Proof Guitars Aren't As Good As They Used To Be

[VonBonfire]

Always loved it myself bro'.

 

[Monkey Man]

Nooiice!

A Conn?

I remember way back in the day that Conn had more character and less harshness as far as Trumpets were concerned so I assume the same might be able to be said for cornets too.

 

[VonBonfire]

Nooiice!

A Conn?

I remember way back in the day that Conn had more character and less harshness as far as Trumpets were concerned so I assume the same might be able to be said for cornets too.

1953 Conn 12a. That's even the original (what I think is an upgraded) case in pretty good shape for it's age. I got it cheap cause the CL ad only said cornet and didn't include the word trumpet. Nobody buys cornets much in the states so it just sat mostly hidden for five months.

There is some old Conn factory tour footage on youtube. Their processes were amazing and way ahead of their time. The bell is electroformed copper, all made by depositing copper ions around a mandrel hence the "Coprion" bell. It has quite a nice warm sizzle to it when pushed. Wish I could put my hands on a couple other coprion models, the 9a short cornet is almost unobtainium, and the 10a artist long cornet, capable of both trumpet and cornet tones.

Might be worth a watch.

 

[Jon BCN]

I always found funny the elitism in guitar forums.

“How dare he had all those guitars, he can’t play!” said by some random user who spends all day in a guitar forum and has never ever done anything relevant with his “supposed” great guitar skills.

This McKnight guy has been a long time tech and guitar store owner, just that alone makes his takes more interesting than the myriad of guitar hero bedroom wannabes that never amounted to anything.

 

[Alpha Stryke]

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[Juggernaut]

McKnights primary instrument is bass.

 

[Alpha Stryke]

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[Jack Luminous]

Yes, I just edited my post, adding cornet, it's also mellower than the trumpet. Being an adult, our face muscles have matured, so it's more difficult to learn and control a "new" embouchure for strength, endurance, and accuracy than when we're kids. I tried learning flute as an adult and gave up because getting the embouchure was too much work, and frustrating.

I played bugle in the Boy Scouts, so I learned brass embouchure...on a very small narrow mouthpiece. In 8th grade our school got two new sousaphones, mouthpiece was larger than the size of a shotglass, I enjoyed playing it, same for other instruments the school had.

I used to carry my bugle mouthpiece everywhere and could practice the different exercises conveniently

When I played alto sax in school band, we sat in front of the trumpet section, and there were always several trumpets, and trumpets are very loud and piercing - this one MF'er, our school's best (and loudest) trumpet player would often lean forward and play closer to my ear, it was painful pissed me off that I nearly punched him a few times IIRC. We were often competing for solo spots.

Kid was a real prankster, I remember in one concert, he took a wad of gum and threw it, and it hit an oboe dude in the head, and got stuck in his hair and he sat there on stage for our full concert, they had to cut it out of his hair and he had this big bald spot...fun times.

When I played tenor and baritone, I sat in front of the trombones and baritones, I formed my first paid gigging band with one of the trombone players who also played bass guitar.

I started music with flute at 7. It takes a lot of time even as a kid to master the embouchure correctly, about 5 years of everyday work. It's more technical than muscular though, doesn't take a lot of strength but a great deal of precision. I started sax later in life when I was about 35 and although the overall technique/fingering is quite similar to flute, does take much more strength at the embouchure than flute IMHO. I found it much harder physically and tiring. Never tried trumpet...

 

[ZEEGLER]

it's strange, i get that he does setups and used to own a store, that's the cool part of his channel where he does the most amount of knowledge sharing

but it makes me weep for the hobby when someone like that has literally hundreds of high end guitars and can barely fucking play

but i guess that's most of the "community" now so, explains why he's popular

Plus, he looks like about 250lbs of uncooked dough.

 

[rsm]

I started music with flute at 7. It takes a lot of time even as a kid to master the embouchure correctly, about 5 years of everyday work. It's more technical than muscular though, doesn't take a lot of strength but a great deal of precision. I started sax later in life when I was about 35 and although the overall technique/fingering is quite similar to flute, does take much more strength at the embouchure than flute IMHO. I found it much harder physically and tiring. Never tried trumpet...

