Guitar Gear

In a reply I made in an earlier post, I mentioned that my buying spree with gear these past 10 years started with me getting a tube amp, namely my trusty Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. Once I got the Hot Rod, I started buying guitars, I started buying pedals and pedal boards, and I started buying amps. And it hasn’t stopped.

I stopped to think about what is it about a tube amps that made/makes me go into GAS attacks. I think it has to do with their individual quirks. For instance, between the time I got my Hot Rod and when I got my Aracom PRX150-Pro attenuator, I was REALLY big into getting overdrive pedals because I couldn’t play my amps loud enough to get them to their breakup point – and that’s pre-amp, not power amp breakup. So I had to use overdrive pedals to get my overdrive tone. Then I needed a delay, then I needed a chorus, then a vibe, etc., etc…. Then I decided that I wanted a more aggressive tone than a super-clean Fender, so I got my Aracom VRX22. It just didn’t stop. In a year, I spent tens of thousands on gear. Getting into Aracom Amps got me into the vintage Marshall sound. Some of my older pedals just didn’t work well with that tone so…. I had to get other pedals.

When I fell in love with the Les-Paul-through-a-Marshall-amp-tone, I started getting Les Pauls; to wit, I only have two, an R8 and a ’59 replica. But I’m still looking to get more LP’s such as an Les Paul Supreme (love that headstock logo).

I know, a bit convoluted… But it’s actually pretty simple. Tube amps or classes of tube amps have fairly distinct voices. Some pedals or guitars work with all those voicings, some pedals or guitars only work well with a certain type of amp voicing. Given that, I was compelled to buy and try gear that worked my guitar and amp combinations. “Compelled” is probably rather simplistic or even a bit misleading. But once I got into tube amps, I started getting compulsive about buying gear. I’d hear something then say, “Wow! That seems that it would work great in my rig.” Here comes the debit card…

Nowadays, though I still get the urge, I luckily don’t have the funds to make the big expenditures I did in the past. Life happens, and I’ve got to take care of other financial obligations that make buying new gear prohibitive. But that doesn’t mean I get the occasional piece now and then. It’s just not at the velocity I was going in the past. Plus, I’m pretty set with my tone. Once I got my DV Mark Little 40, I just haven’t really been compelled to get more gear because that amp literally works with anything I throw in front of it, be it pedals or guitars.

But I do realize that my GAS is just dormant right now. Who knows what’ll get it going or when it’ll happen again. Time will only tell…