Am I the only one that's mildly annoyed by the Youtube videos on the Chris Stapleton...

[Noodling Guitars]

...like all these mid-Youtubers that try to get a few clicks over the fact that it's priced at $5k... gimme a break

It's a made in the US guitar at the Gibson Montana factory - Epiphone's done that since they relaunched the Made in USA line with the Frontier and the Texan, both of which are not signature models and priced at the $3k-$4k - which is priced just like all other Gibson acoustics. Ever look at the price tag of .. I dunno.. say Dave Mustaine's Songwriter? That's well over $4k. Orianthi's is what.. like $6k...

I mean why are they treating like their minds are being blown by the price - it's almost like they've never heard of the Made in US Casinos either - which is basically the price of a Gibson ES-335.

 

[Raiyn]

...like all these mid-Youtubers that try to get a few clicks over the fact that it's priced at $5k... gimme a break

It's a made in the US guitar at the Gibson Montana factory - Epiphone's done that since they relaunched the Made in USA line with the Frontier and the Texan, both of which are not signature models and priced at the $3k-$4k - which is priced just like all other Gibson acoustics. Ever look at the price tag of .. I dunno.. say Dave Mustaine's Songwriter? That's well over $4k. Orianthi's is what.. like $6k...

I mean why are they treating like their minds are being blown by the price - it's almost like they've never heard of the Made in US Casinos either - which is basically the price of a Gibson ES-335.

Possibly.

I'm not a modern country guy, anything much past Shania and Garth and you'll get a blank stare. Most of my interest in the genre is from the era of Hank Sr. to the Man in Black so I had to look up who the guy was in the first place.

I'm also NOT an acoustic guy. Too many social situations with some d-bag farting through Wonderwall and DMB in the background.

I see your point though. It's a US made guitar, a signature model no less. The problem is that the industry has conditioned consumers to view Epiphone as inferior to the almighty G. They see Epi and it's viewed as an import or foreign - even AFTER You tell them where it's made. "They cut corners somewhere" is the bias.

Fact is you could slap a Gibbon label on it and it'll ship all day.

 

[soulman969]

The problem is that the industry is conditioned consumers to view Epiphone as inferior to the almighty G. They see Epi and it's seen as an import or foreign - even AFTER You tell them where it's made. "They cut corners somewhere" is the bias.

Yup. Most have no idea of Epiphone's history and that for decades they were chosen over Gibson models by many performers. But of course they'd need to spend some time edumucatin' themselves first which many a far too lazy to do. They can find YouTube but not Wikipedia.

 

[Raiyn]

Internet facts: Epiphone = Po people's guitar

Reality: Epiphone = $5K U.S. made sig for a guy I'm unfamiliar* with.

*Not a dig, just not my preferred era of his genre as explained above.

 

[Noodling Guitars]

I'm more surprised that a lot of these channels don't mention the fact that Casinos are well over $3k, and that Frontiers and Texans (well in the $3-4k area) exist. Either that or they purposely omit these facts in order to make their "OMG it's a $5k Epi" message

 

[AJ6stringsting]

Over the last 45 years of guitar playing, many a time, I heard and played cheap guitars that played and sounded much better that high dollar guitar .

As the owner of JHS Pedals, posted in his rebuttle from the Bad Monkey pedal Review ...
" You should follow your ears, not trends " ....

 

[soulman969]

Over the last 45 years of guitar playing, many a time, I heard and played cheap guitars that played and sounded much better that high dollar guitar .

As the owner of JHS Pedals, posted in his rebuttle from the Bad Monkey pedal Review ...
" You should follow your ears, not trends " ....

Madison Avenue advertising x the lyrics to Get Off My Cloud have created a society where only the latest and the most technologically advanced from the best companies are acceptable.

How many variations on an OD or Distortion pedal do we actually need yet how many are there? It's like a Baskin-Robbins 31 flavors of Fuzz tones and various other dirt pedals now. Then we can start with reverb, delay, and modulation pedals. Sweetwater has nearly as many pages devoted to effects as they do amps or maybe more come to think of it.

We can produce 24 different colors of a certain series case for a single cell phone yet someone will want a pink that's not quite so pink or a blue that more teal colored or a purple that's more rose colored. And that's just for one single phone. Yet we wonder why we have supply chain issues?

