Do you partake in gear talk? I don’t. Although I’ve played guitar since I was 16 and have been recording music in studios and at home since I was 17, yet I have almost no interest in nor, more importantly, ability to discuss gear.
- Is it a classic brand guitar of guitar, like a Fender, a Gibson, or a Rickenbacker – rather than some new-fangled “pointy” guitar?
- Is it a funny model among one of those classic brands, like a Gibson Grabber bass?
- For recording equipment, does it have big knobs?
That about does it for my interest in guitar and recording gear, the gear I’m most likely to handle. Likewise, I can’t be bothered to talk about stereo stuff. Will it play music? Yes? Great!
I do, however, get a kick out of listening to two drummers talk about their gear. The other night, for instance, I spent about 15 minutes listening to discussion between our band’s drummer, Townsman Sethro, and Billy Ficca, the “wackoid” Television drummer touring with his old bandmate, Richard Lloyd. When I walked over, Sethro told me wide-eyed that Billy was playing the snare he’d used on Marquee Moon! I had to admit, that was pretty cool, but given the chance to open a dialog about the recording techniques employed by producer Andy Johns, I just sat back and listened to them talk about what the snare was made of, what kinds of heads they used – on the bottom as well as the top – and so forth. Drummers have lots of necessary gear, and I think it’s important that a drummer know about that stuff, much more important than it is for a guitarist to be a gearhead, for instance. Plus, you don’t have to understand anything about electronics to at least get the gist of what drummers are talking about when they talk gear. Have you ever heard a bassist go on about his or her gear? No offense, but that may be the gearhead discussion I least want to hear.
Do you talk gear? Do you listen in to gear talk? Do you prefer to talk gear that you know or listen in to discussions over gear you don’t really understand?
This will likely be the most discussed topic EVER on Rock Town Hall, so please be patient if the servers slow down. Thanks!
I can listen to my drummer talk pretty endlessly about specific drum techniques. For example, I expect to engage him tomorrow night on Ficca’s frequent open hand work, right hand on snare, left hand on hi-hat, which he exploited to toss in those 16th note hi-hat fills. Watching Ficca the other night reminded me of the numerous times I’ve closely watched Pete Thomas to see how he does that little ride cymbal eruption after the third line in the verse of No Action. Gear talk though, not so much.
Yes, Geo, your drummer is one of my favorite drummers to hear talkin’ drums, even gear talk. As a bassist, I commend you for avoiding gear talk of your instrument.
gear talk, never. i don’t want anyone to know how i get my “tone”.
i’m being snide.
There is nothing drearier than hearing guitarists talk about gear. And guitarists who talk about how they get their “tone” are like dudes who talk about sex — the more they talk about it, the less likely it is that they’re actually gettin’ any.
I find drummer gear talk to be fascinating. We have a nice drum set in the studio — a TAMA Star Classic, for you drummer gearheads out there. I started noticing that every single drummer who came through the studio was removing our ride cymbal — a vintage Zildjian of some sort. Finally, I asked one of our go-to studio drummer cats what the problem was, and he just said it was “dead.” I felt like a sixteen year-old girl falling in love with her English teacher. How mysterious! How confidently dismissive! How dreamy!
In contrast, we had a bassist come through recently who couldn’t stop describing all the ways his “piezo pickups” made his tone “warm” and “fat.” Ugh. Why would I want to spend my time listening to *that*?
HVB
Depends how we’re defining gear talk.
For instance, I just got a garden variety tele and the pickups sound kind of brittle so I’ve had discussions with a friend about good replacement pickups. Does that qualify as gear talk?
Also, if people have some classic looking gear, I like to check it out. I’d like to know what year the Mod’s strat is and what’s the deal with that stomp box with the one big knob that he has.
On the other hand, I don’t want to hear a bass player go on about piezio pickups.
So I guess I like gratuitous gear talk in small doses. The same goes for gratuitous drummer gear talk.
I like talking gear, probably because I don’t do it much. I had a nice talk yesterday at Big Dude’s Music with the salesman about bass strings. I was trying to buy a set, and all they had were those boingy roundwounds. So we talked about the other options, which they didn’t have but could order for me.
