The cyclical grind of buying gear
If you’ve read through any of my previous gear posts, 1. I’m amazed you’re reading this one and 2. you’ll be wondering why I’ve not visited the doctors to get some prescription drugs for my illness.
This post is probably no different, but if you’ll allow me to indulge in the notion that this might well be the last real switch of direction, at least in the next 12 months, but hopefully in the long term, too.
In 2020 I amassed a large collection of my dream pedals and amps that I’d dreamt about owning since I was a teenager. I’d also built a strong (read, overkill) collection of my favourite guitars and was in a strong place to record things.
In September 2020, I came back down to earth with a bump. The financial uncertainty of the coming months and years hit us as a family and I’d gone out of my way to build not only a home for my family but also, pushing way beyond my means in order to satisfy my craving for the ultimate guitar setup. It was nonsensical and dreamland thinking that I could sustain multiple finance deals at the same time, whilst continuing to pay a mortgage and various loans. Things had to change.
That meant selling everything. Absolutely everything and it broke me to do so, but I knew it was the right thing to do for my family. All the amps and pedals went and I was left with the one guitar that I felt was my pride and joy. They all were, but my Candy Apple Red ’57 reissue Fender Stratocaster was one that I’d let go once before and I wasn’t prepared to lose it again.
Lost.
I was lost. No comforts around me and my studio had become just an echo-laden shell where all my belongings used to be. It brought a sense of sadness and to some extent, grief, when I walked into the room.
After the sale, I held enough money back to purchase a humbucker equipped guitar and a Fractal Axe FX III.
I purchased a PRS Custom 22 in the hope that it would allow me to get the tones of the Custom 24 and the Les Paul I had to sell. I spent most of the time battling with it to make it sound like a Les Paul, it didn’t and I blamed that not only on the PRS, but the Axe FX too, which was a mistake. The Axe FX couldn’t make a PRS sound like a Les Paul, not the nuances I was looking for anyway.
Within months, I’d swapped the PRS for a Gibson Les Paul Standard and a Fender Broadcaster. But still, I couldn’t achieve the results I wanted, so I sold the Axe FX. By this time, things were getting a bit surreal and my plans were a mess, but it got worse…
In the interim, I somehow managed to fund a Mezzabarba MZero Overdrive. Similarly to the PRS, I hoped that it’d be a single solution that solved all of my needs — clean and dirt. It sounded great but it didn’t solve all my needs.
I then moved on to a Victory Copper Deluxe for the same reasons. But I was scared away by having to relearn an amplifier and what worked with it and what didn’t, pedal-wise. The plan was to rebuild a smaller setup around that amp, but I got cold feet. It was one of the nicest sounding amps I’d tried, I fell in love with its single channel simplicity.
I don’t think I was in the correct mindset for any of the gear I bought back then. Reading this account back, it saddens me. It sounds like a ridiculous horror story of indulgence and greed. At the time, it felt like I was missing so much of my prized posessions and I was simply clawing back what I could to salvage some of what I had before.
Hats off to Andertons, they helped me with my troubles with the PRS and they took back the Victory Copper, too.
The truth is, I didn’t like the Custom 22 and it felt neither like my old Custom 24 or Les Paul R8 and certainly didn’t sound like either of them.
The Les Paul Standard I replaced it with was part-exchanged against a Caparison Horus, which I’d missed since I sold my old one to fund a family holiday in 2019. I still managed to keep the Strat, the Broadcaster and I fund a second hand Les Paul R8 similar to my old 2017 reissue. I had all the guitars at my disposal, I was only missing the amps and pedals.
My money was gone though, which gives you some kind of notion of what I personally value most in the amps vs. guitars debate…guitars, every time. Amp sounds can be achieved via various means.
I needed a new sense of purpose that would allow me to rekindle that passion for music. So I went about prioritising what I needed to enable me to record music. I explored the only things I could afford…plugins.
Purpose.
I spent the following 10–12 months enjoying tones with various plugins. IK Multimedia’s Amplitube 5, Brainworx Dirty Shirley and some of Nembrini’s amps, namely the Vox inspired ‘Voice DC30’ which sounded great for cleans and Amplitube’s free Marshall JCM 800 was my go to dirty tone. I had good results with their Mesa Dual Rectifier for high gain tones, too.
I use TC Electronic’s 2290 delay plugin, Eventide’s Blackhole reverb and Valhalla’s Vintage Verb…it’s like having a bunch of Strymon pedals in my mac, they’re superb and hugely inspiring.
As a result, 2021 was my most productive time as a musician, creator and seemingly, wannabe-engineer. By August, just months after selling all my gear and merely weeks after that horrific show of in’s and out’s, described above, I’d actually produced a song, one step away from mastering. I was proud of myself for a change and happy I’d achieved something musical for the first time in seemingly decades. For once, the gear was not the focus, the creation was.
Cyclical.
The feeling of pride soon turned to anxiety and imposter syndrome was real. I doubted my output and soon after receieving some (solicited) critical feedback and my mind switched from music production to the gear I didn’t have to make it sound better.
This is the journey I’ve gone through, but I’d imagine that it’s not too disimilar to other musicians or guitarists in general. Perhaps some of you reading this can relate, to some extent, whether it’s that feeling of loss when you’ve sold something that you’ve treasured or thought you didn’t need. This has been my biggest downfall, as you may have read from previous accounts, including this one.
Or maybe you’ve tried creating something and thought “I could really do with this guitar or this amp or this pedal for this song” and then the song is left on the shelf until the aquisition of that piece of gear is in your stead. Then perhaps you get your hands on it and time passes you by and that song you “needed” it for never gets finished anyway. This, again, is something I’ve fallen victim of.
It’s all cyclical and at some point, we must break out of that habit to liberate ourselves and start achieving our goals as musicians, creators, guitarists and as human beings.
Things are changing for me though, but not before one last (hopefully) hurrah before seeing the light…
