The never ending useless gear rant.

[dem00n]

I tend to notice patterns in the way gear works, its all the same in tiny notches.

 

Whens the last time i heard a new amp that has a different sound? Makes a twist? A long damn *** time thats how long.

 

I understand people are going down the more convenient route now, more amps are coming out with tons of effects and even backing tracks with ways to record and hook up to your computer. But that's all boring and recycled.

 

The guitar industry needs a wake up call, we need something radical. Nothing recycled, something that sounds new, looks new and is just a whole new idea!

 

Am i the only one who sees this hole? I can not give it a identity, its just a hole staring at the NAMM conventions, gear reviews and numerous guitar magazine.

 

Oh look a new fuzz pedal based off the old fuzz pedal. Oh look a new Marshall that's supposed to sound like the old ones. Oh look a new Fender that's supposed to sound like the old Fenders.

 

Why has this circle? I understand it sells, but we need something new.

 

I just want a spark to start the fire, a new chain of ideas to make guitar more...modern? Interesting maybe? It doesn't have to be made by a big company either it just needs to have that...spice.

 

 

Like when the full stacks came out (Fender? Marshall?) , that changed the guitar world in a good way, no? Music got louder, heavier and expanded. It didn't kill little amps, it didn't kill Jazz guitarists. I want an effect like that, i want it to not just change guitar but to change music as a whole.

 

The guitar world is turning into niches.

 

Or am i the only crazy one?

[ShredAstaire]

You're the only sane one dem00n.

 

The market seems to DEMAND new stuff based on old stuff. Cuz only old stuff sounds good, you know.

 

The market always leads the industry...if people are buying what they are making, why do something radical and introduce risk?

[dem00n]

You're the only sane one dem00n.

 

The market seems to DEMAND new stuff based on old stuff. Cuz only old stuff sounds good, you know.

 

The market always leads the industry...if people are buying what they are making, why do something radical and introduce risk?

I understand that but theres always something that breaks the mold and rewrites the definition. This always happens in cars, computers, video games and so on.

 

 

The guitar community needs change, because its recycling ideas constantly.

[Big Bill]

Here ya go

 

[dem00n]

I knew someone would post that, but that's a failed attempt (out of thousands!) at changing the guitar.

 

 

An ugly one.

[Big Bill]

I knew someone would post that, but that's a failed attempt (out of thousands!) at changing the guitar.

 

 

An ugly one.

 

It was a failed attempt because it didn't sell. Shred nailed it, the market is not looking for new ideas.

[ShredAstaire]

So do it yourself big talker. Don't complain about it.

 

Get a business model together and make it happen.

[pippy]

...The guitar world is turning into niches...

It's been like that since at least the 18th Century, D.

 

Louder, faster, more synthesised, more distorted, less like a guitar, more like a 'Guitar', more like a Symphony Orchestra, more like a C-64.....

 

The technology exists to make any instrument sound exactly the way any composer wishes any instrument to sound.

 

The limiting factor nowadays is not the instruments nor the technology per se; It is our imagination.

 

IMHO.

 

P.

[J.R.M.30!]

It's interesting because these types of rants, uh discussion points usually shows that there are a lot of new technology being developed in the music world. I known DJ equipment has developed to where you have more control of the 'scratching as such. I know it is a borrowed idea, meaning there were turn tables back when but now they are more readily available to the public. ;)

[rct]

The guitar community needs change, because its recycling ideas constantly.

 

Same goes for tires.

 

The ideas being recycled are simply the best, and pretty much only ideas there are. Once you get past a certain point, it is no longer guitars, it becomes something else.

 

A telecaster is pretty much a telecaster, and a BFGoodrich T/A is pretty much a tire. There just isn't a whole lot to improve on either that hasn't been already done, that doesn't take it out of the realm of tire or guitar.

 

The problem, to me, isn't so much the need for change or innovation or improvement, it is more the need for someone, somewhere, all the time, to have to effing sell you and me and everyone else, stuff.

 

Guitars would go along on just fine to whatever their demise is intended to be, or non-demise if they are to go on long past our lives. But the constant constant constant flow of products is doing nothing but excellerating the demise. Just think of Mars Music, it is a great snapshot of the whole mess.

 

You are simply looking past the internet and the glossy purdy magazine pitchers and seeing that there is no there there, because all it is is some new joker telling me I need to have this or I need to have that, and this and that are nothing new at all.

 

Same as it ever was really. If you want something new and different, write it and record it and I hope sell it, because that really is all there is to do.

 

rct

[AXE®]

It's all in the tenon.

[zigzag]

RolandGK-Ready Strat

 

What are your ideas, dem00n? I'm sure Gibson would love to hear them.

[Riffster]

I wish they made a device that made me shut up and play my guitars.

