Friends that are gear-retarded (You know, that one friend worships the metal zone)

Lowberg

Lowberg

Member
Aug 26, 2004
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Rochester, NY
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I want to bang my head against the wall when friends buy crap gear or are very misinformed.

I know its not normal to be gear nuts like us, but damn! Please take my advice when you say you are buying a 80's peavey cab with 6 speakers and tweeters and INSIST that it's the ultimate guitar cab.


Do any of you feel this way about some of your friends?
 
I usually rage out when I hear a guitarist say they want to add a subwoofer to their guitar rig.

Hands down the dumbest idea in existence. Buying and using a metal zone and sonic max is smarter.

Also, there are situations where the metal zone could be cool... but not often haha.
 
Yep. I know the feeling. One buddy of mine, years ago, asked for me to come to the local music store so he could get my advice on a half stack. He was looking at a shittttttttty Kustom 200W head and matching cab (some sort of Celestions in it, surprisingly). It didn't sound very good at all. The "Lead" channels gain had to be DIMED for it to have any sort of saturation. I straight up told him "I wouldn't buy it" and what does he do?!?! BUYS IT!!! He ran a shitty DOD multi FX unit in front of it for distortion, total shit settings (bass making the speakers WOOF like mad, no mids, not enough treble to cut through a mix). GAHHHH!!!!

This was right around the time when friends/local band members are saying how me and our other guitarist had the most crushing and cutting tone, and "HOW DO YOU GET THAT TONE?!?!" "Amp distortion, man.....amp distortion from a good amp".

Dude in above scenario now has a Mesa Dual Recto and 4x12 Recto cab. He was ranting and raving about how awesome the tone was and how he can actually play better and have a more defined tone. Now I'm trying to talk him into getting a TS....haha!!
 
Another dude comes to mind......Dude was rocking a 5150. Apparently, he spilled (multiple) beers that were SETTING ON TOP OF THE HEAD down into the vent. I guess he didn't bother to check the tubes. But "the amp's not working right, so I'm running it on the Lead channel with the gain on 10 and a distortion pedal in front of the amp to get the amount of distortion I need"...... =/

Then, said amp just stops working. I offered to take it home, try to fix it, and buy it off dude. Get it home, open it up - at least 2 of the power tubes were cracked and broken. Totally fucked. Popped in new tubes and replaced the main fuse - good as new.

Some people......

I have had my share of mistakes. I once ran my Mark IV SPEAKER OUT (instead of recording out) into a buddies old reel-to-reel and fried one of the input channels.
 
One of my friend prefer using POD 2.0 preamp than Marshall JCM 900 preamp.

Also he prefer using Cort guitar, agathis body equipped with EMG HZ than MIJ les paul equippped with EMG. He more care bout the "look" than "sound".

His tone it's so muddy, this because he prefer using neck pickup for playing heavy rhythm.

but he's still my goddamn friend :)
 
Alright so the metal zone. I know some of you guys find the metalzone useful as a OD or even as a distortion for your tube amp, i guess the sweepable para mid thing is cool.

But Im talking about the kid whos like "DUDE A BOSS METALZONE IS THE MAGIC PEDAL". I knew a kid who was new to guitar, he had a decent job so he was able to afford good gear even as a beginner. He bought a krank krankenstein and then went out and bought a metalzone pedal after because he insisted that the MT2 would have better distortion...

And im not even like trying to sound like Im a gear know it all, Im trying to warn them...I admit! We've all been there! I remember when I was 15 I got a metalzone and thought I could nail Master of Puppets tone with it and I thought It was the coolest thing on the planet!

I just feel bad for my friends when im like "dude, ive been there, ive done that. Dont make the same mistake as me!" lol
 
delayshifter said:
His tone it's so muddy, this because he prefer using neck pickup for playing heavy rhythm.

but he's still my goddamn friend :)
Click to expand...

In one of my previous bands, the guitarist always used his neck pickup for main rhythm tones. Just nasty!!! Same guy "misplaced" a Peavey 4x12 I had let at his house after we moved on without him. Yeah, because 100 lb. speaker cab just gets up and walks away on its own.....
 
I have this friend who is a guitar teacher. His idea of great guitar sound comes down to a Zoom GFX-5.

When he dials in a "distorted" sound I cover my ears in shame.
 
meh, who cares, everyone has a path to travel to find what they like, grow onto liking other stuff... pretty silly to rage over someone wanting a shitty tone at their point in life.

besides, i've heard good rigs sound like ass, and cooky rigs sound like gold
 
xFkx said:
meh, who cares, everyone has a path to travel to find what they like, grow onto liking other stuff... pretty silly to rage over someone wanting a shitty tone at their point in life.

besides, i've heard good rigs sound like ass, and cooky rigs sound like gold
Click to expand...

It took me about 2 years to finally realize my Mark IV was NOT broken. :guh:

I thought something was wrong with the individual channels EQ, not knowing how the EQ on these amps works. Took it to 2 techs. They both claimed it was fine, though the one tech returned my amp with power tubes swapped in such a manner.... 6L6 - EL34 - 6L6 - EL34
and I didn't realize till I got it home. I about flipped!!! Who does that?!?!

But yeah, I had paid like $1,400 for this Mesa Mark IV and had the bass knob cranked to like 8 and wondered why it sounded funny. Learned to dial the bass back to about 2, and :) Kick myself in the ass!!!
 
Loren Littlejohn said:
I usually rage out when I hear a guitarist say they want to add a subwoofer to their guitar rig.

Hands down the dumbest idea in existence. Buying and using a metal zone and sonic max is smarter.

Also, there are situations where the metal zone could be cool... but not often haha.
Click to expand...

There's a particular forum board I'm sure we all know of where guys ask about sub woofers to their rig.
"Hey guys, I'm thinking of adding a 15 inch speaker cab to my rig and I use 8 string guitars, do you think that would work well?"

Yes, that's going to sound great, adding a bunch more low end frequencies that aren't even remotely conducive to a workable and reasonable guitar tone
:rolleyes:
 
hey I bought I Digitech Metalmaster when I started out, cause I didn't like the TSL Combo of my father. Since I still don't dig the Marshall I guess that was only half a fail though.
 
OT regarding sub woofers: one of my favourite albums has a marshall mode 4 through 2 warwick 1x15s and some Engl through a marshall cab. Guitar signal is split before the amps, not double tracked.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
A good friend of mine got fed up with his old solid state crap amp. "I'm gonna buy a new amp, probably a 5150, and then all I need is a great distortion pedal." :lol:
 
bryan_kilco said:
It took me about 2 years to finally realize my Mark IV was NOT broken. :guh: ... But yeah, I had paid like $1,400 for this Mesa Mark IV and had the bass knob cranked to like 8 and wondered why it sounded funny. Learned to dial the bass back to about 2, and :) Kick myself in the ass!!!
Click to expand...
I assume you are referring to the tonestack being before the distortion/second preamp tube. Yeah... it's explained in the manual though, but who reads those? :D I have a Studio Preamp and if all three knobs (bass, mid, treble) are turned to zero, there is no sound at all. Not sure if this was the case with Mark IV.
 
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