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DOD DFX9 Analog Delay- THE FIRST delay I ever got ahold of. Delay is the MAINSTAY of my board now.

Boss RC20XL- My introduction into live looping. Although the RC20XL wasn't the best for me, it still let me discover what I love doing most.

Obstructures .75- It was my dream to own an aluminum guitar and it has lived up to my expectations! It inspires me to play, every day.

phantasmagorovich wrote:What's it with the strings? I have always played a heavy gauge so I could not tell a difference, but what happened when you dudes started putting heavier strings on your guitars? I tarted with a heavy gauge, because I wanted to be a hard-ass.

I can't answer for anyone else, but for me it has to do with the way my guitar is set up. Since I like to play both slide and fretted on the same instrument, almost everything about the set up is a compromise. The action isn't set ideally to the height it should be for playing slide. It's a little low for slide and a bit high for fretting. The weight of the slide isn't as heavy as I'd like it to be. When I started playing I think i was using .009s, but I don't like the slide crashing into the frets. So, I gradually gravitated towards heavier strings. (I like to tune down as well.) I went to .010s and then .011s. I think the 11s are the best compromise for me. Sometimes, depending on the guitar and tuning, I'll go even heavier. Like .012s or .013s. I'd go even heavier if I didn't wanna fret as much, but I like having that option.

I've got .12's on my guitar now, but I'm thinking I might try .13's soon. For whatever reason, the thinner and heavier neck makes me want to try thicker strings

Carvin DC127: First guitar I bought with all my own money. I walked into the store intending to buy a Jackson Kelly...glad I dodged that bullet. Koa body and neck, gold hardware, Wilkinson trem (which I blocked), Sperzel tuners...almost none of which mattered to me, and still doesn't really (other than the fact that after 14 years of heavy play it still smells sweet). It inspired me to play and play and play. Wrote so many songs on this thing. It hasn't been my main guitar for a few years, but I still break it out now and again.

Boss PH-2: Bought this in 1999 because I wanted a phaser, because Hum used them. For the longest time it was the only effect I used. Then I lost it for a couple years, and it resurfaced in my parents' garage (!) and became a staple on my board for a few more years, then I replaced for awhile with an Empress Phaser which I sold to buy...who knows what...but the PH-2 is back on the board, and I love it so much. I feel like I have used it enough on recordings and live and just playing that it's part of my sound.

A 3rd item is tough. Probably a DOD Ice-It amp. My mom bought it for me for Christmas after I traded my previous practice amp for a bass, and practically speaking, it is a horrible amp. I hated it, but also loved it. I wrote so, so, so many songs and riffs with it, in spite of its sonic deficiencies, plus I had a lot of fun making whacky noise with the reverb and chorus cranked. I sold it for $10 at a garage sale a couple years and sort of regret it. Figured I wanted a really nice amp for home playing which just turned into a costly exercise in amp flipping. Should've kept the piece of shit DOD.

phantasmagorovich wrote:What's it with the strings? I have always played a heavy gauge so I could not tell a difference, but what happened when you dudes started putting heavier strings on your guitars? I tarted with a heavy gauge, because I wanted to be a hard-ass.

When I started playing the guitar came with 9s, and I never changed strings much, used random strings to repair replace ones that broke because that guitar broke a lot of strings. I never thought about it that much because I wasn't into gear.

By the time I got my jag I'd learned a lot more about gear and cared more, plus it was the first guitar I bought with my own money so I wanted it to be good. I had heard other people liked heavier strings on them so I went with 11s and liked it, then the last couple of years I've stuck with 12s, although I've moved up to a wound G for toan.

tough question since different things contribute to development in different ways...

my first piano - it's kind of a no-brainer there. when i first started playing i was practicing at my girlfriend's house all the time and on some super shitty casio synth that i was learning pink floyd solos on by ear. obviously neither were ideal and my parents saw how serious i was so they got me a semi-professional instrument to play/learn on. i played that thing every single day for hours and hours...

my first electro-mechanical keyboard (which was a rhodes) - also a no-brainer. i was using a weighted "piano"-type keyboard and a juno-106 when i was playing with other folks and the keyboard was just dumb - good for practicing on, but that's it. the rhodes opened up my ears to a whole new world of (amplified) acoustic sounds (banging on the tines, smacking the keyboard, etc), feedback and a glimpse into a instrument with a short but rich history.

my first tube amp - again, i didn't know what i was missing. when i made the swap from my second roland KC-series amp which just wasn't loud enough to compete with the marshall half-stack in my 3-piece (keys/guitar/drums) tortoise-style band to a silverface fender twin... it was revelatory. never before had i heard the rhodes sound like that.

and i'll just throw it in here for good measure another 2 that were equally important - a laptop (so many pieces of music written on it) and a DL4 (so many ideas came from it).

monkeydancer wrote:My Laney VC15. I'd been playing for a few years using a marshall mg/whatever starter amps my friends had when I got this at 17, and suddenly I had an amp that sounded GOOD!

