Gear confessions:
#1:
Kniferide wrote: Mon Sep 16, 2024 6:13 pmI got a bunch.
This is a very good post indeed.
#2: I have a Bean (Designs). It was my most expensive guitar by a very significant margin. It's not my best guitar - probably not in the top 10, if I'm being honest with myself. It's cool as hell. I am comfortable with the fact that it is cooler than it is good. It's
very cool.
#3: My gateway into Travis Beans was not Shellac/Jesus Lizard/etc., although I of course love these bands dearly, but
this guy and one of the many hills I will happily die on is that the guitar tone on the first Criteria record is pretty much unimpeachable as far as straightforward rock guitar is concerned (same w/the bass tone [also a Bean] on the first White Octave record, incidentally).
#4. I'm pretty comfortable considering collecting guitars & actually playing 'em discrete, if substantially related, hobbies. I
have 40ish guitars & basses, 30ish amps, 60ish mostly boutiquey pedals, etc. To get most of the sounds I make/have historically made in bands, I
need a Precision bass, a Jazzmaster, a delay pedal, a YBA-1 and a Rat. (Well, and a tuner.) Like many of you have already pointed out about yourselves, I basically sound the same no matter what I'm playing.
#5. When it comes to gear, I used to believe that the last 10% was really for the player vs. the listener/audience/whatever, but this is not true. The last
90% is for the player (and whatever gear nerds are at the gig/reading interviews/etc.). Most listeners can more or less distinguish between an acoustic guitar and an electric guitar or a Minimoog and a Rhodes and that's about where it stops. I have, again, become very much at peace with the idea that every silly little thing I buy is an indulgence for myself, a fun toy to show off to my friends and to some nice strangers on the internet, (sometimes a pretty flagrant display of privilege,) etc.
#6. I am currently in the middle of making a dumb, dumb record in GarageBand using a guitar, a bass, a Monoprice ribbon microphone (thanks PRF) and two cables. No amplifiers, no pedals, no real drums, etc. I am very happy with the sounds I'm getting - it certainly doesn't sound like I recorded in a lovely studio with a cabinet of expensive microphones/racks upon racks of outboard gear/a 2" tape machine/etc., but it's perfectly fine. I'm okay with perfectly fine.