What are your predictions for the next decade?

Where will we be in 10 years?


Will you still be rockin' it?
Will you still have a tube amp?
Will gear forums still be a thing?


I think guitar building will continue to grow. At least I hope so. Paul Reed Smith spoke about this recently, how computerization can help and actually do some things better than humans.

I think digital and profiling will continue to grow obviously. Hopefully to a point where we literally cannot tell a difference whether we are playing or listening. Someone recently made a thread about his Kemper not having that 'bounce'. I'm hoping the technology will start emulate those little things too - even if it could just do some stuff kind of randomly - like a real tube amp. Give us some of those flaky nuances to trick our brain. I plan to keep my tube amps as I'm already a fiddler and patches and options will def drive me crazy.

I hope rock and metal can stay relevant. If bands like Ghost, Alter Bridge, Slipknot, KSE, Babymetal, Gojira, Metallica etc are any hope for the future then let there be rock!

I think it would be cool to somehow get an effect (pedal/device/pickup/something) to only add an effect to a certain string? Is that possible? Or have a pedal that only affects certain frequencies? I think that could give a cool doubling/chorus/harmony thing.

As far as forums go, I hope so. I like talking to regular dudes about things we have in common. I know Facebook has a lot of groups and such but I find it hard to participate in those kinds of media.


Whatchu got?

I predict many baby boomers will get sick, or die, thereby flooding the guitar market with inventory. Boutique buyers are higher income people who tend to be older, for those companies a thinning of the herd is inevitable. It’s time to face the fact the younger generation is not taking it up as we did, and guitar is fading away as the piano, clarinet and accordion did before it.

^ Well you are a cheerie fellow. Welcome to R-T

Well I was thinking of this just the other day and unfortunately as a lot of our guitar heroes start retiring or passing away ,as well as the amp designers of our day etc... and all of us here getting older I cannot help but wonder if the guitar will stay relevant with the younger generation and who will their guitar heroes be or will everybody just be listening to Rap music

It will be interesting to see how things progress won't it?

I will be rocking the tube amps, be an active musician, and throwing it down on here. I will also have cirrhosis of the liver and live in an insane asylum where I have access to the gear as it gets released at NAMM. world piece will be in the shitter and climate change will not occur. Also the world will be considered flat, weed will be legal, and I get paid to swallow massive amounts of qualude and Adderall and entertain the fellow patients at full stage volume while they are drooling on themselves.

Whatcha think?

No idea what's gonna happen, but I'd like:

1) Gear forums to never die, especially as I don't do "regular" social media.

2) Rock and metal to never die. You mentioned BabyMetal. Kawaii metal has really taken off in Japan and there's a vast range of stuff out there now. That alone will yield a bunch more metal heads in time (and has already), many of them female, so I believe you correctly identified the band, but I'd say the genre, as being something that'll help keep the shit alive-and-diversifying. Credit must go to BM 'though for bringing the genre to life, if not "creating" it.

3) "Profiling" to continue to evolve, and I believe it will. Kemper Kone is coming in 2020 and that's gonna help tremendously with the amp-in-the-room sound.

I’m hoping to hook up to a profiling app in my iPhone via Bluetooth which then goes to FOH via Bluetooth as well

I can't see how there could not be a huge flood of guitars on the used market. Every time I walk into a GC, there are so many more guitars on the wall than there are guitar players walking around. Eventually those guitars get marked down and sold, then resold. I think a lot of brands are cheapening themselves, because the delta between new and used prices on the same guitar will just grow.

swamptrashstompboxes":s4kf3sij said:

I will be rocking the tube amps, be an active musician, and throwing it down on here. I will also have cirrhosis of the liver and live in an insane asylum where I have access to the gear as it gets released at NAMM. world piece will be in the shitter and climate change will not occur. Also the world will be considered flat, weed will be legal, and I get paid to swallow massive amounts of qualude and Adderall and entertain the fellow patients at full stage volume while they are drooling on themselves.

Whatcha think?

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I like you. I'll volunteer to be in your band as rhythm guitarist! But only if I'm included on the qualude and adderall routine.

Rick Lee":3bv49of9 said:

I can't see how there could not be a huge flood of guitars on the used market. Every time I walk into a GC, there are so many more guitars on the wall than there are guitar players walking around. Eventually those guitars get marked down and sold, then resold. I think a lot of brands are cheapening themselves, because the delta between new and used prices on the same guitar will just grow.

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...man you know what is bizarre... speaking of GC...about 15 years ago, when i decided to get addicted to the guitar, again,...i could/would go into GC or SA (locally) on a Friday or sat afternoon, and the place was just TEAMING with folks laying-it-down in the guitar sections. all at the same time...it was a mind-fuck really because it comes across as noise...but it was bustling! nowadays...meh...it's kind of like a ghost town really. a few straggle in and out every now and again, but nothing like it once was.

sorta like this place...it's still a cool place to be, which i enjoy, but it seems more and more desolate....

as morbid and melancholy as it is... i feel it's all slowly fading away (rock, real man-made music). hope i'm wrong...surely someone will pick it up and run with it only to lay-it-down on another day?

that said,,,,as long as this place is up and running i'll be present...

