Which mainstream amp/guit brand/type do you just don't 'get'?

stickyfiddle

I can see the argument with Marshalls but most of the old, pre-JCM800 ones are glorious. Blackstars are far worse for me. Dull cleans, duller drive. 

I also don't get Suhr and most PRS, though a really good McCarty can be lovely, it's still less nice than a decent Les Paul imo, so what's the point?

 I'd also add all Yamaha guitars. Pacificas used to be the go-to beginner recommendation when aquifers were shite, but since the Classic a Vibes were introduced I don't see the point in them at all. And SG2000s take the worst bits of an SG and Les Paul and make it into one convenient pile of ugly dull 70's flavoured meh.

I'm also not sure I really get P90s. I like them when other people use them but never got attached to a guitar with them. Ideally I'll disprove this once and for all at some point with an Elitist Casino.

p90fool

HAL9000;514630" said:

Grown men with ponytails Sports where points are awarded for artistic interpretation

'Best of' albums with previously-unreleased tracksCricket

The perfect list, are we brothers separated at birth?

Back on topic though, Les Pauls.
Way too heavy, clunky-feeling, too many knobs, crappy fret access, stupid "nibs", big fat mix-smothering sound which is cripplingly un-versatile, fragile headstock, expensive, lacquer which falls off if you look at it funny, plus endless other annoyances...

...but I just can't put it down, I've gigged nothing else for the last two years and since buying it I can't walk past it without picking it up. I'm like a teenager again - I sit there with my mouth open, pointlessly noodling away on guitar when I should be getting on with other things.

This is after 30-odd years as a Fender player almost exclusively. Don't get me wrong, at times I still have to fight its inherent "Les Paul-ness", but I still love it.

What I'm getting at is don't write any gear off, there may be music in there you didn't even know you liked or could ever play.

Gassage

HAL9000 said:

Cricket

Reported to mods.

Nerine

sweepy;514600" said:

Marshall JCM800 baffle me,

Defcon 2 activated.

breakstuff

JookyChap said:

Feel like a bandwagon jumpee, but..

Marshalls - Willing to admit my experience of them goes as far as Rich Bitch rehearsal rooms 20+ years ago, but my god they put me off for life. Horrible, toneless balls of noise. Yeurch.

Strats - As per @meltedbuzzbox - they look like they were an early prototype for something good-to-come that for some weird reason has hung in there. Pickups are woeful compared to a JM or Jag, trems instantly need upgrading to make them work properly (and I know that is what people say about the offsets but they are great when theirs are set-up right, the Strat ones are still shit) and well, Hank Marvin, Bontempi bollocks. I just see Clapton in Armani and what dentists used to play until they discovered...

PRS - Sound sterile, look silly and I just can't get with the idea that a guitar should be perfectly engineered and yet still say nothing to me. 

Name one good song that has a definitive guitar part that was played on some bird vagazzled lump of the rain forest?

Just one??

This one.

 

Edit-Yes I know Wes isn't playing a PRS in the video but it was definitely recorded on one. 

 Maybe.

>:D<

Grunfeld

mellowsun said:

'Super-strat' type guitars. Only muzak is ever played on them, they look shit and no one out of their teens should be seen with one. If you want humbuckers get a frigging Les Paul.

How we differ!  I love super-strats, RGs in particular because they are so versatile and you can play so many types of music on them, and the build quality has been superb on every one I've owned.  (I cannot stand shreddy guitar gymnastic playing though and never bother listening to anything like that.)

And my hate, my absolutely can't stand its look (but to be fair I'm okay with the sound although it's far from my favourite) :  Les Paul.
Ugly pieces.  Ugggh.  Even day-glo neon pink (which is a colour I love on guitars) but on a Les Paul it would still be ugly.

JookyChap

Nerine said:

I'd say that rather a lot of hit songs have been made using PRS's.

That's a daft argument.

Do you think?

Put it another way, PRS guitars have been around for 30 years now, and if I accept 'Smooth' as a classic, generously, that is one in three decades.

