Braunzo wrote: Tue Jan 21, 2025 6:57 pm Hey. I'm new here. Just looking to escape the usual social media nonsense for awhile (forever?).

I guess my gear confession is I totally like old people gear when it comes to amps and guitars. Like, borderline blues lawyer shit sometimes (reissue Gibsons and such).

But at least I try to do something "different" with it.

Totally gigged a Deluxe Reverb this weekend.

I love vintage amps. I've owned a ton in my life. I've gotten rid of all of them. Software and pedals are what work for me now. No regrets. It's just gear. You like what you like. What's more interesting is with what you do with it.

Nate Dort wrote: Wed Apr 02, 2025 8:05 pm I have no interest in amp modelers. I'm glad people find them useful, but I don't want to run a plugin from a computer on my pedalboard. Seems like it's a rabbit hole you can waste way too much time in.

I'm right there with you as far as live rigs. It just seems like a lot of thought and complexity to replace something you probably already have.

I do see the appeal for recording. It opens up possibilities that most people would not be able to recreate with real gear, and to be able to do so portably. I might get something eventually to use more as a mixing effect than "guitar rig".

penningtron wrote: Thu Apr 03, 2025 7:56 am

Nate Dort wrote: Wed Apr 02, 2025 8:05 pm I have no interest in amp modelers. I'm glad people find them useful, but I don't want to run a plugin from a computer on my pedalboard. Seems like it's a rabbit hole you can waste way too much time in.

I'm right there with you as far as live rigs. It just seems like a lot of thought and complexity to replace something you probably already have.

I do see the appeal for recording. It opens up possibilities that most people would not be able to recreate with real gear, and to be able to do so portably. I might get something eventually to use more as a mixing effect than "guitar rig".

I agree with you, it's not worth replacing the gear you already have. Modelers are great in the studio and when we go to record in a studio this year, I'll be plugged right into the board with my IR instead of bringing in a cab. The other guys in the band still have their real amps.

For me, it was the fact that I wanted to have something at home and at practice, and it's way easier to lug around a pedalboard than a 40lbs amp. For awhile, I had my tube amps plugged into load boxes and pushed through IRs strait into the audio interface in my studio. It always made the room super hot with both amps on and 3 bodies jamming in the room. I eventually just moved on from that because it suited my situation better. I now just have one pedal board for both guitar and bass, which is super cool to me. I still have my bass cab and guitar cab and some power amps. Selling the heads helped me buy the modelers. In my opinion, it's not really worth having both, because the modelers sound great and serve their purposes well. I feel like the argument against or for them real boils down to the same thing with tube vs solid state (vs class D). To be honest with you, I've never liked a solid state guitar amp and class D sounds like dog shit to me. But I never thought a modeler sounded bad. Different? Hard to say without a side-by-side comparison, they just sound good to me. I probably wouldn't plug right into a board doing live, because I don't have the EQ dialed in for that. On some modelers, you can dial in EQ on one channel or output for this purpose. I do have a modeler for that, but the one I use on my cabinet only has a way to remove the IR on one channel (which is super useful).

Another really cool thing about modelers, especially the ones that have effects in them, is that you can do stereo out. Modulation and time-based stereo effects are dead simple to record, if that's your thing. If you like that live, it's even easier, cus you only need the 2 cabs, not the 2 heads. You can even get a stereo power amp.

To take this even further, I have a vdrum kit in my studio. I had to build a music room that wasn't loud and it was much easier and cheaper to do plugged in virtual studio than a traditional one. I fucking love it. The modelers are great, but the vdrums are killer. I have Superior Drummer for doing MIDI, but I have yet to use it unfortunately. The processed signal from the drum kit is already pretty good and it can send stereo audio, multi-track audio and MIDI. The recordings we have on our soundclound are from the stereo and multitrack audio (earlier stuff was stereo until I figured out the multi-track). (The recordings may not sound amazing, but recording and mixing those tracks was mostly a learning process. The later recordings start to sound much better as I learned how to use everything and practiced mixing. It's all just sloppy practice recordings anyway.) The only thing that disappoints me is that my drummer refuses to record with the vdrums. I get it, but we could record everything in my studio for free at our leisure, but they want to go into a studio. I plan on doing overdubs, vocals and mixing in my studio, though.

penningtron wrote: Thu Apr 03, 2025 7:56 am

Nate Dort wrote: Wed Apr 02, 2025 8:05 pm I have no interest in amp modelers. I'm glad people find them useful, but I don't want to run a plugin from a computer on my pedalboard. Seems like it's a rabbit hole you can waste way too much time in.

I'm right there with you as far as live rigs. It just seems like a lot of thought and complexity to replace something you probably already have.

I do see the appeal for recording. It opens up possibilities that most people would not be able to recreate with real gear, and to be able to do so portably. I might get something eventually to use more as a mixing effect than "guitar rig".

