I Need a Moment (Soapbox)

ibmorjamn said:
It looked cool but it was about $200. Sadly the family is trying to sell stuff. I didn’t buy one.
I have had so many pedals and wahs. I had an early crybaby, if I had saved that it would been easy to mod. When I had it the only mod I did was a battery. lol
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I always hated the sound of that thing anyways.. :ROFLMAO:

I restored it a while back. Purely out of sentimental value.

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SG John said:
I'm often surprised how fast people will swap out components of guitars, amps, or pedals. I'm not talking after a few months, but a few days (if that long). For the most part, all my stuff is stock. Except old guitars I bought that had Mighty Mite or DiMarzio pickups in them, and I wanted to get something closer to the stock PAF style pickups that were removed. I always stick with a basic formula for pickups, and it has seemed to work for me. Usually I try a capacitor or potentiometer change first because it makes a bigger difference for a much more wallet friendly price tag.

After that, all my amps are stock with the exception of tubes. Parts only get replaced when necessary. I also need much more time to assess how things sound or work for me because I know how it sounds in my cellar or living room is not gong to be the same as when I'm playing with my band. It's funny how adjusting the tone pots of an amp to find the sweet spot in each of the tone pots changes when you're playing in your house compared to next to a loud drummer and bass player, and having to work with the bass player to get both sounds complimentary to each other.

Also when I buy anything, I buy it because of what it is and how it played/sounded when checking it out. When offered stuff over the years, it always had to fulfill one of the "Do I own one", "Will it offer something to the musical sound palette", "Is it something I would really like to own?" Many guitars I have bought since joining guitar forums and being drawn into the world of GAS, have really been left alone. I bought a Rick 330 several years ago that sounded amazing. I wanted to put a set of Rick "Toaster" pickups in it that I have. Although the "Toaster" aesthetic is what I want, the guitar sounds too good to mess with it. My '82 Les Paul Standard is stock. I'm not touching my ES-335 because it sounds great as is. Memphis hit it out of the park with that guitar. I have one Strat that the '54 reissue Custom Shop pickups that came with it did not sound good. I put them in a different Strat, and they sound great. The pickups I put in the other guitar are amazing. That took several months of research swapping between amps and the pedals I was using at the time. Also swapping the pickups between the guitars numerous times because I didn't believe that they sounded great in one guitar but not the other.

I still think no matter what guitars or anything else in the chain you buy, you should spend time with it before dismissing something and starting an upgrade process that may never produce any results. A dead sounding guitar that is still a dead sounding guitar after a proper setup isn't going to sound better with pickup, capacitor, or potentiometer upgrades. The trouble with having to buy so much stuff on-line these days, is you never get to truly evaluate it before purchasing it. I've always said that I live a very spoiled life having so many options for actual music stores in a less than 100 mile radius from Boston. I get to play stuff before buying it which is a wonderful thing because I can say "no", and walk away. The only real unicorn dust I believe in is practice. Right now, I wouldn't change a thing on any guitar I bought because I am wayyyyyy to much out of practice. Maybe when I can start spending the amount of time I used to, I'll consider my opinion on the certain aspects of the nuances of a particular guitar a bit more serious.

But yeah, leave it alone. Play it and get familiar with it. Learn every little nuance. If you're still not happy, mod away.
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This encapsulates my feelings exactly. I'll admit to having changed many parts over the years, but only after spending sufficient time with a guitar to know what it is that I feel is lacking or needs changing. That said, only one of my current guitars has any mods at all.

It is truly remarkable how often you see threads where someone has a guitar on order, not yet even in their hands, and yet they are listing all of the mods they are going to immediately do to it (pickups, hardware, electronics, everything that can be changed) before they bother to play it and get to know it. It's always characterized as an "upgrade" but is it really? Just making something different doesn't make it better. Arguably better for you, but not objectively improved - ya just gotta be honest with yourself.

For amps? Meh, I had a great stash of vintage NOS tubes that someone gave me, so of course expected the internet-reported huge gain in mojo and tone (because everything on the internet is true, right?) but for the life of me and no matter how much rolling and comparing I did there was no genuine improvement in the tone. Differences? Sometimes yes, but nothing you could point to and say that the old ones were indisputably better in any way. In fact, I would argue the vintage glass made my Mesas sound worse.
 
ibmorjamn said:
That is exactly how the Klon became priceless. How about a Dumble?
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Snake oil

You know, to each their own and all, but I owned a Klon briefly in the late '90s before the prices became truly ludicrous, and it didn't last long. I think it was one of the more boring and overhyped things I have owned. At least I got my money back for it. The Archer is better and you can actually buy one, today, for a reasonable price.

Never owned a Dumble, but have played through two in my time. Again, to each their own, but I can easily think of a dozen amps I would rather own. I found them pretty pedestrian, and they look like they were built out of leftover Heathkit parts.
 
Well I can find the f@art pedal, and the unicorn pedal but not the unicorn f@art pedal, is there a link to the booty tique stomper?
 
Whatever I do is just tinkering, as far as pickups go in a cheap guitar, they seldom have what you need. I really like my Harley Benton Strat. It is the best inexpensive instrument I own. It stays close by. The bridge humbucker is not bad. The stock singles are not useful. Currently it has a single H in the bridge and it’s a TB6 I think. lol
I got a black pick guard that is a blank, I am currently working on the cut outs for the HSS.
It’s not going to be perfect but I can try some other pickups and get the look I am after.
As far as the cheap azz China Vox 847 goes, it was a marketplace find, I tried through a Fender amp that was a clean sounding setup not what I would normally use.
I have been on a quest for a wah that sounds good for quite some time and finally I hope to be able to make that happen.
Everything I ever owned did not stay stock.
My old quad had 32 hp stock, I road it stock for a while but it got modded several times.
In the end it was setup as a drag quad for sand hills. I spent a lot of money but did most of the work myself. Big Bore Stroker laid down 72 hp on the dump. Kind of shocked the operator because he never seen that brand even close to that. That was fun, more fun in the build to me.
 
gball said:
I owned a Klon briefly in the late '90s before the prices became truly ludicrous
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I'm not much of an over-the-top pedal guy, I have a Boss CH-1 Chorus, Boss DD3-T Delay, and a mini Tube Screamer. All really nice pedals that work for me.
I had read an article about the Behringer "Klon" clone very early on: Pre-lawsuit, blah blah blah. Just for giggles, I order 2. I waited about 2 months for them to arrive. When I got it, I opened one, and left the other unopened. I never wanted to make any $$, I just got it for a jammin' friend.
Well, I thought the thing was pretty awesome for an 80$ pedal. Without doing a review, It was clean, QUIET, and very versatile. Run through my Fender Blues Deluxe alone, it was quite nice and I was very happy with it. Still am. Now, I have it in front of the Tube Screamer, then delay and chorus.
Turns out Gregg didn't want it, so I put it on e*ay for double the retail price (They were going for upwards of 250$) It sold within 12 hours, and I ended up with a "FREE" pedal.
 
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