We've begun to reduce inventory selection for phones more than two years old now because the cost of carrying inventory in that many colors is too cost prohibitive. That produces complaints that a customer can't get their free replacement case in the color they once had and want us to waive shipping costs because of it.

I'm not altogether certain where it's gonna lead to but this much I do know from past experience. Consumers are either gonna have to settle for less diversity or find themselves paying far more for the product which as musicians we can already see evidenced by the inflation in pedal prices alone.

I just spent the first $200 for a single pedal I've ever spent and yet as Rotary Speaker pedals go it was on the less costly side. Pedals like that Bad Monkey that used to run $50-$60 new now run well over $100 and fancier more option laden versions run closer to $200 and up because someone's "dirt" needs to have just the right "flavoring"!

Some days I have to laugh about the story of when the Kinks were cutting their first recordings and to create the fuzz/distortion effect they needed they cut the guitar speaker with a razor blade. It was, "there ya' go, that'll do it". LOL. Now we need a pedal that'll emulate that specific sound. Another of my favorites is a digital pedal that emulated a tape echo! Have EchoPlexes disappeared from the planet? Or are they too costly too?

Now, 'scuse me while I go outside to yell at some clouds and chase those dang kids off my asphalt!

 

[Raiyn]

How many variations on an OD or Distortion pedal do we actually need yet how many are there? It's like a Baskin-Robbins 31 flavors of Fuzz tones and various other dirt pedals now. Then we can start with reverb, delay, and modulation pedals.

True, but this is what happens when people have guitar heros.

I don't chase tones as diligently as some, but I'm not immune to "oh, so-and-so used a blah-blah-blah distortion into an xyz modulation". I find the information interesting, but I recognize I'm not that guy.

If I can approximate the vibe, I'm generally pretty happy.
Doing it with less expensive or kit pedals I've built is icing on the cake.

We can produce 24 different colors of a certain series case for a single cell phone yet someone will want a pink that's not quite so pink or a blue that more teal colored or a purple that's more rose colored. And that's just for one single phone. Yet we wonder why we have supply chain issues?

Thankfully, that ain't us.
SWMBO and I tend to stick to black. The last time my phone needed to look "cool" was back when I had a Nokia 5100 with a swivel belt clip, a rubber bumper (to protect the ground) and this purple faceplate with lightning streaks on it.
Phones have lock screens and desktops now - I stick to customizing those.

Pedals like that Bad Monkey that used to run $50-$60 new now run well over $100

Josh from JHS has commented on how stupid that is. He's not wrong either. It's been available on the used market dirt cheap for nearly 20 years. He does a video and boom the prices explode.

Another of my favorites is a digital pedal that emulated a tape echo! Have EchoPlexes disappeared from the planet? Or are they too costly too?

Are you talking the old ones from the 50's / 60's or the more recent Dunlop?

Nothing I do "needs" tape echo, but I do run both digital and analog delays on my board.
That Pedal Show did a video on it that explains why better than I can.



Also, as I mentioned before tend to like different sonic flavors, so I'll double up on certain pedal types. I'll admit this largely so I can find a setting and leave it as I bounce from hair metal to grunge back through post punk and into surf.

So back to your earlier paraphrased question: Why do we crave variety / or perhaps exclusivity when everything is basically the same?

Human nature. If we don't feel superior, that means we're inferior.

 

[soulman969]

As it relates to pedals, guitars, amps and whatever it seems that most everyone is always trying to find a way to sound like someone else. It's like I wanna sound just like XXXX uses on that cut from YYYY. So XXXX tells us in an interview what he used and masses of Lemmings rush off to buy those pedals, that guitar, or that amp.

What top guitarist in history has ever said he wanted to sound just like some other top guitarist in history? Licks maybe but gear right down to the gauge of strings and whether the pick used was Dunlop Tortex or Fender Celluloid?

It's a good thing some of us are more independent thinking or in the 80s we'd have been playing beat up 'burst Strats with our initials on them, playing 13-56 strings through a Tube Screamer into a Fender Twin Reverb or a VibroVerb with a 15" speaker.

 

[Raiyn]

As it relates to pedals, guitars, amps and whatever it seems that most everyone is always trying to find a way to sound like someone else. It's like I wanna sound just like XXXX uses on that cut from YYYY. So XXXX tells us in an interview what he used and masses of Lemmings rush off to buy those pedals, that guitar, or that amp.

