Unpopular Rigpinions V2

[GOHOINC]

The concept of "what you deserve" is a figment of the human imagination. Owning, collecting, flipping gear, and even playing guitar isn't about skill, it's about desire and means... The gear doesn't care how good you are, only jealous people do...

 

[Devin]

here’s an additional data point for you:

I’ve owned the same amp since the 90’s, and I can’t play worth a fuck.

 

[NewWorldMan]

When I see people on forums constantly buying new gear and then flipping it within weeks I instantly think they can't actually play guitar worth a fuck

This is partially me. I’ve bought and flipped countless amps over the years to try new things, but what’s unseen is the 10+ mainstay amps and 2 racks that I’ve kept for up to 20+ years.

The stuff getting sold and flipped is the stuff I knew going in there was 95% chance it was getting sold regardless of how good it is, because I found “my sound” ages ago. I just wanted to try it along with other new junk…still doesn’t mean I’m worth a damn though

 

[panhead]

Man that guitar sounds great. Chet sat the guitar down on a chair, '' Ok now how does it sound""

 

[Devin]

This is partially me. I’ve bought and flipped countless amps over the years to try new things, but what’s unseen is the 10+ mainstay amps and 2 racks that I’ve kept for up to 20+ years.

The stuff getting sold and flipped is the stuff I knew going in there was 95% chance it was getting sold regardless of how good it is, because I found “my sound” ages ago. I just wanted to try it along with other new junk…still doesn’t mean I’m worth a damn though

I totally get it....it's fun to try new stuff! But I think some people take it way too far

 

[cardinal]

Oh boy, so many:

-the Fortin modded Maxon sounds better than any other boost made except the original klons. Only good thing Fortin has come out with

-guitars should be judged at least 99% for tone rather than playability, looks, fretwork, etc. It’s a musical instrument in case others forgot

-Judging on tone, Suhr and Tom Anderson guitars sound quite bad. Very sterile. Same with PRS

-Mayones guitars also don’t sound great. Sterile like furniture with strings attached

-Poly finish on any guitar over $1500 guitar should be totally unacceptable

-Ebony fretboards are way overrated. They can be good but rosewood often sounds better. “Oh wow it has an Ebony board it must be a better guitar”

-Wizard and Fryette amps, although they sound great overall, both have an inherent hollow quality that I don’t like

-Splawn amps sound bad

-Omega and Driftwood amps sound meh and generic

-EVH’s tone would’ve been 1000x better without all that stupid reverb, delay and other modulation crap

-Most guys also ruin their clips with that stupid reverb. Shouldn’t be used

-The tone on the first 2 Metallica albums sounded like a bloated mess. Maybe why they took a total 180 in tone for MOP

I had an Anderson from the late '80s that was just the best sounding guitar I've ever played (sold it years ago because it just sat in a closet because I use 7 and 8-strings all the time).

Anyway, I've had several new Anderson's from when he was making 7s, and they were all... not good. They played and looked flawless. But they sounded plinky and did not sustain. Which totally sucks because they are a great company. But it was really disappointing. I think I had three, and I even sent one back for a new neck hoping it would get better.

 

[Findthetone1]

Man, after reading this thread I had to scroll back up to the top of the page. I thought I was on TGP.

 

[braintheory]

1. No, your boss katana does not hang with tube amps. Expensive gear is expensive for a reason. It only "doesn't make a difference" if you aren't very good. Yes, a decent player can make anything sound decent - but an amazing amp/guitar/whatever can make a decent player sound amazing.

2. Tone is not in the fingers, technique is. By definition, when anyone says tone, what they mean is "the sound of the gear irrespective of the nuances of various players technique." Otherwise we would never have any references for sounds.

3. Tonewoods can and do matter.... sometimes. Of course it doesn't matter which 500$ plank you put emgs in - it's going to sound like the emgs. But just because you can't hear the difference between a Harley Benton singlecut and a Nik Huber Orca with the same pickups doesn't mean others can't.

4. Don't pretend you're an expert (like say, at recording) if you aren't. Don't pretend you're amazing at guitar if youre not. You will eventually get caught. You'll go much further (and get more out of RT) if you're honest, humble, and willing to both learn and share your experiences.

5. Never trust YouTube shills when it comes to tones or gear - anyone who's spent anytime in a/v production knows how easy it is to make a bad sounding product sound great.

