Where does a post about gear versus playing technique and style belong?

[KingsXJJ]

I’m starting to feel like all the stories about EVH sounding like himself no matter what he played through and other great guitarists playing through his rig and sounding like themselves but nothing like EVH as absolutely true.

I sound like myself no matter what I play through. Either I’ve gotten really really good at coaxing tones out of different gear, the gear has gotten that much better or my hearing has gone to shit. Sure, I hear subtle differences between gear but in all honesty most would work perfectly fine for me. I just intuitively play differently and dig in differently to get almost the same tones.

Maybe I am just out of GAS finally? Alone in these feelings?

 

[KingsXJJ]

I’m starting to feel like all the stories about EVH sounding like himself no matter what he played through and other great guitarists playing through his rig and sounding like themselves but nothing like EVH as absolutely true.

I sound like myself no matter what I play through. Either I’ve gotten really really good at coaxing tones out of different gear, the gear has gotten that much better or my hearing has gone to shit. Sure, I hear subtle differences between gear but in all honesty most would work perfectly fine for me. I just intuitively play differently and dig in differently to get almost the same tones.

Maybe I am just out of GAS finally? Alone in these feelings?

The pedals and amps are cool as are the top tier modelers… but I can smoke a riff on a Hotone Stage Ampero II all day long.

And it sounds freaking great to me.

 

[KingsXJJ]

And I don’t mean to imply that I am some badass guitar God. I play things I enjoy and like a lot but I’m just as insecure about my ability and what I create as the next player. I play though to make me happy and don’t really care to compare myself or my music to others.

I’m just grateful that I found the guitar and what it has given me back for the past few decades.

 

[[Nathan]]

My off the cuff responses is they're two separate pillars that end up forming a bridge. I've definitely gone through a gear revolution the past few years which has really cemented that concept.

If I'm trying a new plugin or piece of gear I'm just toying around and seeing the kind of stuff it can do, how it responds all that kind of stuff. My gear knowledge helps me know the sort of stuff it can achieve.
On the other hand if I want to have a practice session I'll just fire up anything and get the gain and tone right in about 15 seconds. Don't care about IR's or really finessing anything.

The bridge comes together if I'm writing a piece of music I care about or tracking something I care about (if I was gigging it would fall into this arena as well). So gear kind of matters and it kind of doesnt imo. You can be a crap player and know everything there is to know about every klon revision ever... you can be an insane guitarist and use a pod, theres kind of space for everything. I think everyones just going to have % of care factor for both sides of the equation, kind of no right or wrong.

 

[Aelred]

I think it may depend on the tone(s) you are chasing. If you are after 1, with maybe a slight variation with a pedal tone for leads, on all sorts of different gear, that can be an issue.

I like Orange gain - but I also like ENGL although it isn't the Doom/sludge of an Orange. So I have 2 Terrors and a Fireball 25.

I like Fender clean - but also really like the Vox chimey thing. Vox AC10C and a Bad Cat Black Cat.

I'm picking up an ENGL Artist Edition 50 soon - for modded Marshall tones.

I have a few guitars too. Trying to make the Black Cat do the Orange Doom thing with a Strat is an effort, mostly futile. Cowboy chords with active humbuckers and a Dark Terror...

Gear is fun... sometimes a struggle too.

 

[TSJMajesty]

If one were to learn the nuances of a player's style, they could absolutely sound like them. But other than a tribute band, I can't see why you'd want to do that. My goal has been to learn the ways of the players I admire, then to draw from what I've learned to hopefully have a playing style that is...., me. And I'm still working on it.

Just the other day though, I did come up with a new lick that I drew from some solos that inspire me, and I was pretty stoked. Cuz usually I just meander when I'm noodling. So maybe I'm heading in the right direction.

 

[LeftyLoungeLizard]

If there's one thing I've learned from gear forums since 1999, it's that the more expensive the gear, the better your playing.

And the easy part is you don't even have to post a clip to prove it!

 

[Aelred]

If there's one thing I've from gear forums since 1999, it's that the more expensive the gear, the better your playing.

And the easy part is you don't even have to post a clip to prove it!

Yeah, I know... but the neck on my Ultra Strat with compound radius really makes it easier for me to get reach some frets and notes now. I play more, so learn more about the controls in my sig chain. Maybe its an illusion but the Clean Channel on my Fireball 25 seems better than the one on the Orange Rocker 15 Terror.

No clip can prove that about the neck, especially since I traded in my MIM HSS and G&L Legacy for the Ultra...

 

[AFKAEjay(retired)]

There is no gear versus playing…they are 2 different things, both required for the end result.

Gear is like paint for a painter, when you have the right colors on your palette, you can do you.