Oh, I wanted to tell you that Eminence has IRs for all their speakers. They're about $12 each. You can get your swamp thing. I bought a Wizard to try out, it was pretty good. Lots of modelers can use third-party IRs. The Eminence IRs have mic and mic position options, too.

Inexplicable love/lust for the Devo Cloud Guitar. Don't tell the other guitars.

https://eastwoodguitars.com/products/devo-cloud-guitar

Oh man, so many, so so many:

-I love Gibson guitars but hate the company so fucking much. I just buy old used models that nobody wants. Everyone likes vintage J-2141230983204whatever flat tops, but I like archtops, so I got an L-48. The electric folks all want Les Pauls and SGs from the McCarty era, so I got an ES-125TDC because that's my jam. For modern Gibsons I really like low-end used models from around 2005-2008. You can get them at fair prices and the quality is good. Flying V fadeds, Les Paul studios, SG specials, and so on.

-I strongly dislike the idea of gear endorsements. Why should I, the consumer, pay a premium to subsidize artists who are already famous enough to be getting paid significant amounts of money to make music? I prefer to pay for quality over marketing and legal budgets.

-Fads. I hate them. Drummers are the worst. In the 1980s it was stupid extreme angles on everything, douche snares, cymbals mounted from chains, and 3,000 toms. Today, it's ridiculously dry cymbals (usually made by Meinl), with stupid levels of weathering, that sound like trash can lids, mounted uncomfortably low. And somehow shitty douche snare drums are back in fashion again, except everyone's calling this stupid cardboard box sound "fat" now.

-DW pisses me off. About the only thing I like about them is the DW5000, and that's just a Camco pedal with style and functionally interchangeable with an Iron Cobra (I have both). Their shells are the same Keller shells that everyone else uses, their hardware is just updated versions of the old Camco stuff but with a massive markup, and once you understand the history of how Camco was split you start to understand that DW and Tama might as well be the same thing, except you pay up the nose for DW and DW brands themselves like some sort of premium upscale cork sniffer brand when they're just ordinary drums like everybody else. And then they had the nerve to buy Gibraltar, who made great affordable hardware, and jacked their prices way the fuck up. Fuck those assholes.

-Cymbal snobbery is as bad as guitar corksniffery, if not worse. High frequencies are complexity when the cymbal is branded ZIldjian, Paiste, Meinl, Agop, or some boutique brand. But the exact same frequency spectrum on any other brand? Nah, that's trashiness. Zildjians are complex, Wuhans are trashy. See?

-I like weird cheap cymbals made from alternative materials. I want to buy some and see where I can find use for them.

-Most drum hardware is essentially specialized versions of plumbing fixtures and is way too expensive for what it is. I'm sorry, we all know the markup on this shit is ridiculous and drummers are getting screwed. Trump's tariffs are going to ensure that drummers get screwed even harder.

ErickC wrote: Sun Apr 13, 2025 9:18 pm
-I like weird cheap cymbals made from alternative materials. I want to buy some and see where I can find use for them.

-Most drum hardware is essentially specialized versions of plumbing fixtures and is way too expensive for what it is. I'm sorry, we all know the markup on this shit is ridiculous and drummers are getting screwed. Trump's tariffs are going to ensure that drummers get screwed even harder.

There are some people who are doing stainless steel cymbals. I think Mongiello (sp?) and there’s someone else (I’ll follow up when I recall). They sound cool (trashy! Complex!) and are surprisingly affordable. Some of them are super big, like 30”.

Also, yeah, wtf with hardware. I just bought a few Yamaha cymbal stands to replace my aging hardware and I imagine that’ll be the last hardware I get for a while.

I didn’t know DW bought Gibraltar but that explains why they don’t seem like the well-made,nice-priced option they once were.

As far as drum stuff, I roll my eyes at all gimmicky free floating/spring mounted/isolation implements for MAXIMUM RESONANCE. No, your floor tom doesn't need to sustain for 15 seconds. You realize once an engineer puts a mic on it they're just gonna gate that out or slap some tape on it right.

twelvepoint wrote: Mon Apr 14, 2025 6:57 am There are some people who are doing stainless steel cymbals. I think Mongiello (sp?) and there’s someone else (I’ll follow up when I recall). They sound cool (trashy! Complex!) and are surprisingly affordable. Some of them are super big, like 30”.

It might be Keplinger you're thinking of? They're sheet metal pounded into shape over a wooden form iirc.

mdc wrote: Mon Apr 14, 2025 3:28 pm

twelvepoint wrote: Mon Apr 14, 2025 6:57 am There are some people who are doing stainless steel cymbals. I think Mongiello (sp?) and there’s someone else (I’ll follow up when I recall). They sound cool (trashy! Complex!) and are surprisingly affordable. Some of them are super big, like 30”.

It might be Keplinger you're thinking of? They're sheet metal pounded into shape over a wooden form iirc.

Found it! It’s actually these folks:

https://kmiciccymbals.com/collections/flat-ride