ETA: at some point...years after we're all gone...the world will have forgotten or never heard of the Hendrix-Vaughn-Halen-Moore-etc's (the guitar gods we grew up to)... some kid, some where, will pick up a guitar, play some old licks that were originally cut in the 60's-70's, and the world will be set on fire again, and The Music will be reborn...

311splawndude":1p7b2ykb said:

I think it would be cool to somehow get an effect (pedal/device/pickup/something) to only add an effect to a certain string? Is that possible? Or have a pedal that only affects certain frequencies? I think that could give a cool doubling/chorus/harmony thing.

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That is honestly a really cool idea that has not been done before that I have seen.

I think forums and tube amps will be around but nowhere near as much traffic. Even today there has been a huge decline compared to 10 years ago. I still prefer forums over FB and youtube but I am getting old too!!

I feel the same about guitar music in general. It will always be around, at least for the next 10-20 years. I do not feel there is any decline in guitar playing. Yes, commercially there is for certain. The radio is pushing other music now but look at all the new, killer guitar players these days. Tons of Prog players with the 7, 8 and 10 string guitars. A lot of guys in the past 10 years have taken guitar playing to a new level. Some of these guys can shred circles around EVH and your favorite 70's - 80's guitarist.

I do not think that is going anywhere. Maybe one day but not anytime soon. The "rock star" thing is basically over though. It is just different now but there are still tons of young kids picking up the guitar.

I do think modelers will get there to where it will be 100% and no need for tubes. There will still be tube amps but they will be like 8 track players eventually.

I guess a lot of my post is long term talking. In the next 10 years I am sure there will be at least 1 new invention that is utilized and taken seriously but I can't really predict.

^ pretty much agree with all of that.

I think at this point though the only way we are going to see that full blown resurgence in a rock star mentality would be an effort in the future that basically bucks all of the current trends. So maybe someday when the over produced over populated auto tuned techno this and that gets so old and boring BAM! - something comes out that everyone has to have and maybe it can't be downloaded or viewed that easily. I envision something very punk like. LoFi. Garage like. Word of mouth. Tours only. And people crave it because of those elements and it becomes real again.

Or am I smoking crack?

Hopefully we'll see major advancements in Cancer treatment, dementia and stem cell treatment and prevention.

311splawndude":191f11wf said:

^ pretty much agree with all of that.

I think at this point though the only way we are going to see that full blown resurgence in a rock star mentality would be an effort in the future that basically bucks all of the current trends. So maybe someday when the over produced over populated auto tuned techno this and that gets so old and boring BAM! - something comes out that everyone has to have and maybe it can't be downloaded or viewed that easily. I envision something very punk like. LoFi. Garage like. Word of mouth. Tours only. And people crave it because of those elements and it becomes real again.

Or am I smoking crack?

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US demographics are shifting toward Latino, so for an industry to grow, it must appeal to that group.

1. Rock/Metal as a big umbrella genre will be around. There have already been like 4-5 different "waves" in metal subgenres that came and went after hair metal fell off the radar. Many of you probably just didn't care for it.

2. At some point phone processors will be grunty enough and you might be able to get AFX/KPA level of modelling on your phone.

3. Tube amps probably won't die because if you hit to a point where everything's too easy and accessable, people will purposedly go the inconvinent way. See downloads VS vinyl revival.

Tube amps will probably never go away. I see a lot of people getting tube amps again after they went kemper/axe several years prior. Also now with guys like Dave and Gower and a dozen other guys selling modded plexi/JCM stuff, they are getting popular.

I have been doing tweaking to some old fender amps and having a blast. Not near the level of professional, but I am getting better at it. It's just to amuse me though. I am currently hotrodding a bassman bit by bit. Also in the future, I see kit clones like Ceriatone getting more popular. It seems like there are a ton of guys starting to build clones, it seems like more new guys on the armature level than in the past.

311splawndude":36stmt8b said:

^ pretty much agree with all of that.

I think at this point though the only way we are going to see that full blown resurgence in a rock star mentality would be an effort in the future that basically bucks all of the current trends. So maybe someday when the over produced over populated auto tuned techno this and that gets so old and boring BAM! - something comes out that everyone has to have and maybe it can't be downloaded or viewed that easily. I envision something very punk like. LoFi. Garage like. Word of mouth. Tours only. And people crave it because of those elements and it becomes real again.

Or am I smoking crack?

Click to expand...

still using "techno" to describe todays music makes me think you are an old timer smoking crack i think there is more rockstar mentality than ever these days with social media, the rock stars just arent playing guitar. theres also plenty of lofi garage stuff going on if you look for it but thats all been done before and no one cares.

why are guitarist so hung up on tube amps staying around?? if i could plug into my iphone into a pedal sized power amp into a 4x12 and get the same results as a tube amp, im going for it its like people cant get enjoyment out of playing the guitar unless its through a tube amp which just seems silly to me

all I know is that for each year of the next decade I will get a year older (hopefully)

I won't always be able to haul a 100w Marshall head and 4x12 to a gig, but I can't see ever getting out of tube amps. Every time I scour the various sites for deals on Marshall heads, I go back to my man cave, fire up the 1987xl with both volumes on 6 and wonder why I ever bother looking for more. I just can't imagine a better tone or feel. And tube amps have a feel you cannot capture in a recording. When you're in the same room with the speakers moving air, your pant legs moving and the head is very warm to the touch, that's something a pocket amp or modeler cannot replicate.