jimmarchi1's forum posts 8022

okey doke, its like 4ih here so I should try to get some actual work done and stop worrying about whether a demo is legit guitar gear use... but good god is it more interesting to think about than anything in my real life the last 5 years or so

I'm just sayin' if I'm working on my own music and think "what in my arsenal will make a sound like so-and-so's sound on such-and-such tour, I wonder what all he ahd in front of his amp?" and I scroll down EB, unless I want to look at each of the posts in depth and break my work flow I will be looking at a pretty confusing list if it has lots of demo items mixed in willy nilly.

I guess if one were seeking the tone from a specific demo they liked and couldn't remember what pedal it was for one could use EB as a quick reference to figure out what pedal or amp was being demoed rather than going to youtube. I guess that's a reason for having the demo videos as gear useage..... I am totally trying to think of some other reasons and can't.

man I am bored today

it seems similar to me, you are talking about demos, where an individual is paid o use a piece of gear... its essentially appearing in a commercial... if these fellows keep the gear they demo it probably sits in a drawer... I'm talking about a piece I like to be seen with, like to brag about, but never saw a ton of professional useage (if any... not that tis not a great amp)

my vintage ac30 is similar in that regard to some pieces of the vintage fuzz collection I used to have... I had a number of pedals in the drawer that were just there because they were gifts or because I bought them for the collection and didn't like them much... I tried them and drawered them, and if youtube demoes ahd been a big thing back then I probably woulda made demoes of all those weird old fuzz boxes, but they didn't get used professionally... I used to get free stuff to try at studios I worked at, mostly we would plug it in, try it, and unplug it without ever racking it. It would go in a closet. But we sure as hell put it on our gear list for clients on our webses because... why not! But was that use?

I guess I don't understand your explanation at all because I see gear demos as extended advertisements. These guys are spokespeople.

I wanna know what folks are actually gigging with and I guess I can't grok why one would care about gear that's not being actively used for gigs by an established artist. But if you do, be glad I don't make the submission guidelines.

I don't find gigging and legitimate studio work to be an arbitrary line. For instance, my pro page would look different than my user page. Much different.

My touring rig had little in common with my collection as a hobbyist. I also used to evaluate a lot of people's small batch effects at rehearsals and stuff but did not incorporate them into the road rig or take them in the studio. Occassionally one might get on a stage for a local show, but to say I 'used' that pedal would be a lie from my perspective. If someone said they saw me with an Omega-drive on the floor I would say,"what of it? I was road-testing it for my friend. Everything you heard was cranked plexi. I only ran it during soundcheck before you were in the venue."

Maybe my experiences color my perspective. Oddly enough, I rarely if ever used a Vox AC30 live because up until the fawn HW series the only great sounding ones were vintage and my '62 is far too fragile and valuable to tour with (not to mention being a bit weak in output for a hard rock band playing 500+ seat venues). But by your standards I would still have an ac30 on my pro board even though it didn't even make it onto any finished tracks any of my bands released (which were mostly 60s marshall and fender like my live set-up). I owned it even back then, but my from my point of view it was a collectable and not a workhorse. I still prefer to use my modern ac30 most of the time because its replaceable.

Maybe I blame the demoers whoa re not gigging musicians at all (like that gearmanndude) and just create product videos for creating this weird new job description that baffles me. Pete's easy to understand for a guy like me. He's a working player and he demoes gear as an extra job to make sure he keeps up his mortgage payments when hes between gigs. I still look at his demoing as a little amature business he runs to supplement his income from his full-time work.

But we've been doing it this way where demos and music videos count as usage since before I got to EB, so I will just eat it even though it bothers me. But I'm not going to stop voicing my alternate view point on the forum. I am just never going to feel like a demo video counts as legit pro usage. Its not my website though, so you don't have to worry.

Pete's a good example, he always tells you when he's demoing an item he already owned or likes it so much he's keeping it and plans to use it in the studio or on the road, the rest of the stuff gets demoed and returned to the manufacturer to be sent on to the next reviewer. I just can't agree with demo videos constituting artist use unless they state that they plan to use it in their actual projects. In the end, everyone psots these demos and we allow it whether I think its misleading or not. Personally I feel a lot of folks like psoting deo videos because its an easy way to up their gear IQ and a lot of the young guys put a lot of stock in having huge scores next to their names. I don't begrudge them the points, I just feel like its misleading. If someone is trying tog et Pete Thorn's sound his page will be cluttered with gear he used once because he was paid to and it willt ake some work to weed thru and figure out what's actually in his current touring rig etc

EDIT:

