The controversial gear thread

[AlexGlassLungs]

I wanted to post something like this because I’ve always thought of starting a pod cast and asking misicians opinions on gear on a larger scale, not just specific gear. Then I thought, there aren’t many gear pod casts but there aren’t too many people who would listen and I’d also be stuck asking 1 person their thoughts instead of many. Here are a few things I wanted to hear opinions on that I’m sure are controversial in the gear community, things I also have opinions on.

1) The Jazzmaster craze- so all of us or a lot of us have owned a Jazzmaster, that being said there is an obvious craze that’s been going on for a few years now with them but to be perfectly honest, is it a look? Are people buying Jazzmaster a because they’re not as common as a Tele or Strat but they’re still a fender guitar? Jazzmaster s come with terrible pickups that always need to be swapped out (most modern Fender guitars do but Jazzmasters are exceptionally worse), and their soft tail bridge is by far inferior to the strat. Yes we’ve had brands like Mastery Bridge come out and really help the intonation aspect of the bridge but behind that piece is still terrible. Jazzmasters were a very rejected Guitar when they first came out, is it that our generation is more hooked on a look than a quality Guitar? To add to this discussion I’ll bring in the Jaguar, similar to the Jazzmaster but shorter scale... the difference being those roller things and the excessive amount of switches. This guitar is obviously for someone trying to get a lot of tones out of one Guitar. The problem here is that each of those rollers and switches is a tone sucker and Jaguar pickups are built super “hot” to compensate for that. So I’m the end are these guitars a look people are going for or do the genuinely like these offset style guitars?

2) Your analog/digital pedal mash-ups- Something I see a lot of is the flaunting of analog or analog signal path pedals. I for one am a huge fan of these types of pedals and quality builds. For slight background on me, I was a straight signal path kinda guitar player with no pedals for a long time and always wanted a great tone from my amp and still do. I’ve always been huge on my amps and Guitar pickups so adding pedals I needed ones that conserved my tone... so for me I won’t put digital pedals on my board. I play with hand wound pickups into anpoint to point I guitar head. I have pedals with PCB and obv you need to but none of them are digital, I don’t want my analog signal path being effected. I understand for a lot of you noise makers that this isn’t really an issue for you but my question isn’t really for you guys. My question is for the people spending a ton of money on their gear, who have spent thousands of dollars on your Guitar Amps pushing digital pedals into them. Why? Why would you put so much into your direct signal and distort it with digital effects? Again this isn’t me calling you out, it’s me simply asking your reasoning behind this. Also to add onto this, besides digital pedals I see a lot of “lesser quality brands” on pedalboards with really amazing pedals on them. Besides the function of what it’s doing, can you not hear the lesser quality of the product, say EHX for example... ok go!

3) Pickups- I see some of you swap your pickups out. One thing I don’t understand is the Duncan and Dimazario crowd. You’re spending a ton of money on pickups yet you’re not even getting handwounds. What you’re buying isn’t much better than the stock pickups that came in your Guitar. Yes Duncan did do scatterwound at some point but the majority of the production now are machine wound. Are you just comfortable going with what you know and not venturing out? There are so many great scatterwound pickup makers, you’ve already gone deep into the boutique pedal world, why not go deep into the pickup world and make a bigger difference on your Guitar tone? And yes I am saying scatter wound is better than machine would and I don’t think that’s arguable haha.


Again everyone or anyone who decides to chime in on this, I’m not challenging you I just want to hear your opinions on things I hear going back and fourth in a lot of gear pages and other threads that do have my opinions attached to them, it’s not intended to be a fight.

[AlexGlassLungs]

Edit: by digital pedals, I don’t mean digital with analog signal path, I mean straight digital...

[UglyCasanova]

1. I've never owned a Jazzmaster. I like Telecasters and Strats. Jazzies look cooler, but I don't really like how they play and feel.

2. I like how digital stuff sounds. I don't like tube amps either...and I like PT-chips over analog chips, so it's somewhat consistent. I think of the guitar more like a controller than the source of my tone, I guess.

3. I don't care about pickups as long as they aren't too weak or too hot.

Guess I didn't really help you out here.

[friendship]

1) they look cool

2) nobody here cares

3) nobody here cares

[D.o.S.]

1. We are closing in on 30 years of the jazz master/jaguar/offset Fender Revival.
2. Analog vs digital is dead and gone I hope. It's insipid nonsense.
3. Some people like specific pickups, some don't.

[friendship]

Also you're full of shit. "Why do you like bad pickups? I'm not trying to challenge you here." Your leading questions based on your own assumptions are already framed to elicit defensive responses. Either come correct that you're trying to prod an imaginary hornet's nest or ask a genuine question. This faux-innocent "I'm just trying to stimulate discussion" shit is so transparent.

[UglyCasanova]

[D.o.S.]

See below.

[actual]

Digital pedals are super weak. 0/10

[UglyCasanova]

Tldr; y u no like toan?

[UglyCasanova]

Guess I'm not a real misician.

[D.o.S.]

Basically worry less jam more.

[AlexGlassLungs]

Also tbqh you're the same person who posted this:

I run a Klone full time, I love it. Downside is it’s too big to get a second one and everyone has been saying to run gain boost after modulation but before delay and clean boost at the end of the chain

So don't be surprised when I don't care about what you think as I run my digital pedals into my multi-thousand dollar amp.

Yeah I don’t see what this has to do with what I’m saying

[Strange Tales]

I mean honestly the real answer is "guitars are stupid buy a synth."

[UglyCasanova]

Can we talk about the toan/shimmer paradox?