Musicians talk about gear because it’s a concrete thing that can be talked about. What else are you going to delve into? Your favorite chord patterns? How a certain string bend makes you feel? Back in the day when I had occasion to talk to touring bands, they were more likely to be interested in where to get good cheap food near the club or what motels to avoid in which cities.
And I think I’ve told this story before, but I met Billy Ficca years ago, while we were waiting for the Plastics (I think) to come one after he had drummed for the not very interesting opening band. He was just making a living and seemed surprised that anyone recognized him. He was very nice, very approachable, and he did not mention drum heads. He mostly talked about how this was not his real gig, but just a fill-in. His real gig was the Waitresses, which should give you an idea of how long ago this was. Even with a band that kind of sucked, he still played great.
BigSteve, I like thinking of you shopping at Big Dude’s Music! You don’t have to justify your need to talk gear; I’ve got plenty of concrete things to talk about with other musicians, like the way a guy holds his Strat, how wide his feet are placed relative to his shoulders, his Look:) Seriously, it’s fine if Townspeople are into talking gear and want to stick up for that point of view.
cdm, yes, what you had was a gear discussion. The fact that you even considered that your pickups sounded brittle is a clear sign of gear consciousness and would rightfully make you want to talk a bit of gear.
As for your curiousity regarding my gear, I’m flattered and will talk as much gear as I can. The Strat is a 1978 model. I think it was made in Japan or somewhere like that, where gear snobs would look down their nose at. I bought it a year old at Zapf’s. The salesdude told me the previous owner replaced the bass pickup with something heavier/deeper than what came with it. It may be a Seymour Duncan pickup. I almost set my Strat for the bass pickup when using any kind of fuzz, including all solos, no matter what setting I’m on during the rest of the song. This replacement pickup that I know little about accounts for much of my Tone.
That Strat is a 5-way pickup, or however you say it. Toward the end of our set the other night, when something in my chain was causing more buzz than I usually get, I did not think to do what Richard Lloyd suggested I should have done as soon as I stepped backstage. “Who was making that buzz at the end?” he asked as we entered the room. “If you’ve got a 5-way you should have switched to an out-of-phase setting.” Next time I’ll consider this, but I have to say, I rarely use the out-of-phase settings. They make me feel like I should be wearing a Clapton-at-The Last Waltz-style scarf and making subtle coke faces while pulling off double-bends.
The box I step on for many of my solos is a Maestro Parametric Filter, which Andyr picked up for me in a junk pile in some Washington, DC music store in 1984 or so. We refer to it as the Coltrane Box. Coupled with a certain, legendary acquisition that was imported from Thailand and that we shared, community style, preceding a formative Head rehearsal in original bassist Steve Sagin’s, it unlocked what I refer to as my Sound. I’ve written a tribute to the Coltrane Box here: http://overlookedgems.blogspot.com/2005/07/maestro-parametric-filter.html
Mod: if your Strat really is a 1978, it was made right here in the US of A. They didn’t start making Japanese strats until 1982.
I’m a gear head.
Jazz Bass (usa)with S-1 Switch to get P-bass tones, Epiphone Jack Cassidy bass black, SWR Super Redhead amp (best tube sound without going all tube, which is too unreliable for giging)Took me years to find this combination. Sounds like 60’s stones and motown but can find a hi-fi place with some knob tweaking.
I play in one band with other gear heads, they can go on for hours about tubes, drum heads, pre-cbs vs post cbs Fender…yawn
The other band hates gear talk. Same snare head since 2004, guitar player owns one guitar. We talk about bands and drink beer…more fun.
Hrrundi, this is great news. Fact of the matter is, one of the reasons I haven’t talked gear all these years is for fear of being exposed as a “Jap Strat” owner. Expect more gear talk from me henceforth!
Go Mod Go! Excellent gear talk!
By the way, you just need to put the selector in the 2 or the 4 position in between songs and then switch it back to the rhythm position when the song starts.
Despite having several “nice” guitars, the one I play the most is a Japanese tele deluxe. And the one that just bought is a Mexican tele.
I was checking out a gearhead site once and the participants decided to throw them on the table and list all their gear in detail. One guy listed his picks and the brand of guitar strap he used. I really don’t think he was kidding.
