Guitars
I'm not mechanically inclined. I've never been very interested in the details of machines and how they work. I'm terrible at fixing anything mechanical.
I don't really know how a car works. I have no appreciation for the subtleties of driving; handling and things like that. I want a car that moves (cheaply), looks modest and gets me where I want to go. Because the voyage and arrival at this point is what really makes me excited. I could care less about the details of how the engine sounds or how fast I took that last hill. Just get me there.
This type of thinking is fundamental to who I am. It must be, because I feel the exact same way about musical gear.
Musicians I've worked with are very specific about the type of sounds they want their instruments to make. Nothing wrong with that. There are many settings with many possibilities. But to me, they all sound the same most of the time.
The perfect guitar for me has one knob. Volume! I don't need pickup switches. Why would I want two pickups? They all sound the same to me. Someone once asked me "do you prefer humbucker or (whatever the other kind is, I don't even remember)?". I was like, I don't know!! Who the fuck cares? Is there even a difference? Whichever is louder, gimme that one. I also don't care about tone controls on a guitar. I control tone from the amp. Having two places from which to control tone confuses me. I seldom if ever mess with those knobs on my guitars. They get in the way.
I guess I'm a little more of a nerd when it comes to amps. The perfect amp for me would have five knobs. Treble, bass, gain, volume and reverb. They would be labeled as such. The amp would be VERY loud. That's the one detail I pay a lot of attention to. Why do they make amps with no master volume? To me, that's just stupid.
I think a lot of guitar players feel that the tone of their instruments is an important part of their sound. I respect that view, for sure. But I don't share it, and here's why. The tones an amp produces are predetermined by the manufacturers of the amp. Yes, I can shop around, try out ten amps and pick the one that sounds best to me (good luck with that, Ash), but ultimately I'm picking the best sound designed by someone else. So I feel that the tone of the amp says little about what I'm trying to convey artistically. What I do to the guitar, how I play it is determined by me, that's a personal expression. The amp and its noises are just a means to an end.
Let me present this metaphor, somewhat derivative of my last post. Say I have a story to tell, and I can only tell it by using flash cards. Someone gives me a deck of one hundred pre-made flash cards and says "Begin". Chances are, I'll be able to string my story together so that I'm understood - but this method is not very personal. I won't feel all that satisfied when I'm done.
On the other hand, if you give me one hundred blank flash cards and some pencil-crayons (someone once got mad at me for calling them that instead of "coloured pencils"), I'll draw you the damn story, and it will look a lot more like I mean it to, and therefore, better represent what's inside my head. *shudder*
"But Ash," you say, "you couldn't draw your way out of a wet paper bag! No one will understand what you're trying to say!".
That's a risk I'm willing to take. I can look back at my glorious failure, smile and nod and go, "yup... I did it all by myself". That's more satisfying to me. It makes me feel like my art is real, and came from inside me and nowhere else.
The way I see it, I play a guitar, not an amp. Very little the amp does or doesn't do will make me feel any better or worse about how I made the guitar line in the song sound.
The amp should not cut out. The sound should stay about the same throughout the set. Just what that sound is, is a detail I'm less concerned with.
All this said, I'm not completely indifferent to amp settings. My needs are just really basic. I like it very loud with a lot of distortion (but not too much, necessarily) and tons of low end. Some reverb here and there. I like effects too, but I'll take those from a pedal. I find pedals more satisfying to use than built-in amp effects (other than reverb... and I must admit the built-in chorus in my new twin
is pretty nice).
I think everyone likes to turn the knobs on their amps before they start playing, and I do this too. But once I do, I have no idea how get back the sound I had last time. You'd think that would bother me 'cause I kind of don't like inconsistency... but it doesn't because the differences are too subtle for me to pick out.
Favorite guitar sounds by other people:
Greg G. (BF)
Rick W. (ET/E)
Tony I. (BS)
C. Simmonds (local feller)
They're all probably pickier than I am.
I don't really know how a car works. I have no appreciation for the subtleties of driving; handling and things like that. I want a car that moves (cheaply), looks modest and gets me where I want to go. Because the voyage and arrival at this point is what really makes me excited. I could care less about the details of how the engine sounds or how fast I took that last hill. Just get me there.