Pete's page is actually a giant, incomplete mess right now, cluttered with stuff he demoed but doesn't use but missing his guitars, some of his favorite amps and a lot fo the stuff on his various pedalboards.... there's as much demo submissions as there are legit submissions and it would be really confusing to someone trying to use Pete's rig(s) as a reference to build their own... and that's a big element of EB, chasing Jack White's sound was the inspiration for Michael and Gchiaren to build the site in the first place

I still say gear demoes don't count as a gear spotting unless the artist states he has added it to his rig or makes reference to taking it to the studio for a legit session apart from the music in the demo vid

frankly, at this point in my life if I can't get an idea what something does just by looking at a picture of it and reading the product description then tis probably something I would never use, like a bit-crusher or super-crazy choir reverb... hell, a lot of times reading the product description on a pedal or amp I can guess what classic piece the circuit is ripped off from. a 1 minute demo track on the manufacturer's site will generally clue me to what component values were tweaked from a TS9 or tube sound fuzz or muff or tweed bassman or ac30 or SLO100 or.... or... or whatever!

Meh. I won't say there's NOTHING new under the sun, but for all the new stuff being cranked out by all these gear makers I am sad to report there is very little that's new... even most hardware synths are just rehashing anymore, even though they are doing it with aplomb compared to the 90s subtractive modellers

nothe important question is old stuff... should I buy a '69 Sunn? there's a guy with an EL34 equipped solarus on ebay with a fair asking price as well as a 'best offer' option and he lives in Philly right near me... do I message him and arrange to pick it up this weekend or should I admit that 5 amps is plenty?

I really care about what pros used to make music in their profession.... so if a drummer tried their hand at guitar on a record or picked up a ukulele at a concert during an encore it counts

if a guy puttered around with a new instrument for a few weeks at home and posted a picture of it to his facebook I feel sketchy about it

my opinion on this is similar to my opinion on the instruments used as props in choreographed music videos... I only care about gear I am HEARING, not just seeing, because stuff that is only played at home or used as a prop wil not help people get 'that' sound they are looking for.... and that's the spirit of EB, its a get that sound kinda thing

Thomas toys... my kid has TONS, but he is seeking Molly who is a character that hasn't been in the show for some time... he has about 50 of the characters now, no joke

nope, I am really into classical antiquity... I guess I would take Athenian coins from the institution of democracy up until the age of Pericles and Alcibiades

EDIT:

I guess there's one more type of coin I could accept, I would gladly take current US silver dollars.... a bag of 500 of them or more would make me happy. But at that point a payal transfer would be easier for everyone concerned....

nah, I wanna say they made a little big muff with a tone wicker in the nano size enclosure at one point... I could be wrong though... I wish EHX would just get back to doing one version of the big muff, they all sound basically the same apart from the 80s IC-based version that the pumpkins used a lot on Siamese Dream... God Mike Matthews, pick an enclosure size, keep the tone wicker, and make our lives easier already

this phenomenon with the cilvertone, airline and harmony stuff is the same as the Kurt Cobain effect on the price of vintage Mustangs, Jags and even duo sonics when I was a kid....when I first started playing Kurt's use of them was still flying under the radar (hell, kurt was still alive and just coming into the limelight that would ultimately drive him to eat some buckshot back when I started playing seriously) and ou really could get a 50s or 60s short scale fender for peanuts, they were occasionally reissued and those reissues had awful resale on the used market, they were real USA Fenders that you could buy $100... then by the time I was 15 years old the vintage ones were untouchable and the reissues commanded real money and even Japanese and Mexican versions were pretty expensive

my bad.... I must be going blind in my old age

I actually hijacked my school's public address system as a teenager and recited the Dr Evil ransom speech your link is from... only with a few changes to mock some kids and teachers with attitude issues so that hits close to home

seriously, I would feel bad overcharging someone for a used guitar pick with a little silkscreening on each side... but I guess if someone wanted a buckley pick RIGHT NOW I would get motivated if they offered to compensate me for my time in the hot,s tuffy attic, maybe a whole day's pay to look (its going to take me a full day to find the boxes and carefully unpack them, the items in question are tiny). I could call out sick but still keep the sitter for my son... otherwise one will be waiting for me to get a day off from work where my son is visiting grandparents or his mother without Dad.

as an aside, along with the buckley picks I think I have some smashing pumpkins picks from the mellon collie tour and probably some other cool concert grabs from other 90s artists as well (and ticket stubs out the ass) if someone was REALLY interested in this old junk

I gotta get me and Sprout ready for this picnic

I enjoy collecting watches myself, particularly 19th century pocket watches.... but I don't really bring that hobby over here.... I save it for the dedicated watch sites. But maybe we should fan out! Yet, where to stop? Scuba gear? My mom makes folk jewelry and quilts... wanna do that too? The server expense will go way up if you attract a following for hobbies/professions other than music.

that's me, I am always puttering around here...

