to keep your interest up? That's the real question
And it isn't a matter of if you deserve it - that's a given. But the real question is who gives a damn about what you think?
And I mean that rhetorically, not at you personally. Because one of the "red pills" i've had as someone interacting with a ton of the online guitar sphere is that a bunch of these people aren't like me, and I initially thought "oh hell yeah a bunch of cool musicians into gear." And there's certainly a couple of those, but it's more like "a bunch of mid life crisis guys who have very little actual interest in music and guitar and a whole bunch of interest into playing the perfect rendition of "panama" in their man cave"
M
matttornado
Active member
1. Echoplex boost pedals are one of the biggest money grab, rip off scams in the pedal market. So over hyped to get the brown sound. They suck.
2. No one in the audience cares if I use effects or not.
3. Big pedal boards with 10+ pedals that never get turned on during a gig looks really silly & is laughable. Looks fake as hell. Doesn't make you better.
4. If I can't play a gig plugging straight into my amp in an emergency situation, it's the wrong amp.
5. A Tubescreamer or SD-1 is all that you'll ever need as far as an overdrive goes. Most others are copies that have overpriced ugly artwork on them.
6. Vintage does not equal better. There's good and bad no matter what year something is made. To me, an average sounding 1959 LesPaul is worth 2,000-
4,000 dollars tops. similar to a new one.
7. Most Squiers are awesome for bar band gigs.
2. No one in the audience cares if I use effects or not.
3. Big pedal boards with 10+ pedals that never get turned on during a gig looks really silly & is laughable. Looks fake as hell. Doesn't make you better.
4. If I can't play a gig plugging straight into my amp in an emergency situation, it's the wrong amp.
5. A Tubescreamer or SD-1 is all that you'll ever need as far as an overdrive goes. Most others are copies that have overpriced ugly artwork on them.
6. Vintage does not equal better. There's good and bad no matter what year something is made. To me, an average sounding 1959 LesPaul is worth 2,000-
4,000 dollars tops. similar to a new one.
7. Most Squiers are awesome for bar band gigs.
tallcoolone
Well-known member
News flash—everyone isn’t the same, we all make choices, and life isn’t fair.
TheGreatGreen
Well-known member
My controversial opinion about gear is that guitar players tend to put WAY too much emphasis on trying to turn any one thing into an Excalibur, the singular miracle solution to all their problems. This is especially true with amps in particular.
The opinion that “if an amp doesn’t literally deliver you the exact tone in your head on a silver platter with nothing but a guitar plugged straight in and all the knobs set to noon and nothing but a single cab after it then it’s a bad amp” is such a misguided opinion.
Guitar tone is the result of the whole stew, not any single ingredient. No single piece of gear will give you everything and you don’t win any integrity points for using fewer pieces of gear. Nobody cares about that, only what you sound like, and what works for the music you're making. Whatever it takes to get the sound in your head is fair and fine.
Boosting is fine. Pre and/or post EQ is fine. pre and/or post compression is fine. Pre and/or post anything is fine. Weird unorthodox settings are fine. Using multiple amps is fine. Crossovers are fine. Just because the circuitry continues outside the walls of the head shell and tolex doesn’t mean you’ve committed some moral failing. What an arbitrary limitation to put on yourself. Actually, most of the great unique high gain tones you’ve heard likely had something weird going on. Get weird, go nuts, don't be afraid to experiment or to mod your sound as much as it takes to get it exactly where you want it.
If all you need to get the sound in your head really is just a simple guitar->amp->cab with all knobs at noon, then awesome. That's amazing. You don't have to have a super elaborate setup. But there's no reason to needlessly close yourself off from a ton of great sounds by refusing to consider using anything outside the bread and butter "minimum equipment required to actually produce sound" type rig on the grounds that it somehow makes things "inauthentic" or whatever. Don't be silly. It's bad playing that makes people sound inauthentic, not elevated rig complexity.
The opinion that “if an amp doesn’t literally deliver you the exact tone in your head on a silver platter with nothing but a guitar plugged straight in and all the knobs set to noon and nothing but a single cab after it then it’s a bad amp” is such a misguided opinion.
Guitar tone is the result of the whole stew, not any single ingredient. No single piece of gear will give you everything and you don’t win any integrity points for using fewer pieces of gear. Nobody cares about that, only what you sound like, and what works for the music you're making. Whatever it takes to get the sound in your head is fair and fine.
Boosting is fine. Pre and/or post EQ is fine. pre and/or post compression is fine. Pre and/or post anything is fine. Weird unorthodox settings are fine. Using multiple amps is fine. Crossovers are fine. Just because the circuitry continues outside the walls of the head shell and tolex doesn’t mean you’ve committed some moral failing. What an arbitrary limitation to put on yourself. Actually, most of the great unique high gain tones you’ve heard likely had something weird going on. Get weird, go nuts, don't be afraid to experiment or to mod your sound as much as it takes to get it exactly where you want it.
