John Mayer & The Coming Simulacra

[Dave Lewis]

I got this from JHS earlier.

 

[Dave Lewis]

Read the full piece here. https://jhspedals.info/_t/c/v3/AABE...tCzi2k02WCxp0PbIgZtxzswR-c3J8fbWNYbuSYyImkMk=

The Loud is More Good Collection With Mixwave.
https://jhspedals.info/_t/c/v3/AADH...YyHd5h4Gxapimc9hGtBSi9Fsn6XYggC900yv2cua1HAO4

 

[crispsandwich]

I love it when companies use the term 'carefully curated'. It implies they agonised over decisions, when in reality they figured out just how they could cover some bases and get away with charging a fortune.

 

[Mongillo19]

Isn't this the same guy who used a Kemper for awhile "in secret"

Or am I getting people mixed up

 

[Chocol8]

Isn't this the same guy who used a Kemper for awhile "in secret"

Or am I getting people mixed up

Josh? In secret and in the open!

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Read the full piece here. https://jhspedals.info/_t/c/v3/AABE...tCzi2k02WCxp0PbIgZtxzswR-c3J8fbWNYbuSYyImkMk=

The Loud is More Good Collection With Mixwave.
https://jhspedals.info/_t/c/v3/AADH...YyHd5h4Gxapimc9hGtBSi9Fsn6XYggC900yv2cua1HAO4

 

[DrewJD82]

“when the map begins to precede the territory”

The map never was the territory, it’s irrelevant IMO, alas-

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far” -Lovecraft

-ensures we’ll have tube vs solid state debates until there are no more guitarists left that have played through a tube amp.

 

[paisleywookiee]

There's simply no way John Mayer couldn't tell the difference between his real Dumble and a plugin, unless the bags of money were being pressed against his ears.

 

[bigmenace]

There's simply no way John Mayer couldn't tell the difference between his real Dumble and a plugin, unless the bags of money were being pressed against his ears.

Shove a couple of $100 bills in my ears and I won't be able to tell the difference between a Blackstar Fly and a Dual Rec

 

[saarangnarayan]

So your plugin-based side project isn't selling as much as you'd like...

 

[newholland]

does it ever seem to anyone else that noone ever says anything worth hearing anymore and that everything is bullshit marketing to people dumb enough to believe it, or is it just me?

 

[Lysander]

Look, i like JHS. I really do.

But this is an ad copy.

 

[[Nathan]]

I liked the read and I agree with pretty much all of his points. I just never needed jhs or John mayers approval first, we’ve already been immersed in this digital takeover age for 10+ years (or more).

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Look, i like JHS. I really do.

But this is an ad copy.

I don’t mind what he does at all, but he has a whole swathe of guitarists in the palm of his hand who gobble up what he puts out. He’s doing exactly the right thing, and fair play to him.

 

[HotRats]

I don't think this plug-in release is a turning point in history but I agree with the things JHS wrote and enjoyed the reading.
He probably just used this NDSP release to share his thought about the matter.

 

[Chocol8]

There's simply no way John Mayer couldn't tell the difference between his real Dumble and a plugin, unless the bags of money were being pressed against his ears.

I don’t disagree with the first part, but there is no way NDSP is paying him enough for it to be meaningful to John.

 

[Orvillain]

I liked the read and I agree with pretty much all of his points. I just never needed jhs or John mayers approval first, we’ve already been immersed in this digital takeover age for 10+ years (or more).

It is a little like grandad is discovering that rubber johnny's exist, isn't it...

 

[2112]

 

[FuzzyAce]

I made an off-handed comment that's kind of in the vein of what Josh is delving into, I think.

• Jan 2, 2026

• What I've learned so far -- the goal is to perfectly model an imperfect amp. Sounds simple enough.
  
  One thing to consider going forward into the future... new guitarists will have not been exposed to real classic amps like a lot of us may have been. It's already been happening, but imagine 20 yrs from now. Heck, there are many models of amps I've never played in person. So at what point does it not matter how accurate something is as long as it has a certain vibe that a player likes?

To carry it further into a future scenario--
Josh wrote:

Reverse Simulacra

Here’s where it gets properly strange. Consider this scenario:

Steve is a guitarist. He records a track using the John Mayer plugin — the modeled Dumble, the modeled Two-Rock, the whole simulated rig. He posts it online. Tim hears it and thinks: that sounds incredible.

Tim has access to the real gear. He goes to a studio with an actual Dumble Steel String Singer, an actual vintage Vibroverb. He dials in settings. He plays. He’s trying to recreate what he heard on Steve’s track.

Tim is using the original to copy the simulation.

No doubt this has been happening in varying degrees over the years. But imagine playing a Fractal or L6 modeled amp for years and loving it, maybe through monitors, headphones, whatever... but never having played the actual, real amp. Then one day you get the 'real thing' and you start dialing it in to what you're used to from the model. But, there's even a chance that the real one doesn't live up to your expectations because it doesn't feel the same way you're used to.

The music and experience is more important than the gear itself.
It's one of the reasons I try not to get into the whole modeling accuracy vs. the real thing debates because it's certainly at the point now where technology has reached and/or surpassed what people have always wanted from modeling. Everybody has a different experience with gear, so trying to convince someone that something is more accurate than something else can be futile in many cases. If you like it, you like it. Doesn't matter what it is. But, there are still merits to arguments based on stage vs. studio, even though that line is getting blurred more and more everyday.

But I do appreciate you guys that dig into all the technical stuff too, it's pushed all of this into a direction where we have a bunch of great tools at our disposal now.

 

[Dave Lewis]

Leon,
The 1980s tv adverts for this were always Krona was big in Australia and now in the UK.
Was it ever sold in Australia ?