The cost of tone-chasing

Dec 11, 2017 | Talking about gear | 0 comments

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” –Mark Twain
 
I love the quote above because I’ve found it’s true in most cases when it comes to musical experiences and gear. There are bands I saw in concert that I’d never get to see again, and there were guitars/pedals/amps that I have been able to snag over the years for an insane price that I lucked into. Still to this day I’m glad I decided to take a risk on it. On the flip side, I’ve been burned more times than I can count because I made a bad judgment call and either had to backpedal because I spent too much too quickly, or bought something thinking I had a deal and it ended up being a loss (time and money). But, it’s hard to beat the trusted wisdom learned from hands-on experience. For me, I’ve always learned the hard way with everything, including gear. So, the question comes down to the chase for tone, and what’s the ultimate end goal? Is there some grand, elaborate dream setup that we’re all collectively chasing on an individual level, or is it more than that? I’ll refer to my own experiences with this, hoping that some will identify with it or hopefully use it as an example of “Well at least I’m not THAT bad.”
 
My GAS and the lust to for chasing tone started out fairly casually at 16, two years after I started playing guitar. I originally wanted to sound like Eric Clapton when I started playing, but in my freshman year of high school, my cousin (who I rode to school with) introduced me to Incubus. I was hooked, and the chase was on. If you’ve ever seen a picture of Mike Einziger’s pedalboard, you’ll notice that he doesn’t shy away from using a multitude of tools at his disposal. I didn’t have a lot of money, so I started out with the Ibanez Tone-Lok pedals for phaser, flanger and a couple of other things I don’t recall, and a Danelectro Fab Tone. Those suited me for a while, and I slowly added some more pedals or subbed some out as we went along. The Metal Zone was soon on there, and I thought it kicked ass… Regardless, my intentions were pure, and my focus was more on learning and playing rather than effects. 
 
Later in high school, I developed a love of the sound of Marshall amps, and my graduation present was a Marshall AVT150 and a 1960A 4×12” cab. I was over the moon, and shelved most of my pedals for the sake of using the amp gain (which was sorely needed). I used that rig through college in various bands, and still focused on playing mainly more than tone chasing… mainly I’d say because I didn’t have any money to chase with. I would dream of owning various things, but again it was what felt like a faraway pipe dream. I eventually moved back home after college while working to save up, also was dating my high school sweetheart and planning a life together. I was working and contributing to the house, but I still had more money that I knew what to do with. That’s really where it TRULY started. During all of this time I had been on dialysis, so I had 4 hours, every other day to just sit. Trust me when I say you can only watch but so many movies, TV shows and listening to music so much before it gets old. Now multiply those 4 hours every other day times 24 years…you get my point. I wasn’t able to use my left arm, so the guitar wasn’t an option. Internet forums became my escape, places like TDPRI and TheGearPage, Facebook, etc. It was in these places that I started cutting my teeth on better gear, reading and absorbing and my curiosity growing every day. That’s what started my path down the rabbit hole.
 
I started off small, with my very first “boutique” pedal being a Keeley-modded Boss TR-2 tremolo. I fell in love with it and realized that maybe there were better sounding options than I had known about before. My second boutique pedal was a Lovepedal Kalamazoo, also another pedal that sounded phenomenal and was outside of the run-of-the-mill stuff available at my local Guitar Center or Sam Ash. My third boutique pedal pushed me over the edge completely, and that was the Paisley Drive, from Wampler Pedals. I was on a HUGE Brad Paisley kick at the time (see previous blogs), and that was the exact sound I was looking for going through my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. It was so good in fact that I sold my AVT150 to fund more pedals. Next up were the Pinnacle and the Ego Compressor, followed by the Analog Echo. The cycle continued until I had a board full of boutique pedals, lusting for more and needing a bigger board. Looking back, I had time to kill because my wife (newly married) was working 12-hour shifts at the hospital every other weekend, and I was bored and loved experiencing new sounds.
 
Since that time, I’ve been chasing tone, obscenely. There was a period from 2012-2014 that I’m particularly not proud of, where I was buying and selling and flipping pedals faster than I could keep track of. It gained me a TON of experience and knowledge in so many ways, but it took a toll on the wallet. As time has gone on, I’ve tried to reign it in some, but GAS always rears it’s ugly head when new stuff comes out. It’s just so easy to go browse Reverb.com and look at gear, and that “make an offer” button is going to be the death of me. I’ve made crazy low-ball offers before expecting to immediately be turned down, and the seller turns around and accepts my offer. I’ve also sold stuff for less than I wanted to to get a quick sale. I’ve found in general with Reverb that if you want to sell fast, of course, you want to sell cheap. I refuse to add up how much money I could have potentially gotten due to not holding out for a better offer because GAS had taken its tolls and made me lust for another piece of gear.
 
To summarize, Gear Acquisition Syndrome truly is a thing, and it’s the excitement of the purchase, the unknown, dreaming about the tones that could or could not be unlocked from the new piece of gear. But all of those things don’t just cost money. I’ve spent a LOT of wasted time browsing for gear, watching YouTube videos for gear I lusted for, etc. I’ve recently had to put the phone down because I noticed I would be in a restaurant or at a holiday party or kid’s birthday party and browsing for gear or talking on forums or Facebook or Instagram instead of having face-to-face interactions. 
 
My main goal with this blog is that I hope someone else out there will identify with my thought processes or path on the pursuit of tone, and they don’t get to the point where I was with taking financial risks and neglecting the important things in life. At the same time, there are experiences that I have had and things I’ve tried that I had only dreamt of. The key is BALANCE. It took me quite a long time to find mine, but I at least feel like I’m in the ballpark.
 
 

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