This makes me sad that I have a vc30 in storage that I haven't played in 9 years. Such an awesome amp, glad to see someone rocking one! Way better than a vox

Edit: I realise the 15 and 30 are different beasts but yeah... Good shit!

First: looper. Lexicon jamman. Opened up my mind about layers, interaction of tone and sound and thinking about the Song instead only playing Guitar.
Second: Delay. Don't care what Kind of manufacturer. I really grew into using it. Sometimes i Wonder how i played before using Delay.
Third: infanem Second Voice. My bassline synth. Love it. Makes me throw Down instantly Songs with the looper and the Delay.

Tubes. I know we all start to sound like retro corksniffer a*$holes, but the change in dynamics when going from the SS stuff I started on to a good tube amp with depth and power tube saturation....(insert drooling noises here.)
Delays. Started with some buddy's borrowed Boss, and have since graduated to analog goodness, has made some of my more introspective and sparse pieces really come to life.
Fuzz, beginning with my first Russian Big Muff. If I need to explain this, you're on the wrong forum.

This is perhaps best suited to the confessions thread... but I don't like power tube saturation.

1. heavy picks: i used David Grisman signature mandolin picks for decades, and can't really play with anything lighter than a Fender Heavy. the paradox is that with a heavier pick i can play more lightly.

2. Fender amplifier reverb and vibrato. i spent years playing in the virtual environment you can create with Fender amp effects, that sort of swampy evening in Mississippi thing.

3. Shubb capo. on/off in moments, stays in tune, makes it practical to play electric with a capo.

goroth wrote:This is perhaps best suited to the confessions thread... but I don't like power tube saturation.

Boost input signal, saturate pre-amp tubes instead

Now you're talking R-wire!

phantasmagorovich wrote:What's it with the strings? I have always played a heavy gauge so I could not tell a difference, but what happened when you dudes started putting heavier strings on your guitars? I tarted with a heavy gauge, because I wanted to be a hard-ass.

you get more volume, have to work a little harder at things and the touch changes
it's a pretty big difference

you should toss some noodles on a guitar at some point you will notice (not necessarily all bad either)
Going from my flats on my Dean to the 9s I am goofing off with on my tele changes the way you play a ton

As far as 3pcs of hardware

My first electric was a silvertone strat from sams club with a cheap 10 watt solid state amp
It took me about 3 weeks to blow the speaker in the amp but it was well worth it!!!!
that combo taught me to both want to play better and to understand that instruments are tools that are meant to be destroyed
I ended up repainting the guitar about 5 times drilling big holes in it gluing crap to it
it made me appreciate the guitar more and be completely irreverent to it which was good

My first acoustic was a harmony that was mostly plywood eventually I wore all the finish off the fretboard and the wood started to splinter
It had a natural distortion from falling apart that was cool
opened me up to different tunings and learning to play with a level of dynamics

I would say that my friends Kay archtop with a single neck pickup was number 3, it would feedback on specific strings depending on where you laid down on the floor in front of your amp, spent a ton of time crawling around and using it like a natural ebow

Great thread! And difficult to nail down but....

1) Silvertone 1449 Amp-In-Case Guitar & Amp : I'd tried to pick up guitar when I was younger and had given up embarrassingly quickly. I still had the bug 10 years later and decided to give it a second try. I waited and hunted one of these down and found a teacher to start giving me lessons and have been playing ever since. Something about the comfortable scale and neck on the guitar and that awesome little tube amp just made me want to play and keep trying to get better. Also gave me a wicked sweet-tooth for all of those 60's department store guitars....

2) Glenn Wyllie Ozo Dynamica Octaver : My first boutique fuzz, bought from the maker in person at his work bench in his home in Chatham County, NC. Something about the overdriven dirty octaves crashing across my primitive chording just spoke to me... And really eye opening to see that these were a labor of love made by a dude with his own his own two hands in his house. And now, well, I LOVE FUZZ...

3) Sequential Circuits Pro One : Learned (and am still learning so much more) about analog synthesis on this guy. Envelopes, modulation, detuning, filtering, resonance, self-oscillation, control voltage, etc. etc. Have had this synth for 10 years and am still finding new sounds in it all the time.

(Very) Honorable Mentions!
- RCA 400 Film Projector Amp : Really unique and awesome clean tones that make me want to play clean and just hang out for note decays.
- Moog Phaser : My first Moogerfooger... My first peek into the world of more complex networkable effects.
- Bouzouki : My first double-coursed instrument. Taking bouzouki lessons has really helped open up the fretboard for me.