I know a guy that got all excited because he knew someone that was going to China or somehwere and they got him five tortoise shell picks for his guitar. Apparently something marvelous happens with them, but I don’t know what.
Mr. Mod, that’s funny about talking stereo gear. I can talk with people with reasonable budgets about it, but I’ve heard people just completely trash $20,000 speakers because they couldn’t compare to $35,000 speakers. I don’t hear warmth and air and I think some cd’s sound way better than most records and some records sound way better than some cd’s. I know a guy that spent 75 bucks for a cable for his ipod to go to his car stereo jack and he said he had a “great improvement.” I’d bet he couldn’t tell the difference between a 96kbs mp3 and a 320. I don’t like snake oil cures in stereo land, and I can appreciate a friend’s stereo that was more than my car, but at some point it all sounds pretty nice in the average sized room.
Oh man. I actually do enjoy some gear talk, even though i’m not that knowledgable. A lot of times it seems like some way to brag about how much time someone spent looking up pick ups on wikipedia. I compensate with talking about theory, which is prolly more important to music than the order of effect pedals i use.
Anyway, i have a mexican telecaster and a japanese reissue mustang, that i run through a Boss Multi-Pedal, and an electro-harmonix compresser/sustainer. But i have a really awful amplifier, so all that nice stuff is kinda wasted potential.
I do enjoy gear talk – both drums and now guitar gear talk (for being primarily a drummer all these years, There are over a dozen stringed instruments in this house…my favorite being a Tele 72 Custom reissue…)
I recently experienced one of those “gig anxiety dreams”, but in real life. We played in Brooklyn last Friday and once there and setting up for sound check I realized I forgot my drum throne. We’ll at least I didn’t realize this at show time. We managed to round up a throne and it was a doozy. A “Pork Pie” brand. I had no idea of how comfortable they were. I also had no idea they are a $200 bucks drum seat…
I’m firmly in the middle. I don’t delve too much into gear talk, but I like hearing suggestions. I am a bit of a “tone freak” in that I have specific way I like for my bass to sound. I used to buy up all sorts of pedals and fun stuff, but as the years wore on, I just plug the bass into the amp and tweak knobs.
I have a couple of Jazz Basses. One is a “taco bass”, which was my first. It still looks and sounds great, but my main axe is a Geddy Lee Jazz. Not that I aspire to play or sound like Geddy (As a matter of fact, I usually don’t go for artist models…), I simply love the look and sound of this bass. I really dig playing it. I also have a Danelectro bass which I have only played once on stage. I have used it for recording, though. I play through an old Fender P.A. tube head. It gets a nice, warm sound that I get off on. My bandmate tells me that it’s the closest thing to a Twin Reverb in its configuration, but he did this research, not me. He plays a Rick through a real Twin Reverb and that suits him just fine.
It’s just funny to me that when we first started out, we had this arsenal of pedals and “gear”. As we grew up and older, we gave up alot of those pedals. Now, most of those pedals sit on a shelf in the studio waiting for some recording to call to them.
TB
I had a good stretch where I was down to one pedal (an overdrive, just to warm things up a bit). I didn’t even have reverb. Sadly, those days are gone.
Since I’m now stuck with playing the guitar leads in my band (a battlefield promotion of sorts), I have a pedal board. It’s not too big but uncool nonetheless.
Btw isn’t it hilarious that a stool for the drummer to sit on is called a “throne”? I wonder who came up with that concept.
I believe that pedals are nescessary for any guitarist. In our case, we’re a trio, so we must have a little color to our pallette.
Then there’s Eric Johnson…that dude has a pedal for every note he plays.
TB
“I believe that pedals are necessary for any guitarist.”
Yeah but surely you’ve seen those old guys who just have an tele and a fender amp who have no need for pedals. I’m not quite sure how they do it but I think it’s called “technique”.
I play with no pedals, something of which I am perversely proud. Mind you, I’m now in a band with a dude who uses like 50 of them, so it’s easier for me to pretend I’m cool and minimalist. But mockcarr will tell you I’ve always been like this — or at least, since college.
