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thecr4ne wrote: Sat Oct 22, 2022 9:45 am Pedals.

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I hate pedals. I don't want to deal with extra shit and batteries or webs of power supplies and patch cables. Guitar, cable, amp.

What's ironic? The guitarist in the band I play drums for stopped using pedals... but now the amp he goes straight into is a Kemper.

Tuners

don't hate the acoustasonic outright, but the apparently deliberate visuals of the thing utterly confound me. those awful colours just sitting there on the top clashing with the forearm relief like a listerine cheesecake.

d'addario chromes. i like plenty of d'addario gear just fine, and i love a good set of flats, but i can't stand these specific strings. horrible sound, horrible feel.

Picks

dfglv wrote: Sun Oct 23, 2022 2:30 pm d'addario chromes. i like plenty of d'addario gear just fine, and i love a good set of flats, but i can't stand these specific strings. horrible sound, horrible feel.

I like Chromes. I've been trying other strings lately but all of the recordings linked to my signature were done with Chromes.

Mostly with a pick.

I tried some DR flats on a bass and I can confirm they are horrible too. I was spoiled by La Bella's on another instrument, but the DRs feel like a set of roundwounds filed flat.

The AKG D112. My first home recordings were made with a friend’s mics, which included a D112, and I could not get a good sound out of that thing. No matter where I placed it, and no matter how I configured my kick drum, all I got was basketball “sproinginess”. (That I subsequently found its weirdly pushed midrange somewhat interesting on fuzz guitar did not assuage my vexation.)

To this day, I feel like I can tell when a kick drum is miked with a D112 at a live show, and it’s like fingernails on a blackboard to me.

Love: Ernie Ball Slinky Flats. Get in there with that! I'm not gigging or anything but they feel great at home. $0.02


Hate: Boss anything. Just can't, based on 'whatever'. Maybe an EQ? Ugh...

TylerDeadPine wrote: Fri Oct 21, 2022 7:24 pm

Every single set I've seen backlined entirely by modern Orange amps sounded like dogshit. I've seen bands visibly frustrated on stage trying to get a good sound. 5-10 years ago it seemed like everything was orange backlined. a lot of live music was worse for it. I didn't meet anyone from Orange at Namm, hopefully they're nice because fuck.

Coming here to say FUCK YES. I don't play many gigs with rental backline but I did one in Holland recently and they had a pile of killer amps to choose from so I picked some 120 watt modern Orange like you'd see Matt Pike play or something. Could I get anything usable from it? Could I fuck. It's like the character of the amp was always voiced too trebly and hollow no matter what I did - not like a Marshall JCM or something (where you just dial it way back) but something that the EQ couldn't remove. It was loud as shit but as soon as the band started I couldn't hear anything except the whistle of feedback when I even thought about facing it (which I did endlessly, trying to suss out a sweet spot). It was such a weird amp, like it had been developed entirely in isolation from other instruments.

I'll second the praise for the solid state stuff though - the CR120 is a great circuit in head or combo form. The opposite of the high end tube amp in fact - voiced for playing in a band.

My gear hate choice is Earthquaker pedals. I don't care if they sound good, that font makes my mouth dry. And they seem similar to lots of other modern pedal companies in that the controls are just not really designed for a pleasant interaction that inspires you to use them, especially live. (I concede they do seem to sound amazing). Catalinbread are maybe worse to be fair - recreating the sound of something perfectly but putting in a design that's like a Rubiks Cube to operate. Always seen on a two-tier pedalboard which can also get in the bin.

Not a specific piece of gear but a general trend that's existed for the past 30+ years. Why do bass amps have to, generally, look dumb? Like everything is just a metal box with too many controls and switches, designed to be rack mounted, and a generally boring aesthetic while guitar amps, generally, get to look cool.