Guitar Gear

About GoofyDawg…

Welcome to GuitarGear.org!

So… Who really is GoofyDawg? Well, let’s take apart the name, shall we?

Goofy – ridiculous; silly; wacky; irreverent
Dawg - an affectation for being flamboyant, ballsy, bold – but not arrogant (or at least I try very hard not to be)

Seriously, GoofyDawg is just a name I made up a long time ago to use as a handle and maintain my anonymity at the time, and it stuck because of my irreverent and mischievous manner. My real name is Brendan Delumpa. By day, I’m a professional web developer (please don’t confuse this with web designer – I’m a hard-core coder, not a graphics person). My nights and weekends are spent composing and playing music.

I started GuitarGear.org because I wanted to share my passion for my favorite instrument and because I love to experiment with all sorts of different gear related to guitar, be it effect boxes, recording equipment, what have you. I also wanted to share a bit of my personal philosophy of music in general.

Like others, I’m on a journey with music in my life – especially as that music pertains to playing guitar. I’m sharing that journey in the hopes that you’ll in turn, share your own. Rock on!!!!

It’s all about tone…

I’ve been playing guitar for over 35 years, and while I don’t even hope to be a virtuoso at improvisation, I do know tone, and to shape your tone, you need gear, hence the name of this site. Over the years, I’ve waffled between having lots of gear to playing pretty bare-bones (frankly, it has been mostly bare-bones). But no matter what equipment I had been playing, it always has boiled down to getting the tone that pleases me the most for a particular time in my life. Like many, I’ve gone through several phases in my musical tastes, and the tones I wanted to produce have changed as well. All in all though, I’ve gained a lot of experience and insight into shaping my tone, and I put this blog together to discuss my experiences and insights, plus share reviews of equipment and places I’ve been.

About the Gear I Review

I spend hours each week poring over the Internet and reading rags looking for all sorts of gear. I don’t consider it work because this kind of searching has become somewhat of a hobby for me. Now you’ll notice that most of the gear that I review is rarely “mainstream” gear. But by the same token, it’s not necessarily “boutique” gear either; at least from the standpoint of “boutique” meaning high-priced. Really what I’m after in guitar gear is stuff that I, as a regular joe-shmoe guitarist, can reasonably afford. You’ll sometimes see some high-end items like Reason Amps, but those are more exceptions rather than the rule, and at least in the case of Reason Amps, they are relatively unknown; which explains why you don’t see brands like Carr, Buddha, and BadCat here.

It’s funny, but I originally started GuitarGear.org on the premise of evaluating and reviewing nothing but affordable gear. But I quickly found that impractical because I’ve run across and evaluated a lot of affordable gear that was simply crap; and as I don’t give bad reviews, I found the prospect of going through all that too much time than I wanted to devote. So what I focus on is simply this: Gear that I think plays and sounds great. For the most part, it’s gear that’s within the reach of most guitarists because it’s gear that I’d add to my own rig, and the Lord knows I don’t have that much disposable cash. In rare cases, something may be really high-priced, but it sounds so good that I just have to write about it.

How I Rate Gear

People have asked what my criteria is for rating gear. While I use general qualities such as fit and finish, versatility, tone, build quality and the like, gear that gets high marks usually moves me in some way emotionally. After all, this is a personal blog, based upon my opinion that is further based upon my personal experience with the gear. I never set out to do reviews like the big magazines. I always wanted to add a personal touch – reviewing gear based upon how I’d use it, and gear that fits in well with the classic rock and bluesy styles of music that I write and play.

But all that said, on this site, you’ll rarely, if ever see a rating that is below 4 Tone Bones on my rating scale. There are a couple of reasons for this: First, I evaluate A LOT of gear, whether it’s sent to my home, or I go to a shop to try it out, and since I also work a fulltime job, plus regularly gig, I don’t have a lot of time to write. Secondly, since my time is limited, I only spend the time I do have to write about gear that I really like; gear that I would readily use in my rig. I have to be practical here, but I also don’t want to write a scathing review about gear that I think doesn’t measure up to my personal standards. After all, my views are, for all intents and purposes, subjective. I’m not an industry insider and really don’t have to play nice, but I choose to play nice because to me, it’s the right thing to do.

Advertising on GuitarGear.org

Recently, I’ve gotten a few inquiries from various folks who would like to put up a banner on my site, or do some sort of site partnership. I’m very careful about this because I want to avoid commercializing GuitarGear.org. But in answer to people’s questions about the banners that I do put up, I only put up banners (only two so far for Saint Guitars and Reason Amps) because I have a personal relationship with those folks, and I want to help them out. I may put up more on a special page on the site, but that remains to be seen.

In any case, for the gear makers that want to advertise on GuitarGear, all I normally require is that you send me some gear to evaluate. That opens the door to doing a banner. And to be fair, I really have to love what you’ve got. As I mentioned, I never write articles about gear that have a rating of less than a 4 because I want to kind of stick to a “best in class” mentality with my reviews. Going forward, I may start charging for ad space. In any case, just contact me at “goofydawg at guitargear.org.”

And since I’m not expecting to be paid any kickbacks, creating a relationship with a gear maker is really important to me.

-The Dawg-