Confessions of a gear noob

[kralc]

I've said it before, but I got into pedals because I bought a new guitar without a whammy bar, so I bought a whammy pedal with it.

You just justified buying a whammy. That's genius.

I once thought I had fried my first pedal by overpowering it a month or two in. The light wasn't turning on and I didn't really know what to do with it, so I just put it in a drawer. Tested it while cleaning things out and realised that just the led had died, everything else totally fine. That pedal had about a whole year wasted.

[Disarm D'arcy]

I put off buying a tube amp because I took fragile way too literally for years. I spent a lot of money on more powerful shitty solid state amps, mostly Marshalls and Peaveys and I think maybe an Ibanez just to end up feeling meeehhh.

My first pedal was a Behringer OD/Dist pedal. I thought people who would buy the two separately were suckers because I got one that did both for 20 euros.

[UglyCasanova]

I'm so glad I made this thread. Many lols have been had, and many more to come

[baremountain]

When I first started playing guitar, I thought you put your fingers on the frets themselves. It took me at least a week to figure out why Jimmy Page's guitar sounded so full and mine always sounded so muted/hollow.

For the longest time I was absolutely convinced my expression pedals were broken & I had the worst luck with them. I spent so many hours frustrated & did in fact manage to break a Moog EP3 by taking it apart and accidentally severing the Standard/Other switch. Then, shamefully recently, this past June I realized that there's a difference between speaker cables and TRS cables...

[Eivind August]

Once, at a gig, I spent half a song trying to find out why there was no sound coming from my amp, before realizing I wasn't even plugged in. I had become confused by the one pedal I had brought.

I once owned a JHS Prestige.

[GAS KING]

Ugh, I've done so many dumb things.
Most of which involve mindlessly wasting money and trading really nice gear to the local shops for substantially worse gear to satisfy my need to be more metal.
ugh.

Started off on cheapos, but once I started playing in a *shit* n00b band playing nirvana/godsmack/deftones covers and shitty derivative originals........I had to upgrade.
I had a real nice setup.....unknowingly......MIA Strat, Laney GH50 head and matching 4x12 cab. (worked a lot in high school to afford these things)
At the time I didn't know what a tube amp was. I just thought it sounded good in my bedroom.

Wasn't loud enough. Wasn't clean enough. Wasn't heavy enough.

Traded the Laney head for a Fender M80 head. DOH!
Although, I actually used that head for a very long time with various shitty metal pedals. Ibanez Smash box, Guyatone Metal Monster, DOD Death Metal

The other two that jump out at me is trading off my baby....the first bought MIA strat for a Epiphone Explorer (which I hated and traded to a friend for a florescent yellow Kramer super strat). ouch. double ouch.

Next was a Gibson Les Paul Classic I bought new in 2001. Dream guitar. Jimmy Page sunburst.
Had it on a stand in my bedroom. Had a party at the apartment, woke up to it knocked over on the floor and a fracture in the neck (not even through the finish).
Immediately tried to unload it because I was afraid I'd be stuck with a broken guitar. Got like $600 for it. ouch.
Currently are worth more used than I paid for it. doh.

With all that said, I spent most of my guitar playing life buying, selling, and trading.
After my phase of losing money to local shops, I realized I could flip gear for profit online. I'd seek out good deals, and flip them on HC, TGP, and TB.
I spent at least 8 years doing that.....til the markets tanked.
Got to try a lot of gear. Probably ended up breaking even in the end, but at least I have some gear I really enjoy leftover (lifers). imo.

Then it all came around and hit me. I'm done with that buy/sell/trade shit now. (though I could use to sell a few more things I don't need anymore. Iceman anyone? lol)
happy with what I have and realized I sound like me through everything.

In retrospect, I should have spent a lot more of that time practicing and getting better as a player........rather than focusing solely on the gear.
That's what I'm doing now, 18 years later, practicing and focusing more on my playing. works out eventually.

[Invisible Man]

Didn't have picks when I started, so used a lot of pennies. Sounded soooo good

Still have absolutely no idea how to work drum machines, despite having owned three or four.

Put together a giant pedalboard (literally a guitar case), then powered it with a shit-ton of One Spots plugged into a power strip. But the power strip was too tall to fit in the case, so I removed the bottom and screwed it to a wood plank in the board...many, many sparks later (and, miraculously, no ruined pedals), I got the hint.

First band practice: Two guitar players show up with no amps because I told them I've got gear they can use. It's my 15W Squier amp that comes in the same box as the guitar...it had two inputs, so I figured they're good to go, right?

[goroth]

I've used logic for what... 10 years? Before that cubase.

I still don't understand automation, nor auxiliary busses, nor why turning the little knob that seems to be panning isn't actually panning.

I like to think that I'm moderately intelligent, but I've got like a mental discombobulator that is somehow invoked by the mere thought of any of those concepts and I just stare at the DAW like a goldfish.

[resincum]

I used to grow out my index finger nail instead of using picks. finally a friend told me I could do so much more with a pick.

for the longest time I thought analog synthesizers and cheap ass casio keyboards were the same thing.

when I first got a boss ME-50 I thought all the fx were for just 'making noise' cause I didn't realize you could get different sounds by messing with the knobs (they were constantly dimed)

up until the past year or so I thought people on stage with laptops were playing starcraft while the music was going

[odontophobia]

I used to grow out my index finger nail instead of using picks. finally a friend told me I could do so much more with a pick.

for the longest time I thought analog synthesizers and cheap ass casio keyboards were the same thing.

when I first got a boss ME-50 I thought all the fx were for just 'making noise' cause I didn't realize you could get different sounds by messing with the knobs (they were constantly dimed)

up until the past year or so I thought people on stage with laptops were playing starcraft while the music was going

Who says they're not playing starcraft, man?

[hbombgraphics]

I butchered a beautiful telecaster because I was convinced I needed humbucker sounds for a band I was in and that they would be better than the single coil sounds I was using,
cut the bridge up, routed with a dremel, made a mess of the thing, realized later on that most of the sounds I was getting that I liked were directly connected to using the single coil pickups, realized after destroying the tele

like many people here, hooked up pedals in the wrong direction,
even after being a pedal user, I continue to do this with old muffs and it takes me a few minutes to understand why they are "broken"

[D.o.S.]

I've used logic for what... 10 years? Before that cubase.

I still don't understand automation, nor auxiliary busses, nor why turning the little knob that seems to be panning isn't actually panning.

I like to think that I'm moderately intelligent, but I've got like a mental discombobulator that is somehow invoked by the mere thought of any of those concepts and I just stare at the DAW like a goldfish.

I've sort of resigned myself to the fact that I treat Ableton like that silly pop culture lie about the human brain -- I only use 10% of what it can do, probably.

[hbombgraphics]

I still haven't set up my pitchfactor to the computer or got it to do that before after thing, and I have never figured out a toneprint or any computer interface or how to imbed youtubes on ILF

[kralc]

I still don't understand automation, nor auxiliary busses,

Dude, you need to get on aux/busses/sends. Not only does it make stuff easier like having one reverb/delay for any number of tracks, you can kinda treat it like an effects loop for reverbs/delays and add whatever other plugins you want to the wet signal only.

[amnesiac305]

Funny stuff here