If all you need to get the sound in your head really is just a simple guitar->amp->cab with all knobs at noon, then awesome. That's amazing. You don't have to have a super elaborate setup. But there's no reason to needlessly close yourself off from a ton of great sounds by refusing to consider using anything outside the bread and butter "minimum equipment required to actually produce sound" type rig on the grounds that it somehow makes things "inauthentic" or whatever. Don't be silly. It's bad playing that makes people sound inauthentic, not elevated rig complexity.
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Alpha Stryke
Well-known member
"never drill holes on a Marshall" complete utter Bullshit.
DrewJD82
Well-known member
I actually brought this exact thing up yesterday when someone was relaying a story about being kicked out of a band, citing their inability to play the parts correctly and consistently as an issue, which of course was followed by a “I just love music, music is my life, I don’t know what else I could do”
Riiiiight…..so were you just so moved by the music because of its importance that your emotions wouldn’t allow you to properly learn and play it? How is the most “important thing” in your life also the same reason you’re getting kicked out?
Meanwhile, I just left a thread at TGP where there’s another virtuoso guitarist/hired gun/hot session guy who refuses to display a single bit of the work they’ve done in the last 30 years of supposedly being high in demand.
It’s because this shit is an aesthetic to some people, like a clothing style you can toss on and become, no more than an avatar to select when jumping online. To be fair, it’s not just people online because I’ve got PLENTY of buddies who will still call themselves guitar players/musicians though they aren’t doing *anything* with music and barely even play anymore, they’re holding onto the person they once were….they sure as fuck watch a lot more TV than they do anything with music.
Joining gear forums in the mid-90’s I guess I always had it in my head that “Well, of course people are putting in the time when they’re not talking gear on the internet……that’s what all this shit is for, yeah?” but 30 years has shown me that is certainly not reality.
tallcoolone
Well-known member
Guitar players moaning and groaning about what other people have is weak sauce. Boo fukking hoo.
DanTravis62
Moderator
Staff member
This was controversial opinions
If you'd like a tampon you can ask sharvell Dan I'm sure he has one
tallcoolone
Well-known member
“I’m a better player than this guy so I should have better gear” is the lamest take I’ve ever heard.
DrewJD82
Well-known member
I think there’s a huge gap between reality and the general consumer’s thoughts/knowledge on gear and tone. Just starting at the basic point of- how many fucking threads and how much time has been spent “cracking the code” on a guitar tone when there’s a complete dismissal of the studio work/production that went into creating the tone, attempting to make an amp sound like an album when the amp is sitting in a room by itself with none of the other instruments or players that are on the album.
Or seeing the cynicism around gear demos and “I don’t know what they do in post”…..yeah, that’s because you don’t know what gets done in post on a normal recording and you’re just running your mouth spittin’ out shit you don’t understand. Hint- no geartuber is out there carving out tones with post-EQ for a pedal the manufacturer sent to 50 other Youtubers. Pete Thorn makes shit sound good because the dude put in the time to know wtf he’s doing, just because your unmotivated ass did not does not mean geartubers are pulling the wool over your eyes, you just have not put in the time to even know what the fuck you’re talking about.
Dudes slaving away for months or years, believing they’re working towards some unique guitar tone that’s going to define them as a player and they haven’t written a single fuckin’ song where they can utilize that tone, nor do they realize that the second they move that amp out of that room that the tone will change, or without knowing what kind of mics and mic placement is going to deliver that tone onto a recording, it’s fucking pointless, unless the point was just to hear it in the room they’re in at the time.
No one would have given a fuck about Ed’s tone if he didn’t have something to say with it and he had his vocabulary pretty well figured out before he started working on the sound of his voice.
Or seeing the cynicism around gear demos and “I don’t know what they do in post”…..yeah, that’s because you don’t know what gets done in post on a normal recording and you’re just running your mouth spittin’ out shit you don’t understand. Hint- no geartuber is out there carving out tones with post-EQ for a pedal the manufacturer sent to 50 other Youtubers. Pete Thorn makes shit sound good because the dude put in the time to know wtf he’s doing, just because your unmotivated ass did not does not mean geartubers are pulling the wool over your eyes, you just have not put in the time to even know what the fuck you’re talking about.
Dudes slaving away for months or years, believing they’re working towards some unique guitar tone that’s going to define them as a player and they haven’t written a single fuckin’ song where they can utilize that tone, nor do they realize that the second they move that amp out of that room that the tone will change, or without knowing what kind of mics and mic placement is going to deliver that tone onto a recording, it’s fucking pointless, unless the point was just to hear it in the room they’re in at the time.
No one would have given a fuck about Ed’s tone if he didn’t have something to say with it and he had his vocabulary pretty well figured out before he started working on the sound of his voice.
DanTravis62
Moderator
Staff member
