The Rocker Guy Stands Alone
Ok, kids, stay with me hear as this post may wander a bit, but it all goes together somehow.
Yesterday I had to drop off my baby (the Yamaha) for some service. The bridge pickup is cutting out so I can only play it out of the neck pickup. That's almost death for me as I play mostly out of the bridge pickup. Besides, my baby isn't 100% so she needs to be patched up.
So I'm at my fave guitar shop without the kids, since I had to fill in for the Easter Bunny and get them some stuff for thier Easter baskets. They're off from school till the end of next week so I dropped them off at my parents. As a side note, I also had to get some Cadbury eggs from my cube mate over the wall. It's her fave Easter candy and her mean old boyfriend told her there was no Easter Bunny so she wasn't gettin' notin'. Since I had to pop in to the office briefly today, the boys filled in for the Easter Bunny and gave her the eggs on his behalf.
So after I drop off the guitar, I decided to try out an amp really quick. They had a Les Paul Standard, similar to my Studio, on the wall and the band (well, the other two adults in the band) have been saying they prefer the sound of my guitar out of a tube amp over my solid state amp. Since I was there and they had a guitar that closely imitates my gear, I said what the heck, I'll try one or two. As another side note, this Les Paul Standard is $1000 more than my Studio. The only difference between the two? The Standard has white binding around the body and the Studio does not. I think Gibson jacks the price up since suckers will pay that much for a Gibson. But I digress even further.
So I tried out a couple of amps, and wasn't really satisifed. They were ok, but didn't respond the way I was looking for them to. So I boogied, went to Target, got the stuff I needed, picked up the boys, and went home. Not to digress totally from the story, my youngest nephew was there and simply flabergasted me with his total lack of respect for any adults in the house. Of course, my parents allow him to be disrepectful to them, but I was ready to slap him. I would NEVER allow my kids to talk to me or any adult in that manner.
To continue, when I got home and had a few minutes, I decided to plug in my gear and play around a little to see if I could really get the sounds I wanted. I'm sure you don't need all the details, but I'll give them to you anyway :). I plugged my Paul in with my standard effects and started on the clean channel with just my overdrive box. It sounded pretty good, but had a lot of distortion in the gain. Not a bad thing necesarrily, but it was there. So I added my equalizer pedal. I hadn't been using it for a while cause it really jacks the volume. To my surprise, I found I still had all the edge and power, but the extra distortion was gone. It really cleaned up the sound. I then dropped out the overdrive and went clean. Again, with the equalizer on, it really cleaned up my sound and got rid of the bit of muddiness I was getting totally clean. I then went to the gain channel on the amp. That's the total HEAVY METAL setting baby. It just growls.
So I toyed around with all of this for maybe 20 mintutes, playing all kinds of stuff. It was then I came to the realization that I don't need a new amp. I get all the tone I like out of what I have. I made the mistake of trying to let other people tell me what my sound should be, instead of deciding myself what my sound should be. Silly me. Won't happen again. I have no problem adjusting volume levels for the room. But dammit, my gear will sound the way I want it to sound and if the rest of the band don't like it, tough.
Now I can't wait to get my Yamaha back and plug it in. I'll be sounding just the way I like and my baby will cry, sing, scream, or whatever the hell I want it to. Being a Rocker Guy is such a rush!
Yesterday I had to drop off my baby (the Yamaha) for some service. The bridge pickup is cutting out so I can only play it out of the neck pickup. That's almost death for me as I play mostly out of the bridge pickup. Besides, my baby isn't 100% so she needs to be patched up.
So I'm at my fave guitar shop without the kids, since I had to fill in for the Easter Bunny and get them some stuff for thier Easter baskets. They're off from school till the end of next week so I dropped them off at my parents. As a side note, I also had to get some Cadbury eggs from my cube mate over the wall. It's her fave Easter candy and her mean old boyfriend told her there was no Easter Bunny so she wasn't gettin' notin'. Since I had to pop in to the office briefly today, the boys filled in for the Easter Bunny and gave her the eggs on his behalf.
So after I drop off the guitar, I decided to try out an amp really quick. They had a Les Paul Standard, similar to my Studio, on the wall and the band (well, the other two adults in the band) have been saying they prefer the sound of my guitar out of a tube amp over my solid state amp. Since I was there and they had a guitar that closely imitates my gear, I said what the heck, I'll try one or two. As another side note, this Les Paul Standard is $1000 more than my Studio. The only difference between the two? The Standard has white binding around the body and the Studio does not. I think Gibson jacks the price up since suckers will pay that much for a Gibson. But I digress even further.
So I tried out a couple of amps, and wasn't really satisifed. They were ok, but didn't respond the way I was looking for them to. So I boogied, went to Target, got the stuff I needed, picked up the boys, and went home. Not to digress totally from the story, my youngest nephew was there and simply flabergasted me with his total lack of respect for any adults in the house. Of course, my parents allow him to be disrepectful to them, but I was ready to slap him. I would NEVER allow my kids to talk to me or any adult in that manner.
To continue, when I got home and had a few minutes, I decided to plug in my gear and play around a little to see if I could really get the sounds I wanted. I'm sure you don't need all the details, but I'll give them to you anyway :). I plugged my Paul in with my standard effects and started on the clean channel with just my overdrive box. It sounded pretty good, but had a lot of distortion in the gain. Not a bad thing necesarrily, but it was there. So I added my equalizer pedal. I hadn't been using it for a while cause it really jacks the volume. To my surprise, I found I still had all the edge and power, but the extra distortion was gone. It really cleaned up the sound. I then dropped out the overdrive and went clean. Again, with the equalizer on, it really cleaned up my sound and got rid of the bit of muddiness I was getting totally clean. I then went to the gain channel on the amp. That's the total HEAVY METAL setting baby. It just growls.
So I toyed around with all of this for maybe 20 mintutes, playing all kinds of stuff. It was then I came to the realization that I don't need a new amp. I get all the tone I like out of what I have. I made the mistake of trying to let other people tell me what my sound should be, instead of deciding myself what my sound should be. Silly me. Won't happen again. I have no problem adjusting volume levels for the room. But dammit, my gear will sound the way I want it to sound and if the rest of the band don't like it, tough.
Now I can't wait to get my Yamaha back and plug it in. I'll be sounding just the way I like and my baby will cry, sing, scream, or whatever the hell I want it to. Being a Rocker Guy is such a rush!
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