Yup. That's pretty much how the industry works.

What top guitarist in history has ever said he wanted to sound just like some other top guitarist in history? Licks maybe but gear right down to the gauge of strings and whether the pick used was Dunlop Tortex or Fender Celluloid?

I am, by no means, a top guitarist. I recognize that fact.

That said, if I'm trying to play some Pumpkins I'm probably going to want a Op-Amp Muff. I have a Boss Turbo Distortion just for Nirvana stuff. I've got a chorus set to do Bon Jovian licks, a Flanger for "Barracuda" and a Tremolo just for "How Soon is Now".

Most of the stuff I run is a clone, or a modern version of whatever pedal I was looking at for the sound / song I wanted to play.

It's a good thing some of us are more independent thinking or in the 80s we'd have been playing beat up 'burst Strats with our initials on them, playing 13-56 strings through a Tube Screamer into a Fender Twin Reverb or a VibroVerb with a 15" speaker.

Yeah, because nobody bought Strats because of Buddy Holly, Ricks and Casinos because of the Beatles, or offsets because of the surf scene.

In the 80's absolutely nobody went out and built / bought a Superstrat because of EVH. Nevermind that Slash guy that singlehandedly resurrected the Les Paul.

Nobody ever bought a EB-0 to be Jack Bruce either.

The truly creatives will find their voice, but way more often than not they cut their teeth on what came before.

I have stuff to make my own noises with, but I also have stuff to get me in the ballpark of stuff I listened to in my younger days.

 

[soulman969]

I push creativity in terms of finding ones own "voice" and don't understand pure replication at all. And as Josh Scott demonstrated very effectively a single pedal can often cover far more bases than many believe. If you like what "green" sounds like buy "green" but you don't necessarily need every single shade of it that's been produced.

I have a pretty standard assortment of modulation pedals and just added a rotary pedal because I could never get quite what I wanted out of stacking chorus and phaser and adding or subtracting tremolo. If I could get close to what I wanted it then made those same pedals useless for whatever else I wanted them for.

So I can understand the "right tool for the job" concept. I just don't need multiples of each one is all. Not for whatever it is that I would ever be called upon to do. And three OD pedals may actually be one more than I need I'm just never able to decide which one I don't need. LOL Maybe the OCD but then it does it's own thing so it's worthwhile to have it just for that and they ain't makin' anymore of them so there's that as well.

I'd love to be able to play and sound like BB King but if I'm playing a Tele through a Blackface amp I'm only gonna get so close that all it can ever be is my emulation of BB King. Same on bass. A PBass with flats get's me Motown/Memphis Stax tonality but not all of James Jamerson's licks. So I guess I'm content with just being me and not anyone else.

 

[Raiyn]

I push creativity in terms of finding ones own "voice" and don't understand pure replication at all.

I agree. I specifically said I get "in the ballpark". If a Pumpkin Muff is gonna get me closer to "Zero" that's cool. I'm not going to buy a vintage Muff to get there.

If you like what "green" sounds like buy "green" but you don't necessarily need every single shade of it that's been produced.

Again, I agree. My Green pedal is a modded clone of a Maxon OD 820 which itself is their version of what happens when a Tube Screamer and a Klon mate. Covers a bunch of ground and replaced two different clone ODs.

So I can understand the "right tool for the job" concept. I just don't need multiples of each one is all.

I have multiple flavors of Muffs, reverbs, choruses, and tremolos on my board. Some just because I built them, but they mainly exist because I set them for different sounds.
My Ram's Head clone is set for Gilmour adjacent tones while the Pumpkin is the Pumpkin, so on and so forth. I don't have a huge repertoire, but I like being able to step on a combo of pedals and get the sound I'm looking for without twisting all the knobs. I'd probably be a prime candidate for emulation software where I'd tap a key to add the effects, but I like building / owning physical pedals.

I'd love to be able to play and sound like BB King

Who wouldn't?

I'm only gonna get so close

Ballpark baby!

So I guess I'm content with just being me and not anyone else.

Again, I agree with this. I like having similar ingredients to the sound I'm going for. That doesn't mean I need a signature axe and vintage pedals, that just doesn't fly for me on a talent or budgetary level. I recognize that I'm always gonna sound like me, but being in the ballpark for certain songs makes me happy.