In general, I’m not particularly picky about guitar/amp combinations. I (and I say this in a humble, thankful way) am able to play well enough that I can usually make whatever I’ve got sound pretty good. For the record, though, my current guitar and amp of choice with The Chilblains is an SG “Classic” — the one with P-90s, sort of modeled after Pete Townsend’s Live at Leeds set-up — played through a Fender Blues Deville.
I feel the need to defend my pedal-philia.
Doesn’t the Fender Blues Deville have channel switching and reverb?
Both of my amps are Fenders circa ’64-’65(Deluxe and Band Master). They don’t have master volume or reverb (or midrange for that matter), just volume, bass and treble knobs so I need to do something to compensate for the simplicity of the amps design.
How’s that for gear talk?
This gear talk is kind of fun. I can’t believe what I’ve been missing all these years.
At this time I’d like to thank Townspeople for their patience with our overburdened servers. As expected, this thread has brought all kinds of new traffic to the site. We may have to do more of this stuff.
Why use vintage Fender amps if you feel they need something to compensate for what they lack?
I don’t need no stinking pedals. I do all of my guitar playing these days into the computer, and as I may have mentioned before Native Instruments’ Guitar Rig 3 rules.
I happened to catch The Dead on Letterman last night. Get a load of Phil Lesh’s current bass:
http://www.philzone.com/phil_pix/phil-bass-2008.jpg
It’s not exactly pointy, more curvy, but it’s definitely the anti-Fender. It must be made out of some space-age polymer, because Lesh is pushing 70 but he was holding that huge thing like it was very light.
I’ve seen Lesh play that thing recently. He and Garcia were long into cutting-edge, MOMA-worthy guitar designs, no? Did they play teak-wood guitars with whale-bone inlays in the late-70s?
The interesting thing last night was that Weir was playing a sunburst ES-335, and Warren Haynes was playing a plain blue Firebird, so there was a nice contrast between futurism and classicism.
“Why use vintage Fender amps if you feel they need something to compensate for what they lack?”
They’re the only amps I own.
Also, they sound Great.
I don’t think I have anything altering the tone that much
Tube Screamer: I use this to boost the signal when I play a lead. I’m kind of a spazz and and as such, I’ve never been the kind of guy who could who could just turn up his guitar when it’s time for a lead. Plus I like leads to have a bit more overdrive to them than my rhythm tone.
Real Tube: This is to overdrive the rhythm a little bit because I can’t always turn the amp up enough to get the natural overdrive.
Reverb: I suppose I could track down a Deluxe Reverb but I got my deluxe for $300 and I think the Deluxe Reverbs go for about $2,000 nowadays.
Delay: I only use it on a few songs and could probably get rid of it if my vintage cred were in question.
Tuner
Why model a Fender Twin in Guitar Rig if you’re just going to pile effects on it?
How futuristic can something be if it was designed in 1963? And the ES-335 was designed, what, five years earlier. That makes it “classic” by comparison?
My defense of pedals was simply in that as a trio, we use them to add a little color to the sound. I’m sure my guitarist could explain that better in “gearese”. I always find it amusing to think that there are ton of effects and pedals designed to make people sound like Hendrix when that dude used hardly anything. I think you called it “technique”, cdm.
Pedals are what they are. We used a great variety in our early days because we were trying to zero in a specific sound. As we closed in on that sound, the pedal aresenal shrank. Not that players who use tons of pedals are lacking (Eric Johnson, again) any skills. I just think if you’ve got them, know how to use them and use them wisely.
TB
Speaking of “classic” versus “modern”, Martin Tielli (guitarist for Canadian band The Rheostatics) famously (and defiantly) played a Steineberger headless guitar. Here is his reason:
(This was written in 1997)
No, I meant that both guitars were classic, and only the bass represented futurism. Sorry for the confusion. I know you love Firebirds.
My pedal apogee came when I was playing funk and soul. At one point, I had (for bass):
A tuner
An EQ pedal (real handy for little tweaks from verse to chorus, vice versa, or etc.)
An octave pedal
A phasor
A bass distortion pedal (it was great because you could mix the distorted and clean signals, so your bass-ness didn’t disappear like it does with guitar distortion pedals)
I actually didn’t use them all that much. I used the distortion, octave and phasor together on the main riff section of one song, then clicked off the distortion and phasor for the verses*. I used the octaver on the verses of one other song. I used the phasor for a four-bar break I had in one song. And I did use the EQ a lot.