I have a several of them, mostly yellow ones with his name on one side and that flaming skull graphic on the other obtained by myself at a show in philly as a kid, some of them just have his name and were given to me by an older friend who got them from Jeff at an earlier tour (pre-grace I think) when I was too young for concert going. I can assure you the yellow ones I got myself were actually USED by Jeff, whereas I suspect the black ones were just pulled from his stash and handed to my friend as they have no wear on them.

if I knew where I put them I would sell you a couple at whatever the going ebay memorabilia rate is for such an item. Plus mailing fee I guess. I had them in an ash tray in my living room as conversation pieces when I lived in DC. I can't leave trays of small choking hazards or valuable breakables on table tops anymore because of my kid, so I didn't unpack a lot of stuff when I moved. I thought they were in my parts/accessories drawer with the picks I actually use for playing, but as it turns out they aren't. They may still be packed in a box of parts and accessories that never got opened when I returned to Philly 2 years ago. Or they could be packed in a box with spare collectables from my curio cabinet (authentic cold war era commie cigarettes, a real t-rex tooth, Vatican-approved last rights kit and portable jesus shrine etc... I have a lot of cool antiques). Next time I have a minute I'll go in my attic and look around. I would like to find my dinosaur tooth anyway, and that spare parts box might have some signal caps I need hiding in it too.

Just keep reminding me. I am a busy single parent and a pick I scooped off a stage when I was 13 or 14 is not going to be something I am thinking about most of the time. I would look today, but as soon as I am done making macaroni salad I am headed off to a family shindig and tomorrow I am too busy.

For example http://equipboard.com/tom_barnzey just added all the components of his PC. I don't think that such content belongs to equipboard nor does it add value to it. He might be proud of his computer but people could start to add their screwdrivers which they use to change the battery in a pedal.... nuts.

I would say my tool box is an integral part of my sound (particularly my soldering iron).... now you are making me want to list all the special components in my homemade fuzzface!

j/k, you have a point here

okay, done

its a bassist thing I guess

I only know about the poo rating website because one of my friends is a completely juvenile fuckball who delighted in finding stuff to gross out the female vocalist in our band (I assume) to break the monotony of the road and studio. He also used to chase her around our spacious rehearsal studio mumbling "girly, girly, girly" in his dirtiest old man voice. I think the implication was that if he caught her he was going to steal her panties for purposes a nice preacher's daughter like her could only guess at... he really corrupted her and her little sister. I would feel abd about it if they didn't seem so much happier now then they were back then.

I'll fix those up for ya after I get done building this darned toddler bed.

sparkle poo is pretty righteous and should be contributed to http://www.ratemypoo.com/

if I had known this was coming, I coulda bought up Airline res-o-glass guitars and Silvertone twin twelve amps by the truck load for under $50/item in the 90s but didn't think anything of this crappy old gear... I kick myself every time I am on ebay for not picking up all those silvertone piggy back set-ups that I would see at guitar shows marked "make offer, do not want to carry it home" on the last day of the show

as for the balck eys guy, I coulda bought a billion crappy Harmony thinline hollowbodies for $100 or less, but they're all such poor players I kept turning them down.... a buddy of mine had a few different variations of the Harmony Rocket but sold them while they were still worthless for little-to-no profit... cool sounding guitars but not players and notoriously difficult to set up

the one place I did really make out though was Ampeg V series amps. Josh Homme's love of the VT40, VT22 and equivalent V2 and V4 amps made me a mint on amps I bought in the late 90s for chump change. But those are actually some pretty substantial pieces of kit, unlike the hipster gear

to be fair to the Buck Owens flag-painted harmony guitar, its really made from nice wood and has a lively sound because of the piss poor bracing. Its not sturdy, but the top really resonates on those guitars. Not awful guitars and I might just take one over a current Gibson flat-top given the choice.

