meursault said:
mind... fingers... so what the debate about gear is all about ? i think i find it out... gear debate is for bad or average players... i can hear the difference between my old solid state amp and my caliber50... i can hear the difference between the tubes i changed, between the cabs...
a good style can sound good trough a bad amp, but it will sound better trough a good amp... i sound better now, but i have to pay more attention to my play... don't you think... if not, why do we spend so much money in gear ?
confused...
well, i think that ... in my opinion, you probably should first decide what sort of music you are going to play and what tones you need. One tone can be very different from another - metal and jazz, for example.
after that thought has percolated for some time (in my case 25 years), then I settled down to a couple of guitars that i like to play.
next came the matching of the amp to the guitar ... different amps sound unique - correct ?? Stiletto Deuce to Lonestar for example.
Now I am amp tweaking, experimenting with the various settings. I am trying to match to tone in my ears. If I wanted to stay with a pedal board with 3 different OD/boost pedals - I would still play my .50+ - but I did not. I wanted a small board and multiple usable channels (for me) ... so I ended up with a LoneStar.
Now I am trying different tube combinations ... for an attempt to further finetune the tone.
If I was a rich and gigging player ... I would have hired someone to do this for me. Some players like what they hear stock - as the manufacturer delivered it. Others are tinkerers.
Once you get that tone in your ears, and you can make it on your equipment, you are basically done, in my opinion.
I am not a 'good' player in my mind. I listen to the absolute greats all day long at work and have acknowledged that they possess a hand/eye coordination that I lack in some respects. That tone I will never get. However, hit a chord, or a bend ... how does it sound ??? that is where most of this discussion lies - there is a big difference between talent making **** equipment sound decent due to their technique, but decent is the best it could be. an average player can sound great on great equipment - intonated/tuned/setup ...
I played the other night and was messing around with delay settings during a solo in a blues jam song we do to wind down. several people came up and told me i was amazing ... no, i was not. but i had some TONE baby ... that 335 was singing. and the LSC .... well there is a reason we are playing Mesa isn't there ??
take care ...