Point #2 is very important. Anyone who’s been playing guitar for at least 5 minutes can play a simple powerchord and that can be sufficient enough to make many amps sound great even if your “fingers” aren’t yet well trained. I remember when I was 15 I was new to guitar, didn’t know much yet, and was struggling to figure out how to get enough sustain/gain for my needs. I remember back then I liked a lot the Vox Night Train (what was I thinking lol), but couldn’t get enough sustain out of it, but then I heard this middle aged guy play and sounded great on it and had lots of sustain. I asked him how are you getting that much sustain out of that amp. I couldn’t do it. His answer was “I don’t know man, tone is in the fingers”. I wasn’t even talking about tone lol, just the amount of sustain he was getting. I later figured out it was simply a combination of him just playing it very loud and mostly that I myself was getting much more sustain than I realized, but was just always under the impression that I wasn’t getting enough (I was more used to solid state modeler stuff back then), but when I listened to others play I didn’t think they need more gain, just myself lol (probably a feel thing more so than sound). I’ve come a long way since then lol

To point 4 I would just say I do still hear emg’s sound noticeably better in better guitars than lesser ones, just not as pronounced as when using passive pickups. Actually, maybe an unpopular opinion more for tgp, but I think Nik Huber’s are overrated. Very good guitars, don’t get me wrong, but in just tone, I’ve AB’ed many Orca’s and Dolphin’s (owned one) with various McInturff’s (mostly Carolina Custom) (both unplugged and plugged in) and the McInturff’s always were to me the clear winners in tone and even slightly better imo playability wise too. Good thing they’re also not as pricy as Huber. I most recently compared my friend’s McInturff Taurus (he paid $1900) to his very fancy one off Huber with a redwood top, all sort of fancy details (probably worth close to $10k) and much preferred his McInturff

 

[braintheory]

I had an Anderson from the late '80s that was just the best sounding guitar I've ever played (sold it years ago because it just sat in a closet because I use 7 and 8-strings all the time).

Anyway, I've had several new Anderson's from when he was making 7s, and they were all... not good. They played and looked flawless. But they sounded plinky and did not sustain. Which totally sucks because they are a great company. But it was really disappointing. I think I had three, and I even sent one back for a new neck hoping it would get better.

Wow I should try older ones then. I’ve only tried more recent made ones (quite a few of them) and that’s been exactly my experience as well (like Suhr’s) :sterile, dead and plinky sounding. Awful tone

Did the old Anderson’s have Nitro finish? I’ve got 2 Van Nuys and one Dallas era ‘86 Schecter that are all very nice guitars. I heard Anderson was part of the team for that back then

 

[DanTravis62]

Point #2 is very important. Anyone who’s been playing guitar for at least 5 minutes can play a simple powerchord and that can be sufficient enough to make many amps sound great even if your “fingers” aren’t yet well trained. I remember when I was 15 I was new to guitar, didn’t know much yet, and was struggling to figure out how to get enough sustain/gain for my needs. I remember back then I liked a lot the Vox Night Train (what was I thinking lol), but couldn’t get enough sustain out of it, but then I heard this middle aged guy play and sounded great on it and had lots of sustain. I asked him how are you getting that much sustain out of that amp. I couldn’t do it. His answer was “I don’t know man, tone is in the fingers”. I wasn’t even talking about tone lol, just the amount of sustain he was getting. I later figured out it was simply a combination of him just playing it very loud and mostly that I myself was getting much more sustain than I realized, but was just always under the impression that I wasn’t getting enough (I was more used to solid state modeler stuff back then), but when I listened to others play I didn’t think they need more gain, just myself lol (probably a feel thing more so than sound). I’ve come a long way since then lol

To point 4 I would just say I do still hear emg’s sound better noticeably better in better guitars than lesser ones, just not as pronounced as when using passive pickups. Actually, maybe an unpopular opinion more for tgp, but I think Nik Huber’s are overrated. Very good guitars, don’t get me wrong, but in just tone, I’ve AB’ed many Orca’s and Dolphin’s (owned one) with various McInturff’s (mostly Carolina Custom) (both unplugged and plugged in) and the McInturff’s always were to me the clear winners in tone and even slightly better imo playability wise too. Good thing they’re also not as pricy as Huber. I most recently compared compared my friend’s McInturff Taurus (he paid $1900) to his very fancy one off Huber with a redwood top, all sort of fancy details (probably worth close to $10k) and much preferred his McIturff

Yeah, I was just using the Orca as an example of a guitar that's going to have higher quality wood than a Harley Benton.

 

[cardinal]

Wow I should try older ones then. I’ve only tried more recent made ones (quite a few of them) and that’s been exactly my experience as well (like Suhr’s) :sterile, dead and plinky sounding. Awful tone

Did the old Anderson’s have Nitro finish? I’ve got 2 Van Nuys and one Dallas era ‘86 Schecter that are all very nice guitars. I heard Anderson was part of the team for that back then

Dunno what the finish was. It was trashed when I got it. I think Anderson started his own company is '86 or '87 and this particular guitar was from '88. It was old school, with a four bolt neck and a Floyd with posts just drilled right into the body rather than bushings which you typically see now.

Loved that guitar. Probably should have just let it sit in the closet.