We did opposite instruments. Once I learned the saxophone embouchure on alto, I was able to go to tenor and baritone easily. Never had interest in clarinet or other reed instruments. Same for brass thanks to bugle. Flute as an adult, was much more difficult due to the embouchure. Maybe I needed more time to practice and gave up too soon, but sax and bugle were much faster and easier to learn for me as a kid, than flute as an adult. IME

I think it's more about muscle control than strength. Getting it right takes time at any age, but kids' muscles aren't fully developed which gives them an edge in learning many things. IMO.

 

[Music&Chaos]

I thoroughly enjoy the breakdown videos he does on guitars. It is interesting to see things like manufacturers using other materials than what is listed, etc.

I also really dig the several factory tours he has done.

I also enjoy hearing random banter about the industry.

Believe it or not, I dont watch guitar channels for their playing, I listen to music for that, I tend to find a subject I like or a topic rather than focus on their musical ability.

Overall, I don't really look at gear demos because I do not have an intetest 99% of the time in a new piece of gear, regardless of what it is.

I am not a huge fan of Greg Koch, (great player), but I sit and listen to him drone on about old Fender days or stuff like that.

It's like 'talk-radio' for me, essentially.

 

[311boogieman]

They are as good, just 4 times the price.

It's called inflation.

That's all he really wanted to point out. He's miserable and he wants you to know about it.

 

[VonBonfire]

“How dare he had all those guitars, he can’t play!” said by some random user who spends all day in a guitar forum and has never ever done anything relevant with his “supposed” great guitar skills.

I'm that guy who spends all day in a guitar forum, thanks for noticing.

No one is angry at guitar collectors.

I'm going to cut firewood this morning. I have no business demoing a professional grade chainsaw cutting small 6" and 8" logs and brush. But it's a free country and anyone can pretend like they know what they are talking about now with a video camera, an internet connection, and more money than brains or skill.

 

[Geo]

I'm that guy who spends all day in a guitar forum, thanks for noticing.

No one is angry at guitar collectors.

I'm going to cut firewood this morning. I have no business demoing a professional grade chainsaw cutting small 6" and 8" logs and brush. But it's a free country and anyone can pretend like they know what they are talking about now with a video camera, an internet connection, and more money than brains or skill.

But does he like Santana?

 

[VonBonfire]

But does he like Santana?

I didn't know there were people who don't.

 

[Geo]

I didn't know there were people who don't.

His love of Oscar Meyer may have clouded his judgement.

 

[Alpha Stryke]

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[DrewJD82]

My tech can barely finger a D-chord but that dude can make a guitar do exactly what you want it to just by talking to him about it. I’ve never heard McKnight dude play, not even for a second, but I’ve seen him break down some guitars and it doesn’t take Petrucci to say “They hacked the shit out of this neck pocket, there’s buffing compound in every crevice of the guitar, the bridge posts aren’t actually in the correct location as you can see by these measuring tools I am using that don’t require actually playing the guitar to read”

If the dude’s channel were like Pete Thorn’s or Ola’s where demo’ing gear were the bigger focus, have at the guy for not playing, but overall it seems like his channel is based on build quality and the business side of retail more than “Here, I make this sound good, go buy it”

 

[Kagami]

I started music with flute at 7. It takes a lot of time even as a kid to master the embouchure correctly, about 5 years of everyday work. It's more technical than muscular though, doesn't take a lot of strength but a great deal of precision. I started sax later in life when I was about 35 and although the overall technique/fingering is quite similar to flute, does take much more strength at the embouchure than flute IMHO. I found it much harder physically and tiring. Never tried trumpet...

Flute and Sax have the same fingering and octave keys which makes sense it's simple to double from that perspective. Brass really kills your lips starting out and trying to play high will make you want to smash your mouthpiece against your teeth which just makes it worse lol.

Maybe at some point I'll get a rotary trumpet to goof around with as I love the sound of those, I think regular trumpets always sound a bit blah. It's hard to put money into something I'd touch a few times a year though lol. I don't even recall how many times I played my clarinet last year and I've yet to pick it up yet in '26.

 

[JimAnsell2]