[pippy]

I wish they made a device that made me shut up and play my guitars.

They did.

 

It's name was 'Frank Zappa'.

 

You must have been gazing out the window when 'it' took over your classmates' psyche.....

 

 

P.

[AXE®]

I wish they made a device that made me shut up and play my guitars.

 

It's called

 

 

 

And

 

 

[Riffster]

They did.

 

It's name was 'Frank Zappa'.

 

You must have been gazing out the window when 'it' took over your classmates' psyche.....

 

 

P.

 

That was a record though not a device.

 

Axe tell me more about that second pic.

[quapman]

That was a record though not a device.

 

Axe tell me more about that second pic.

 

 

Ya man,, and it makes me shut up and wanna play ,, but not guitar..

[AXE®]

Axe tell me more about that second pic.

They are girls.

[Riffster]

Indeed

[jdgm]

I think there is another long tenon joke in there somewhere.

[Cú Chulainn]

guitarists are VERY CONSERVATIVE!

people only seem to strive for, like you said, old sound.

so yes, there's a PLETHORA of pedals, pickups and whatnots that supposed to duplicate those old products.

but it's not good enough, because it's not old.

 

let's take the infamous P.A.F for example(I wrote P.A.F since DiMarzio owns the name without the inbetween dots )

how many versions are there? but people still won't like it...because it's not old...disregarding the fact that

music was created and recorded with those pickups when they were new. so I guess I'll never get why people hunt down

$200+ worth of pickups. still won't be the same.

 

hell, we're on a Gibson board and how many of Gibsons products are replicas and reissues vs. breaking new ground?

[FirstMeasure]

New for the sake of New never works. The electric guitar wasn't invented because it was time for something new, technology and necessity happen to meet. Necessity must be the mother of invention, gratuity is not a very good mother.

 

And why is it always "someone's" responsibility to come out with something new? If you feel there's a void to be filled, fill it. Then tell everyone about your new thing and see if it takes off. You can't just demand change with nothing to change into.

[Greybeard]

What has happened to the music reproduction business in the last twenty years has been a series of paradym shifts. We were all playing our vinyl 33 1/3 and 45 RPM records when cassette tapes appeared and we started buying and playing them on a different device. The next shift was to CDs and we stopped the purchases of casettes and started buying CD and playing them on a different device. We saw the same thing in recording TV programs with the Beta and VHS formats changing into DVDs. And now we are seeing Blu Ray DVDs taking over the new format.

 

The point is that something new and earth shattering might come along in the guitar world too. But, will it still require us to actually play the music? We hear so much synthsized music now that isn't anything like what we started playing when we began learning how. Is this where we want the guitar to go? If it is drastically changed is it still to be played as we now know how to play it? Personally, I don't want to have to learn to play the guitar all over again. If there is some new little effects box to be invented, I don't want to climb an enormous learning curve or have to throw away everything I now have to play with a new little box. There are limitations to what a market as large as the guitar players market will put up with. You would have a hard time getting everybody to invest into something that makes what they know obsolete.

[Blueblooded]

I have to disagree that the manufacturer's haven't developed and marketed fresh new ideas and products for guitarists. The Explorer X is one good example. I have seen many more that have come and gone over the past several years.

 

I think the problem is there aren't enough people interested in such products. Just look at the sheer number of people that are in the market to purchase a Les Paul Standard rather than the Explorer X and that pretty much sums it up.

 

I think the same can be said that people are looking for products that help them achieve someone else's tone rather than some new sound. That helps drive the industry to create all these Jimi and Slash and Bonamassa devices... Sure some items like the Whammy have broken into the mainstream, but it's rare because not as many people will actually chose them over something that gives them the tone they're chasing.

 

And there are plenty of products out there that will help you develop new sounds and tones. Mesa makes some great amps that have channels and modes that have their own sound. You just need to get out there and experience some of them.

[Izzy]

Simple...

the industry makes what sells.

 

NEW stuff comes from an artist's desire to hear something that has never been heard before or by accident.

 

The inventors or discoverers of these new sound making things are usually not linked to industry. Electronic music started with a bunch of geeks in the 50s who wanted to make musical sounds that didn't resemble instruments.

There are also fortunate mistakes. When Rolanda came out with the 303 and the 808 their lame attempt at making a bass and durums (which sounded nothing like bass or drums) was a blessing to the people who realized they could create music with Roland's screw up. EDM took off.

 

The new sound is either out there and will require someone inventive to wield and incorporate it into music OR the new sound is in someone's head and it has to be created from scratch NOT for the sake of making money but because that person is DESPERATE to hear it and to incorporate it into a song.

 

As guitar goes...I think it hit its peak. The industry will just frankenstein it repeatedly. Someone outside the industry may prove me wrong, but I don't put my faith in money makers to be inovative...not when it comes to ART.