I am looking at that harmony roy smeck strato and thinking how cool those old junk guitars used to be an antidote to all the strats, pauls and teles you normally see, good working examples would show up on-stage with some oddball local act a couple times a year.... but now that all these so-called hipsters all have them or clones of them (or even in some instances attempted reissues of these models by the current owners of trademarks like harmony and danelectro) I sometimes feel like the odd man out with my more popular electric models... carrying the torch for the really great designs

have fun in Hawaii.... and make sure to listen to lots of records in the hotel at bedtime, and not just records you expect to like. You could probably fill up all your evenings just with early-to-mid 60s American pop/rock groups you've never heard of... there's a lot to learn just by listening to a lot of different kinds of songs

on the blues junior, it is a very popular amplifier.... I have heard them sound very good when paired with a fender guitar, but never when I am playing through one, I don't know why, but I struggle to find a sound I'm happy with when I plug into a junior, hot rod deluxe or deville

the upshot is that you are talking about some very inexpensive gear on the used market, even the tele deluxe isn't a total bank breaker... jazzies won't kill you if you shop around for a beat up 'classic player'... people rave about the Squire J Mascis jazzmaster and its both affordable and attractive with its classic Olympic/anodized cosmetics.

its not particularly early here, especially by my standards... I am cleaning my house bit by bit in a really lazy way... don't forget to wear pants to church, that's just the sort of thing one is prone to do early in the morning

trust me, you have heard their music in countless movies, tv shows and commercials w/o realizing it

they are sometimes referred to as 'the young rascals' even though it's an album title and not the band name

next you'll tell me you've enver heard The Turtles or The Lovin' Spoonful

http://equipboard.com/items/vintage-jmi-vox-fawn-ac-30-6

y'know, the fawn 6 input ac30s are the same as the early black ones with copper panels 100%... maybe ac30s should be broken up by circuit type? plus, until top boost controls became standard on the face plates there were 3 different voicings; treble, normal and bass (like mine)... here's the notably different JMI era AC30 circuits:

AC30/4, AC30/6T, AC30/6N, AC30/6B, AC30/6TB, AC30/6N late period (the last 2 are almost the same amp, one is top boosted and one is not, but the power section isn't as hot as the earlier versions and there were some other tweaks around the time the top boost moved from being a module on the back of the amp offered as a factory add to being up to the control panel the way most of you will be familiar with)

what up with this shit?

http://equipboard.com/band/the-rascals

last I checked The Rascals were an iconic r&b/blue-eyed soul combo from the 60s... not a post-rock band?

it took me like 3 tries to watch ant man (or atleast 90% of it) when it aired on Starz.... the only reason I kept at it was because it was on for free, no additional purchase needed... and that's as much financial commitment as Ic an make to a film I might have to turn off because of my son or that I may fall asleep on

the 1st pair Capt America movies left me so flat I am afraid to watch civil war. I need to make the time to watch Deadpool though, its just tricky. Superhero movies don't come more toddler-unfriendly.

agreed, the 'see somemthign else' doesn't do what I expect it to do

admit it, you are unconscious from several days of college partying

you need to soak them in boiling water, rinse them, then cook them... also I have enver been a fan of the crock pot as a method for cooking beans (especially kidney beans).... the crock pots that do well alld ay without scorching your stew/chili/whatever also are very low temp and are not adequate to kill every type of bacteria, so it could be that too

or it could be heavy metals poisoning, don't season your food with gold no matter how cool sparkle-beans look

I am SO behind, man

maybe I can squeeze some movies in this week if little man will go the fuck to sleep

right of the top of my head I see EQD's pitch bay and afterneath.... obviously a strymon big sky and the EHX POG

I'm headed out with the boy to visit Ohma all day, I'll bet I can get 'em all, maybe later tonight

Harmony Stratotone I think

actually Tuesday and Wednesday, I got food poisoned this week.... not by a restaurant, it was totally my own careless fault... interestingly while I was shaking and puking I was watching andertons videos, not sure why

god I hate these andertons videos but I always binge watch them when I'm sick in bed... probably because I am already throwing up

not sure about the first 2 (from the left) but the last 2 are a mr black eterna gold and an old blood noise endeavors black fountain

read this, its got all the dirt on volume pedals I failed to explain correctly

http://missionengineering.com/?page_id=4029

I'm sure you could buy an LED VU meter and wire it up, it'd be ghetto as hell

I think I would personally stick with a readily available pedal and use a DI with a pad to send an attenuated feed to the board, that way if you do decide to drive an amp you can send the biggest, fattest signal to your rig from the 'thru' jack

your soundman really needs a pad on his inputs, bummer that he doesn't, but its not standard on affordable sound reinforcement consoles anymore

also, I swear by this passive DI for bass

http://www.radialeng.com/jdi.php

its got a -15dB pad built in, but you can also use the thru out to drive an amp at full tilt while sendinlanced and attenuated signal to the board, the passive circuitry cannot clip like active DIs and your board won't need phantom power to run it

they also make this, its less money because it has less features (you won't use) but it doesn't have as nice a transformer so the direct feed isn't as punchy and fat for bass (though you will only hear it if you A/B them in the studio):

http://www.radialeng.com/prodi.php