Compare it to the classic songs played on Strats between the same, first 3 decades of production - '54 to '84 or Les Pauls '52 to '82 - never mind the rest of Fender and Gibson's range...well, I don't really see PRS as overachieving. 

guitarfishbay

JookyChap said:

Nerine said:

I'd say that rather a lot of hit songs have been made using PRS's.

That's a daft argument.

Do you think?

Put it another way, PRS guitars have been around for 30 years now, and if I accept 'Smooth' as a classic, generously, that is one in three decades.

Compare it to the classic songs played on Strats between the same, first 3 decades of production - '54 to '84 or Les Pauls '52 to '82 - never mind the rest of Fender and Gibson's range...well, I don't really see PRS as overachieving. 

But those time periods aren't even comparable musically.

60s/70s/80s were the high points of rock guitar, and the 'guitar hero'.  

From the 90s onwards we've had way less 'guitar hero' and more 'guitarist in band'.

Since the 00s onwards technological advances have meant a) more music can be released (it is cheaper to do so) and b) there is a lot more choice for the listener via the internet than when the only choice was radio or HMV type stores.

Just look at major album sales, high sellers of each year are down by millions of copies vs when the music industry was more linear and 'controlled by the labels'...  I don't think there will be another Jimmy Page, or Hendrix, or Clapton, times have changed.

The only traditional style rock guitar hero I can think of in the past 2 decades is Mark Tremonti, and he does play a PRS, though he is known to use Gibsons in the studio as well.

Chalky

I get annoyed when I want to try a guitar in a shop and the only amp available is a Vox AC15 or 30. I've never got a decent sound out of one.

Bidley

Telecasters. The only ones worth looking at are the Customs with two humbuckers. The rest look like strats with Downs, sound ice-picky and painfully trebley, and are as comfortable to play as a coffee table.

Also, semi-hollow jazz box things. Too big, prone to feedback and look like a mutated cello. Although one thing they have in their favour, is that they're probably easy to smash to smithereens.

GavRichList

Bidley said:

Telecasters are as comfortable to play as a coffee table.

this part at least is definitely true. There is something about them though. I'll try another in about 5 years I expect. I'll like it, prefer my other guitars, then sell it.

LATHER. RINSE. REPEAT.

Hertz32

Vox sound rubbish to me, never understood them. I'll have a fender for cleans any day

 I dont get Tele's either. They just sound brittle to me and the radius puts me off

Ibanez grate because the neck is just a bit too thin for me to own one but i can get along with them in a shop.

Gretsch, friggin weird things that do nothing for me

Strat bridge pickups, i have to use it with the middle pup if its a sc. I'll probably end up with a HSS strat at some point.

ICBM

I prefer the way a Tele feels to a Strat. Nice and solid, chunky, stays where it's put. Strats slide about too much. Jazzmasters and Jaguars are the right way to do a contoured Fender .

Teles with a back contour are an abomination.

Sassafras

The shitty effects that come bundled with digital portastudios.

Phil_aka_Pip

Sassafras said:

Same as you. I've never understood Marshalls although I once borrowed a Bluesbreaker and that was rather nice.

I'm more a Fender man at heart.

The Bluesbreaker is a Bassman in a different cabinet with different speakers. With Marshall on the front

Phil_aka_Pip

miserneil said:

For me it's the Fender Telecaster. I just don't get it. To me they are uncomfortable to play and I don't like the sound of them. A weedy, jack of all trades, master of none vibe.

**Tin hat on.....**

My take ...

EDIT

Bigsbys

jellyroll

Was Fender for me. Then I got a CS strat.........

Voxman

Rickenbackers - ok for jangly byrds stuff but not for much else. I just don't get all the fuss about them or how pedantic some folk are re finishing/colouring. I don't like their necks, looks or tone.

And very low wattage bedroom amps - a bigger amp turned down is just so much nicer sounding.

Phil_aka_Pip

Voxman said:

And very low wattage bedroom amps - a bigger amp turned down is just so much nicer sounding.

You are ICBM and ICM £5

slate

All Les Pauls (except juniors) - for 30 years I've tried and tried with them,must've owned 20.
I just don't get it - to me they sound nasally,theyre heavy and unwieldy,limited upper fret access .
Give me an SG any day of the week :-)



I'll just take cover now.