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Gear you HATE

1 by TylerDeadPine
For a variety of reasons, most of the aesthetic and petty, I hate certain gear I think because music that draws me in is is raw, honest, exciting, unpredictable, dangerous? art on some level ... and none of this stuff seems to impart a sense of any of that. Anyway, I hate this shit:
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when I heard these things were selling like crazy I thought I was crazy. I think time has corrected that
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I don't hate modelers, people make them work, but screw this! Oh okay you're going to put it on a cab? screw you!

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That's low hanging fruit but you know what I mean.
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So many people hyped this thing up to me and I thought it sounded not good. I got so many youtube ads for it. The people at the company were very nice at Namm though. I feel like it wasn't their fault.
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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.

Re: Gear you HATE

2 by Dr Tony Balls
OOOOH this thread is gonna serve like a void that I can scream into every time I see something stupid. Until that happens, i'll just comment on Tyler's stuff...

Acoustasonic - I dont HATE them, per se, but the execution is bad. The aesthetics are close to good but a little too stylized. The forearm rounding, stupid knobs, boring looking pickup....it's all so "contemporary" that it looks stupid. They should have had a big picture of a Danelectro convertible in the design room to remind them not to get too dumb. Also an adjustable bridge would be cool? They sound okay for what they are....more a convenient live tool than an instrument for recording.

That Milk Thing - No clue what it does, but i'll research it and respond. For now though, the knobs suck.

Orange - UGH. Some are better than others but overall they're pretty generic. The thing that kills me though is that dont make the classic Orange circuit. That shit is one of the few truly unique classic circuits out there and they're cool and sound great, why the shit arent you making them?

That last point actually holds true for most legacy companies. Marshall, why do you only make the 1987 as a "vintage reissue" amps that is very expensive? That should be a staple, and you should make simple variations around it that will be instant classics. Fender, why the hell is the Blues Junior not just a 15 watt AB165 Bassman? Why you tryin to reinvent the wheel, dummy?
Website: http://ballseffects.com/
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Re: Gear you HATE

5 by losthighway
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.
When I used to take a lot of studio work from local bands I had a handful of clients who played Orange amps. At the time folks didn't have tons of money to throw at gear so it had that familiar vibe of a working man who poured hard earned savings into a muscle car that is his finest possession (something many of us can relate to in our way).

I can vividly remember two of these Orange rigs being typical played live at a floor rattling volume that threatened the audibility of the drums. The guitarists always found the tonal presence of the amp played into a mic and reproduced through monitors to be upsettingly underwhelming. Multiple mics and positions were auditioned and none of it came across as viscerally amazing as the guitarists' mental image of the amp. One went so far as to retrack rhythm parts through a Boss overdrive in an attempt to chase that high.

Aside from the volume differences I've never figured out why that particular amp had that disconnect. I suspect it is something of a low mid emphasis in the amp that is physically satisfying in the room but lacks clarity in a mix. That balance of the guitar tone as part of an ensemble might not be apparent to someone feeling their black denim rippling in the sound waves.

Re: Gear you HATE

7 by TylerDeadPine
Dr Tony Balls wrote: Sat Oct 22, 2022 8:20 am OOOOH this thread is gonna serve like a void that I can scream into every time I see something stupid. Until that happens, i'll just comment on Tyler's stuff...

Acoustasonic - I dont HATE them, per se, but the execution is bad. The aesthetics are close to good but a little too stylized. The forearm rounding, stupid knobs, boring looking pickup....it's all so "contemporary" that it looks stupid. They should have had a big picture of a Danelectro convertible in the design room to remind them not to get too dumb. Also an adjustable bridge would be cool? They sound okay for what they are....more a convenient live tool than an instrument for recording.

That Milk Thing - No clue what it does, but i'll research it and respond. For now though, the knobs suck.

Orange - UGH. Some are better than others but overall they're pretty generic. The thing that kills me though is that dont make the classic Orange circuit. That shit is one of the few truly unique classic circuits out there and they're cool and sound great, why the shit arent you making them?

That last point actually holds true for most legacy companies. Marshall, why do you only make the 1987 as a "vintage reissue" amps that is very expensive? That should be a staple, and you should make simple variations around it that will be instant classics. Fender, why the hell is the Blues Junior not just a 15 watt AB165 Bassman? Why you tryin to reinvent the wheel, dummy?
You hit these on the absolute head - Maybe that's why orange drives me so nuts.I've always wondered about car companies too, why not reissue a trim-perfect 60s mustang instead of re-doing it with a modern 'edge'.

And the acoustasonic knobs! I don't like them either. The acoustasonic I think could have been a lot worse, it's close to good - I think it's the marketing that got to me. So many wide brimmed desert hats just grooving and it was all.the.time. The pomp and ego of it all that when I finally picked one up I was like 'this?'.
Owen wrote: The classic Orange circuit might be my favorite amp of all time, of all the modern Orange stuff the only thing that I actually dig, is their solid state stuff.
I agree there! we have a CR120H that was left in our practice space and it's serviceable
losthighway wrote: Sat Oct 22, 2022 9:16 am
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.
When I used to take a lot of studio work from local bands I had a handful of clients who played Orange amps. At the time folks didn't have tons of money to throw at gear so it had that familiar vibe of a working man who poured hard earned savings into a muscle car that is his finest possession (something many of us can relate to in our way).

I can vividly remember two of these Orange rigs being typical played live at a floor rattling volume that threatened the audibility of the drums. The guitarists always found the tonal presence of the amp played into a mic and reproduced through monitors to be upsettingly underwhelming. Multiple mics and positions were auditioned and none of it came across as viscerally amazing as the guitarists' mental image of the amp. One went so far as to retrack rhythm parts through a Boss overdrive in an attempt to chase that high.

Aside from the volume differences I've never figured out why that particular amp had that disconnect. I suspect it is something of a low mid emphasis in the amp that is physically satisfying in the room but lacks clarity in a mix. That balance of the guitar tone as part of an ensemble might not be apparent to someone feeling their black denim rippling in the sound waves.
I remember playing with those guys often, and at the time how obnoxious they were in getting their amp covers on/off their expensive amps on stage and taking forever to set up / tear down - being mad if anyone asked them to move their gear before they left it on stanby for 20 minutes to 'cool down'. And they sounded shitty. I remember how clean and bright and yeah something about the low mids, maybe too much low end .. I don't know what it was - too much compression in the amp overall, but just mush. So many people had them.
Last edited by TylerDeadPine on Sat Oct 22, 2022 9:49 am, edited 2 times in total.

Re: Gear you HATE

8 by thecr4ne
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. More broadly I feel this way about effects. Amp overdrive and reverb are more than enough for me to get weird with, and no amount of other weirdness is going to make up for my deficiencies as a musician.

Re: Gear you HATE

9 by TylerDeadPine
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. More broadly I feel this way about effects. Amp overdrive and reverb are more than enough for me to get weird with, and no amount of other weirdness is going to make up for my deficiencies as a musician.
No, you rule keep this up - I like pedals and I'm still with you, they're dumb!
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