The joy of tinkering...

vasselmeyer

Following the thread from @Gassage on selling his G2 he and I had a brief exchange of PMs which led me to ponder on the subject of "messing with stuff".

Most of us tinker way WAY more than we play. I gig regularly but regular 2 x 50 min sets plus 10 mins for an encore is less than 2hrs per week. The rest of the time I generally have my gear and pedals spread all over the floor of my home office (as below) just messing about.

This mess came about because I feel the need to simplify my board because I'm the sole guitarist in my current band which has quite a wide range of materiel and I've ended up doing a lot of tap-dancing plus backing vocals. I decided to build a switcher-based board. What I thought would be quick has ended up with me cutting up and reassembling Gorm shelves, soldering new patch cables and ordering all sorts of little parts like new pancake jacks, velcro strips and bags of zip ties. I've spend ages making little diagrams and working out how I'll program patches based on our current set list. It has been enormous fun. Just as much fun, in fact, as gigging.

But when I think about it, my grandad was the same. He spent hours and hours messing about under the bonnet of his old car. I have a neighbour who builds small fully-working steam locomotives in his garden workshop. I have friends in the US who mess about building and modding their guns (don't start...it's just an example).

What the hell is it with us? It's bloody great fun though...

Gassage

Here's the thing, and excuse one part being a little arrogant even for me

Dan and I are very good friends. Hell, I got him the Unobtainium ticket ofr a first day Ashes ticket for Lords.

When I got rid of all the PC stuff, I felt it, as people DO look at my boards on all the forums, that I kind of wanted to promotethe G2 and to try it out. It's fucking brilliant but it adds a layer of complexity that a) I don't actually need and is a huge distraction anyway b) I only use it in stomp box mode hich defeat th object and, here's the killer- out of my 8 pedals on my board 5 have an extra stomp or toggle orboth for speed, boost, another OD satge whatever. So I need to stomp on them anyway!!

I would add that I spend enough time with tinkering as it is and sometimes it's nice to play!

Add to that, I have always purported that inline buffered simplicity suits me. My rigs, though daunting, are so simple in signal path.

I want to add- that during the post-Pete journey, the stomps and dirt boxes I have discovered have astonished me. Not a bad one in them, even the SOV and KOT which I'm flogging, only because I prefer the Gunshot over them both. The SOV in particular- well if you need one OD pedal on a board that should be it.

The crown princes of this journey have been the Muffroom, which I could not gush about more if I tried, and the surpise package, the Tim, which I love (and I don't like Timmys- I find the tim more tranparent and smoother.)

It's been fun.

Wait til the new plan comes together I trust you it's bloody simple (although interfacing the TC in stereo is proving an issue)

I am also now in a position where I'm not wedded to a brand so I can experiment.

WezV

vasselmeyer said:

But when I think about it, my grandad was the same. He spent hours and hours messing about under the bonnet of his old car. I have a neighbour who builds small fully-working steam locomotives in his garden workshop. I have friends in the US who mess about building and modding their guns (don't start...it's just an example).

What the hell is it with us? It's bloody great fun though...

my Grandad was the same, he had a pit in his garage and was constantly working on cars.

He used to repair piano's as he drove his blind brother aroudn to tune them, when he retired he fully rebuilt an old pianola, and he told me he tried to build a tenor guitar too - although it ended up in the fire

paulnb57

Like you, I love tinkering with guitars and stuff, my only name guitars are an 06 Gibson Melody Maker Les Paul Jr and a Michael Messer Lightning Resonator, the rest are partscasters a GSP Thinline Strat and a GSP LPJr, the partscasters are probably worth more as parts than as a whole, but thats not the point, they are enormous fun, tear 'em apart strip, repaint, reconfigure all the bullshit, its great! If I dropped a bitsa down the stairs I wouldn't care, if it broke it would be an opportunity, not a disaster, fucking love it, hell, I even build my own amp from an Ampmaker kit......

Paul

Roland

We, well some of us, like to understand things, and tinkering with them is a way of finding out. I also like problem solving, modding, building, or just reconfiguring is a pleasant series of challenges.

GuyBoden

Roland said:

We, well some of us, like to understand things, and tinkering with them is a way of finding out. I also like problem solving, modding, building, or just reconfiguring is a pleasant series of challenges.

Yes, I agree, by "tinkering" you gain an understanding of how things function and maybe how they could possibly be improved.