 

[soulman969]

I wasn't saying all that with you in mind personally. Just players in general who chase the specific tone of another player based on a recording where the magic of the studio may be difficult if nearly impossible to reproduce live even in ones own studio.

The rest we agree on for the most part. Having multiple modulation pedals to capture a specific type of delay or whatever effect makes sense if that effect is unique to that specific pedal. I know that's true when it comes to certain time based effects. Or you spend the big bucks on a Strymon pedal with multiple effects in one unit. I guess Eventide would be another example of that as well. I've been more tempted to go the route of a multi effects unit of late than ever before just to simplify things but I can never decide which direction to go.

 

[Raiyn]

I wasn't saying all that with you in mind personally. Just players in general who chase the specific tone of another player based on a recording where the magic of the studio may be difficult if nearly impossible to reproduce live even in ones own studio.

I didn't think you were, but I can only truly speak from my own perspective.

The rest we agree on for the most part. Having multiple modulation pedals to capture a specific type of delay or whatever effect makes sense if that effect is unique to that specific pedal.

In my case, it's a mix of having built some of them (so natch I wanna use 'em) and not wanting to mess with them once they're dialed in.

I've been more tempted to go the route of a multi effects unit of late than ever before just to simplify things but I can never decide which direction to go.

Same. I was looking at one of the big deal Boss rigs back before I built V1 of my board but then a buddy sold me the Bad Horsie and a mutual friend started my big body Danelectro collection. A guy can make patches until the cows come home and they never take up more than some memory.

On the other hand, I really like losing myself in a soldering project and pedals are especially fun - which loops me back around.

 

[AJ6stringsting]

Madison Avenue advertising x the lyrics to Get Off My Cloud have created a society where only the latest and the most technologically advanced from the best companies are acceptable.

How many variations on an OD or Distortion pedal do we actually need yet how many are there? It's like a Baskin-Robbins 31 flavors of Fuzz tones and various other dirt pedals now. Then we can start with reverb, delay, and modulation pedals. Sweetwater has nearly as many pages devoted to effects as they do amps or maybe more come to think of it.

We can produce 24 different colors of a certain series case for a single cell phone yet someone will want a pink that's not quite so pink or a blue that more teal colored or a purple that's more rose colored. And that's just for one single phone. Yet we wonder why we have supply chain issues?

We've begun to reduce inventory selection for phones more than two years old now because the cost of carrying inventory in that many colors is too cost prohibitive. That produces complaints that a customer can't get their free replacement case in the color they once had and want us to waive shipping costs because of it.

I'm not altogether certain where it's gonna lead to but this much I do know from past experience. Consumers are either gonna have to settle for less diversity or find themselves paying far more for the product which as musicians we can already see evidenced by the inflation in pedal prices alone.

I just spent the first $200 for a single pedal I've ever spent and yet as Rotary Speaker pedals go it was on the less costly side. Pedals like that Bad Monkey that used to run $50-$60 new now run well over $100 and fancier more option laden versions run closer to $200 and up because someone's "dirt" needs to have just the right "flavoring"!

Some days I have to laugh about the story of when the Kinks were cutting their first recordings and to create the fuzz/distortion effect they needed they cut the guitar speaker with a razor blade. It was, "there ya' go, that'll do it". LOL. Now we need a pedal that'll emulate that specific sound. Another of my favorites is a digital pedal that emulated a tape echo! Have EchoPlexes disappeared from the planet? Or are they too costly too?

Now, 'scuse me while I go outside to yell at some clouds and chase those dang kids off my asphalt!

Josh and Soulman, are 100% correct .
Through the years people criticized the Bad Monkey pedal as just another " Low Baller pedal " , then Josh points out it great sound abilities and tones.
And then the World catches on.

People thought I was using a more modern gear, a Helix, Eleven Rack, Kemper , a Quilter or still lugging around my usually Carvin X-100 B with a Marshall JCM 800.

They saw that I was using some old gear ; a Digitech RP-12, RP-1 and 2112 SGS with a Control One board .
The ears are deceiving, comes to show you that people are just misguided by sales department campaign ads .

We Humans are sooo gullible and people are upset .....GEEEES !!!!!

 

[wildeman]

You like, you buy. No like, no buy, very simple.