Buying equipment, recording with it, then returning

[Uladyne]

I've heard stories of people actually buying a studio's worth of gear, making an album, then returning it on one of those 30 day money back guarantee things. Kind of an extravagant way of renting gear. Thoughts on this?

I don't have a single coil pup guitar but I'd really like to get a bit of that thin twang for a few parts on an upcoming project.

 

[MarcusGHedwig]

Are you planning on doing this online? Cuz if you were gonna do it at a GC, for example, I have to say, as a radio shack employee (AKA retail position where a large part of the income is through commission), I've come to loathe the whole "rental" thing, as we lose the commission on returned items - however, we charge a 15% restocking fee on most big-ticket item returns (unless they're defective of course) to discourage such behavior, so I'd imagine that if GC corp has half a brain they do the same (and for that matter musicians friend as well). But yeah, have mercy on your local salesman

 

[Notuern]

Yeah, if you decide to do it, dont do it at the local music store.. pick some bigger corporation that can take the hit.
I work in a small music store, and if someone pulled one of those on us, we would probably have to take a loan to pay of the rent for the store.. not cool at all.

 

[Uladyne]

If I were to do it, it would be from an online store and would probably be for a really cheap guitar, as that's the sound I'm going for. Ideally, it would be cool if I could find a friend that I could swap guitars with for a week or two. I don't want to cause anyone distress.

 

[egan.]

I've definitely done that at guitar center in a pinch before. It isn't the most ethical thing in the world. But it works.
That said, if you just want a single coil guitar buy a strat off craigslist and sell it for what you paid for it.

 

[Nebulous]

Don't you have any stores that let you properly rent a guitar for a short period of time?
We have a few shops around here where you can rent a USA strat, LP Special, Jackon etc for less that $200 for a week!

 

[Melb_shredder]

I tend to borrow gear off friends before doing this... Ever I just don't feel right about it :s

 

[Ermz]

I'm not the kind of person who'd be comfortable doing this. Like Chris, the first option would be to see if I can borrow or loan a guitar off friends or acquaintances.

 

[Nebulous]

Since the Aussies have tuned in, do you guys even think the shops around here would let you return a guitar after a few days/ week if it wasn't defective?

 

[StefTD]

I had to do it for our "prom night"-we had a budget of like 400€, just a few old pa speakers,
but no poweramp and mixer and many other things. Checked every rental service for 3 weeks
in our area, and the cheapest one wanted 500€ for renting his smallest pa for 2 days.
So I just bought the cheapest 4 channel poweramp, got a 16 channel mixer from a friend,
bought the cheapest pair of drum mics and a few cables.
It was such a pain in the ass to set everything up, but it sounded pretty good (it was a big hall
with 500people in there).

Ordered everything at Music Store, called them 3 days later and told them that I want to send
the stuff back, no problem at all and another 2 days later they had that poweramp for 15€ less
on their website (just one-it said "retoure").
I didn't want to do it, but it was the only way to get a pa for us, not sure if I would do it again, I don't think so.

 

[aortizjr]

I have considered doing this, but have always found another way. Usually it is modifying or working with what I currently have. But then I have turned to borrowing from friends or doing rentals.

For something like a "cheap strat sound" I would probably first try to do some pre-EQ and an amp sim which is typically thinner sounding anyway. Then maybe use AcmeBarGig's pickup emulator thing. Then try the pickup simulator in my RP500, or other MFX box I have.

And of course try drastic EQ and compression and other tube sims or compressors driven really hard and such.

Then I would probably manually coil tap if it wasn't switchable since most pickups worth half a crap have that option if all the above didn't work.

Most of the time for something like this, it is more of a special effect, not something the foundation of tone is on. Who would want a "cheap strat" be the foundation anyway? So just getting something in the ballpark typically gets the job done and sounds just fine. Even a raw real sound of something like this takes a bit of work to get it to sit in the mix anyway, so it becomes a bastardization of the original tone anyway.

So there ya go, lots of workarounds.

 

[Uladyne]

Those are some good tips. I just remembered I have one of those Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster pedals laying around somewhere, and it has a switch that is supposed to make a single coil sound like a humbucker, and I may have read somewhere that it can also be used to make a humbucker sound a bit more like a single coil. Just need to find that bastard, haha.

 

[Notuern]

Since the Aussies have tuned in, do you guys even think the shops around here would let you return a guitar after a few days/ week if it wasn't defective?

Well, at least its possible in most shops here in Sweden!

 

[Nebulous]

Hot damn. I'm moving to Sweden.

Ant place that's more laid back than Oz has to be good.

 

[slashvanyoung]

If you do this, always check the t&c and return policies or Karma might bite you in the ass. Especially if you want to rely on extended return options and periods that exceed the mandatory ones.