 

[braintheory]

The concept of "what you deserve" is a figment of the human imagination. Owning, collecting, flipping gear, and even playing guitar isn't about skill, it's about desire and means... The gear doesn't care how good you are, only jealous people do...

Agreed. Always seemed very weird to me that some feel you need to be a certain level player to warrant having certain level gear. 2 independent things. I know some guys who are awful players, but still have excellent ears for tone and have great gear, yet also some great players with bad ears for tone with gear that’s pricy, but not great

 

[braintheory]

Dunno what the finish was. It was trashed when I got it. I think Anderson started his own company is '86 or '87 and this particular guitar was from '88. It was old school, with a four bolt neck and a Floyd with posts just drilled right into the body rather than bushings which you typically see now.

Loved that guitar. Probably should have just let it sit in the closet.

Ah yeah it always seemed weird to me seeing just 2 bolts on his recent ones. Not sure how 2 vs 4 is functionally

 

[braintheory]

Another unpopular opinion I have is that, assuming all else is equal (never is lol), guitars imo sound better with a normal hardtail bridge (especially strings going through the body) vs a Floyd Rose bridge. Floyd’s imo make guitars sound less resonant and sustain and more clanky sounding (can help maybe darker mahogany guitars sometimes though), but I guess their attack can be cool sometimes and adds some aggression in a way. I still have 1 aged nitro Charvel with a Floyd that’s a keeper. Has also roasted alder body and roasted maple neck/fb. Sounds killer even with the Floyd

 

[blackie13]

Ok I'll ask...

What's wrong with the poly finish...?? (not polyester)

 

[Steinmetzify]

I fuckin love EMGs.

I've tried tons of other stuff including Schecter USAs, BKPs, specialty winds from smaller builders etc...

IDGAF, for what I want to do the fact that I don't have to re-EQ every time I want to track something is priceless to me, plus they just sound badass.

 

[SoooRad]

Resonance is more important than "tone wood"
You can have all sorts of great woods lined up, but if they don't resonate well together, you might as well strap pickups into cardboard.

Bridge and nut is way more important than wood type.

Dimarzio pickups largely sound lame. Geared towards instrumental music. No one cares.

Diminishing returns come in just as fast with gear as it does with pickup trucks

 

[scottosan]

Haha true.

On 4, I'm sure there is, (most boosted plexi/800 tones), however personally, too much pedal diode clipping before the amp, can limit how the amp organically reacts to the input.

It can also help stiff amps

 

[braintheory]

Ok I'll ask...

What's wrong with the poly finish...?? (not polyester)

It might be hard to tell unless you compare side by side with a nitro finish guitar with at least otherwise similar specs, but I’ve found without exception (even with thin poly finish) that poly guitars always comparatively sound choked, suffocated, doesn’t breathe, the notes are all very homogenized which greatly limits nuance in overtones, dynamics and all sorts things that help expression players show their nuances that make them expressive. Some may say I’m crazy, but I feel the difference is huge. But plenty of bad sounding nitro guitars as well. I tried once a nitro re-finished ‘52 tele at my local shop that sounded ok, but not great for a vintage tele, but later it got refinished again in nitro and sounded like a completely different guitar. It sounded great and the way a good vintage tele should

Last week I went to my friend’s place and tried all his many boutique guitars mostly unplugged. I gave myself a test to blindly hear based on sound what the finish on each guitar was and I guessed correctly on all but one or 2 of them. The difference was not subtle imo when AB’ed and I’d bet most guys on here would be able to tell too. Once you try enough good nitros guitars the poly ones just sound awful usually. Like the usual analogy I make: fresh squeezed vs from concentrate oj

 

[blackie13]

It might be hard to tell unless you compare side by side with a nitro finish guitar with at least otherwise similar specs, but I’ve found without exception (even with thin poly finish) that poly guitars always comparatively sound choked, suffocated, doesn’t breathe, the notes are all very homogenized which greatly limits nuance in overtones, dynamics and all sorts things that help expression players show their nuances that make them expressive. Some may say I’m crazy, but I feel the difference is huge. But plenty of bad sounding nitro guitars as well. I tried once a nitro re-finished ‘52 tele at my local shop that sounded ok, but not great for a vintage tele, but later it got refinished again in nitro and sounded like a completely different guitar. It sounded great and the way a good vintage tele should

Last week I went to my friend’s place and tried all his many boutique guitars mostly unplugged. I gave myself a test to blindly hear based on sound what the finish on each guitar was and I got guessed correctly except for one or 2 of them. The difference was not subtle imo when AB’ed and I’d bet most guys on here would be able to tell too. Once you try enough good nitros guitars the poly ones just sound awful usually. Like the usual analogy I make: fresh squeezed vs from concentrate oj

I hear ya...but...whats the good or bad nitro...I have a MJT body that is nitro but not a guitar yet...