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Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
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interesting stuff regarding GAS, collecting / restoring bits and pieces and that this essentially being a spin-off hobby in it's own right..
I don't often get the GAS itches to scratch.. being a leftie I'm devoid of much guitar choice.. and running through multi-FX preamps for that last 20 years means I've never really found stomps interesting.. I guess that's cos all my fx needs are catered for in the box.. I just carve my own tones and then crack on..
something has just occured to me.. I wonder how much I've spent on my rig over the last 10 or 20 years compared to someone with a traditional rig? I know my rig right now is quite expensive [looking at it as a whole], but over the longer term, not adding / swapping out amps and cabs, collecting stomps etc.. maybe it's not quite so costly.. possibly it's roughly the same or maybe even less.. cos it just is what it is and don't need adding to.. and at least in my case, it kills of the GAS urges..
another thing that's quite interesting is that once I've dialling in my tones, I don't touch them again.. the job's done.. and although one of the biggest criticisms of rack units is all the fiddling about.. in the long term, having a rack system most likely means less fiddling about because most folks with stomps that I've seen don't ever leave them alone.. even during a gig.. so it's becoming clear to me that the "I hate all that fiddling about" has less to do with setting up tones and general tweakery and more to do with navigating the user interface ["all them menu's and buttons and dials and stuff"].. thing is... with a dozen stomps, you'll have 30 or 40 [or more] tone controlling knobs / switches etc.. the only difference is that they're all laid out in front of you.. so the sheer number of controls can't be the scary bit or you'd be even more daunted at the sight of your own pedalboard..
one thing that is nice with the modern rack units are the PC / Mac based editors.. they are real nice and friendly.. personally I particularly liked the VG-99 editor.. it's super intuitive to use and brilliantly designed..
the whole point of rack effects is being able to store presets that contain all your tonal / behavioural requirements.. single stomp to change tone.. consistent.. and never having to fiddle on the fly or river-dance over your pedalboard..
so the "don't like all that fiddling and pfaff", is actually completely untrue once your fx unit has been completely set up and is ready for gigs..
EDIT: I'm not saying my way is the best / only way at all. I'm just saying that the arguments stating that it's a bad way are not making sense to me.
there are two completely seperate passtimes going on here.. lol..
seriously, this has never occured to me before..
and I'll also concede that my initial transition from amp / stomps to a rack unit [Roland GP-16 back then] was a bumpy one
but I saw the potential and so stuck with it.. eventually the user interface becomes 2nd nature and you don't even think about it..
from that point on I stayed with rack units.. and I only ever changed them because something newer, better sounding, more capable came out.. so since 1992, I've had just 4 different units [GP-16, 2120, VG-99, Axe-FX II] and each was a major improvement over the last
I think I said much earlier - buying an AxeFx would reduce the faff to a level - I'd be forced to address the content of my playing - if you're a musician playing gigs that step probably passed unremarkably.
The problem at this stage with making the step is I'd have to sell everything to justify buying an AxeFX which is a hell of a gamble... about 3-4 items on my posh board are no longer in production .. at some level the pedals are currently holding their value (and I suspect will for a decade or so longer) so selling the pedals to buy and AxeFx and then returning to the pedals would be a bit of a financial loss and a time-consuming job tracking down replacements.
Because there will be hardware updates that devalue it.. which, I'll be honest, worries me more than "will real amps devalue more if the next generation of modelling gear sounds closer?" ... "will this generation of modelling gear devalue more if the next generation of modelling gear sounds closer?" - that's a given... at least the amps intrinsically are the perfection trying to be achieved.
I don't see this as affecting Clarky too much as he's using the platform to it's fullest and exploring the performance possibilities outside of reproduction ... it'll be people like him and Drew who create new patches that people buy the modeller for in years to come... because it intrinsically is the same thing they used.
No need for tweakable params and menus. Just a digital amp that indistinguishable in looks and sounds from a valve amp. Only then will valve amps be obsolete.