* This was in the early and mid-’90s, when the Mu-Tron envelope filters that Bootsy Collins used hadn’t been reissued yet. If you wanted that sound, you paid hundreds of dollars for an old one and hoped it lasted more than a week or you approximated it this way.
Rick, I think you’re the second Townsperson to cite a tuner as one of your “pedals.” As much as I’m digging this gear talk, I don’t think we can allow discussion of tuners in this context. Am I wrong? As a novice in this area, I feel funny bringing this to anyone’s attention, but I need to earn my gear cred somehow. For that matter I wonder if an EQ box counts as a “pedal.” I apologize in advance if this should all be obvious to me.
With my ancient Coltrane Box on the fritz, I actually bought a newfangled digital box that I thought might convey that sound with much less hassle and noise. It’s no match for the real fake thing, and it’s not quite as cool. I’m riding that old parametric filter to the grave with me. Now I think my Danelectro overdrive box is going on the fritz, after just 5 years or so! I wish I could locate the simple, yellow/orange overdrive box I used through the ’80s. That thing was solid! And it was cool in its simplicity. I don’t know how some of you musicians roll with more than 2 or 3 effects. It’s hard enough for me to find 2 that I like at any given time.
All that said, I’ve got no beef with a musician using effects. I think it’s great when a guy like HVB can do what he wants to do without effects, and I think it’s great when a guy can run his guitar through an effect or two and make it sound like a rhinoceros.
I am yet to find an effect that does not kill the classic tone of the amp & instrument.
For Guitar,my fender pro jr is 15 watts and sounds clean on 3, like Keith on 6, like Billy Gibbons on 8 and 10 will blow your head off (even at 15 watts) no reverb, just volume and one “tone” knob. You can actually hear the tubes sizzlin’. You’ll never get that in a pedal
With Bass I use a little compression, mostly to protect my speakers. If you can tell that the compressor is even on, you are using too much.
I buy effect pedals all the time and I always end up selling them or trading them for another one that I end up hating.
I don’t consider a tuner an effect; I just wanted to give a sense of the number of things that were lying there on the floor.
My favorite stompbox story:
I saw a guitar player from a band that I later joined playing at a soundcheck, and after the song the soundman asked him to turn down the distortion pedal that he ws using on his solos.
The absolutely innocent grin on the guitar player’s face when he held up his cord with both hands, to show the soundman that there was nothing between his guitar and his amp, was priceless.
Tuners should still count because:
A) they’re situated on the pedal board and
B) they’re gear, and this is Gear Talk
C0 They’re not a necessity because those same guys who get all the different tones with just a tele and a fender amp with no effects also never seem to need tuners either. I’ve seen them tuning up by ear mid-song.
I recently saw Robyn Hitchcock at JB’s here in Philly and was right up front – like 3 feet from his feet and his other guitar player – what’s his name, oh yeah Peter Buck. It was unusual in the fact it was an all electric show – Robyn played what looked like an old Supro “Airline” guitar – two humbuckers and kinda small. I later determined it was an Eastwood remake. He also had a small pedal board of a wah and vox volumn pedal plus a few other modern looking things. But it was laid out too small I got to watch him kind of struggle a bit getting things turned on and off at the right moments. Peter on the other hand seemed to just use the pedal tuner once or twice and never switch anything. He had dialed in his sound and was done with it. All in all a good show and it was fun to watch their two playing styles that up-close.
It is kind of annoying when a guitar player has so much gear that they’re constantly tweaking and bending down to adjust knobs etc.
with all this pedal hate, i’m guessing most of you guys don’t really like shoegaze.
I play guitar. I am constantly experimenting. Can you imagine the arguments between artists who specialize in charcoal(I don’t need no stinking colors!), painters (why would I need a chisel? You’re nuts!) and sculptors (anyone who uses a brush is a pansy!)?
If a pedal, a chainsaw, or a dachshund attached to my guitar will create a new/cool sound, I’ll do it. Don’t really care what anybody thinks. Only what they hear. I haven’t noticed audiences giving a poop about my gear – only other guitar players.