This type of thinking is fundamental to who I am. It must be, because I feel the exact same way about musical gear.
Musicians I've worked with are very specific about the type of sounds they want their instruments to make. Nothing wrong with that. There are many settings with many possibilities. But to me, they all sound the same most of the time.
The perfect guitar for me has one knob. Volume! I don't need pickup switches. Why would I want two pickups? They all sound the same to me. Someone once asked me "do you prefer humbucker or (whatever the other kind is, I don't even remember)?". I was like, I don't know!! Who the fuck cares? Is there even a difference? Whichever is louder, gimme that one. I also don't care about tone controls on a guitar. I control tone from the amp. Having two places from which to control tone confuses me. I seldom if ever mess with those knobs on my guitars. They get in the way.
I guess I'm a little more of a nerd when it comes to amps. The perfect amp for me would have five knobs. Treble, bass, gain, volume and reverb. They would be labeled as such. The amp would be VERY loud. That's the one detail I pay a lot of attention to. Why do they make amps with no master volume? To me, that's just stupid.
I think a lot of guitar players feel that the tone of their instruments is an important part of their sound. I respect that view, for sure. But I don't share it, and here's why. The tones an amp produces are predetermined by the manufacturers of the amp. Yes, I can shop around, try out ten amps and pick the one that sounds best to me (good luck with that, Ash), but ultimately I'm picking the best sound designed by someone else. So I feel that the tone of the amp says little about what I'm trying to convey artistically. What I do to the guitar, how I play it is determined by me, that's a personal expression. The amp and its noises are just a means to an end.
Let me present this metaphor, somewhat derivative of my last post. Say I have a story to tell, and I can only tell it by using flash cards. Someone gives me a deck of one hundred pre-made flash cards and says "Begin". Chances are, I'll be able to string my story together so that I'm understood - but this method is not very personal. I won't feel all that satisfied when I'm done.
On the other hand, if you give me one hundred blank flash cards and some pencil-crayons (someone once got mad at me for calling them that instead of "coloured pencils"), I'll draw you the damn story, and it will look a lot more like I mean it to, and therefore, better represent what's inside my head. *shudder*
"But Ash," you say, "you couldn't draw your way out of a wet paper bag! No one will understand what you're trying to say!".
That's a risk I'm willing to take. I can look back at my glorious failure, smile and nod and go, "yup... I did it all by myself". That's more satisfying to me. It makes me feel like my art is real, and came from inside me and nowhere else.
The way I see it, I play a guitar, not an amp. Very little the amp does or doesn't do will make me feel any better or worse about how I made the guitar line in the song sound.
The amp should not cut out. The sound should stay about the same throughout the set. Just what that sound is, is a detail I'm less concerned with.
All this said, I'm not completely indifferent to amp settings. My needs are just really basic. I like it very loud with a lot of distortion (but not too much, necessarily) and tons of low end. Some reverb here and there. I like effects too, but I'll take those from a pedal. I find pedals more satisfying to use than built-in amp effects (other than reverb... and I must admit the built-in chorus in my new twin
is pretty nice).
I think everyone likes to turn the knobs on their amps before they start playing, and I do this too. But once I do, I have no idea how get back the sound I had last time. You'd think that would bother me 'cause I kind of don't like inconsistency... but it doesn't because the differences are too subtle for me to pick out.
Favorite guitar sounds by other people:
Greg G. (BF)
Rick W. (ET/E)
Tony I. (BS)
C. Simmonds (local feller)
They're all probably pickier than I am.
posted by the baron ash von foolishness at 6:31 PM
2 Comments:
Who got mad at you about the pencil-crayons thing? I hope it wasn't me. When I first moved to the Valley I found it incredibly wierd that everyone called them Pencil-crayons, but I don't recall ever become offensive on the subject.
No, it wasn't you. I can't remember who it was. I thought it was a weird thing to get mad about. That's all we ever called them where I grew up (Cape Breton. oh... wait...).
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