Playing is infinitely more deciding for the value of the result then gear. Gear is switched in 5 minutes, playing takes a lifetime.
If gear was that deciding, we would actually recognize it on recordings, but we can’t…we can label sounds as “Marshally/Fendry”. Stratty/LPish cause those got stereotype uses…but the same results can be achieved with other gear. There are very little pieces of gear that sound unique.

 

[newholland]

yeah, i sound like myself through basically whatever given a coupla basics... i dial in gain pretty similarly across the board, i know eq wise what works for how i play, and the common denominator is always how i play the instrument for sure.. and certainly if its my guitar, the setup.

i have preferences that get me where i want to go when im choosing... i like a certain speaker feel, i like amps that dont saturate gain but do saturate low end. i like a certain tcharpy top end to keep things clear, and i like to have control at the guitar. and ive added and subtracted stuff with varying degrees of success, but its not like i sounded anything but marginally different doing it.

all that said- gear, i think, isnt super important if you have the bare minimum of stuff that works for your primary setup. these days... you can certainly find amps with waaaay too much gain- but thats the only condition i find i have a hard time sounding like myself. guitar setup is really most important, and given that the physical interaction with the instrument works, even cheap gear can be a fun flavor to try out. and theres tons of great gear in all price ranges..

 

[Sascha Franck]

Maybe I am just out of GAS finally?

Whut? Says the guy posting about things he purchased like almost every day?

 

[Sascha Franck]

On a serious note: For me, gear ideally is serving just two purposes:

First there's the utilitarian aspect. As I need to "deliver" some stuff because I make my living from it, that stuff needs to work under a whole lot of conditions, needs to be easy to deal with and generally needs to fulfill whatever the expectations of the folks paying me are. It also needs to feel well (whatever that means) in my hands because that's a requirement for me being able to play as good as I possibly can.

And then there's the inspirational aspect. In case I don't buy gear for utilitarian reasons, it has to provide so much fun that I feel inspired to play.

For the time being, I'm pretty much done with most things utilitarian. Yeah, there's always room for some improvements, but my guitars and rig(s) are pretty efficient and well rounded already, there's not much situations I could imagine when they wouldn't suit me.
And as far as inspiration goes, I get more of it from whatever musical situations rather than purchasing something new. Yes, I do want some pedals and I could defenitely buy lots of guitars - but knowing that none of it would actually inspire me so much out of itself to make me play noticeably more, that'd likely be wasted money and time.

 

[ragingplatypi]

The OP makes me think about how when Line 6 brought out the GSG I dialed it up clean with tube screamer to do my best SRV and I sounded absurdly like myself instead.

However, when they brought out the 2203 it pulled stuff out of me that was new. If it’s not obvious, I don’t play metal and I’ve never bonded with high gain amps before. However, with that particular model I was having a conversation with the gear that was inspiring and pulled me forward as a musician.

 

[ian_dissonance]

I’ve found I dial stuff in to roughly same place no matter what. If I have enough gain to get pinch harmonics out the way I want and enough mids to get through the drums I’m pretty content. Cleans it’s all about a little hair and slightly scooped.

 

[EOengineer]

Woah woah woah this isn’t a venue for self improvement. Get back to buying gear you don’t need!

 

[KingsXJJ]

Whut? Says the guy posting about things he purchased like almost every day?

Keeping it floored all the time might be why I’m running out of gas! Who’d have thunk?

Busted!

 

[JiveTurkey]

Me with different gear:

 

[Jarick]

Completely agree, I sound underwhelmingly like myself no matter what gear I use.

The difference is in how much I fuss around with the gear before getting back to playing. Sometimes gear gets in the way of what I want to do, and other times gear can be a distraction away from what I want to do.

That's why I'm trying to downsize from the amount of gear I have to have something with more options and flexibility (Fractal) and something that's KISS (Boss pedalboard). When I get sick of one I can flip to the other.

 

[Mikael Dez]

Yeah, I know... but the neck on my Ultra Strat with compound radius really makes it easier for me to get reach some frets and notes now. I play more, so learn more about the controls in my sig chain. Maybe its an illusion but the Clean Channel on my Fireball 25 seems better than the one on the Orange Rocker 15 Terror.

No clip can prove that about the neck, especially since I traded in my MIM HSS and G&L Legacy for the Ultra...

I have an Elite Strat, which is almost the same thing - and I LOVE the neck. That compound radius is so comfortable. There are subtle differences between the Elite and Ultra - namely that you have a D contour where mine is C-to-D, you have a better neck heel carve, your truss rod is in the classic spot whereas mine has the truss rod wheel.

 

[Jarick]

What's weird is I had a Fender Deluxe Tele (older version of the Ultra, with the compound radius board) and I traded it because I didn't like the neck. It felt too flat, and I wanted my Tele to feel like a Tele. I love the compound board on my Ibanez AZ super strat though.