I realise I may be obsessed with tone

[MetalManiac]

I spend more than half my time on amp, guitar and pickup forums. I listen to countless hours of Youtube clips and read hundreds manufactures and harmony Central reviews. I argue with people about gear and even get into heated discussions and thrown off websites.
I can tell you pretty much anything from A to Z about any type of gear by now.
Ive gone through 20 bodies and necks, 10 different Maps and about as many Fenders and Gibsons. I have a revolving door for speakers. Speakers are a whole nother field and I have probably read and listened to over a hundred hours of speaker clips and specds and reviews. Nothing is insignigicant..tuners, pots, nuts..I can spout out jargon on each and every one of them.
I have in my memory bank 1000 questions and answers about pedals, and aoptehr 1000 video clips and another 1000 Harmony Central reviews on at least 100 of them.Truth is , I'm so wrapped up in all this I barely ever play.
But I'm a perfectionist. I have what I beleive are the best cabinets, the best pedals, the speakers for the cabinets, the best pickups for the guitars, the best tonewoods , setups, tuners, nuts, strings etc etc, ad infinitum.
What do you think about all this?

[Lazarus1140]

Dude, you sound normal to me!

[woemoejack]

I don't think it is unhealthy, albeit time consuming. I think I have seen every pedal demo video that gearmanndude has done. I've seen the majority of the proguitarshop ones. When I'm not playing, I am GASing... I believe that to be true for most of the forum. You are among friends

[GoldenVulture]

Got any sound clips of you we can listen to?

[tc]

I try to play more than check gear out definitely. In fact, I barely check out gear these days.

But it's not really a bad thing. At least you're not doing coke or heroin. GAS is certainly pretty low in the "Unhealthy Obsessions" list, even if any obsession might not be the best thing out there.

[CTN]

I spend more than half my time on amp, guitar and pickup forums. I listen to countless hours of Youtube clips and read hundreds manufactures and harmony Central reviews. I argue with people about gear and even get into heated discussions and thrown off websites.
I can tell you pretty much anything from A to Z about any type of gear by now.
Ive gone through 20 bodies and necks, 10 different Maps and about as many Fenders and Gibsons. I have a revolving door for speakers. Speakers are a whole nother field and I have probably read and listened to over a hundred hours of speaker clips and specds and reviews. Nothing is insignigicant..tuners, pots, nuts..I can spout out jargon on each and every one of them.
I have in my memory bank 1000 questions and answers about pedals, and aoptehr 1000 video clips and another 1000 Harmony Central reviews on at least 100 of them.Truth is , I'm so wrapped up in all this I barely ever play.
But I'm a perfectionist. I have what I beleive are the best cabinets, the best pedals, the speakers for the cabinets, the best pickups for the guitars, the best tonewoods , setups, tuners, nuts, strings etc etc, ad infinitum.
What do you think about all this?

That sounds EXHAUSTING.

how do you find time to live? Do you ever sleep?

[Lucid_Lunatic]

Peavey Rototr's have the best tone.................. PERIOD

[tc]

Eff me...karma got the best of me. Browsed around a couple of sites and if everything ends up well, I just spent $200-ish bucks on a couple of dirt pedals. Damn you Jerry, damn you!!!

[That90'sGuy]

If you think about it, most of us are in this same or similar category. A year or so ago I took a step back and went "whoa... this is out of control!". Realizing that you have a problem is the first step to fixing it. The reality is that a good 90% of the professional musicians out there just aren't obsessed with this stuff like the forum enthusiasts. There is happiness in finding out how to make the best of what you have and finding your voice well enough to say "this is it... this makes me happy". The reality is that there is some sort of comfort and enjoyment in researching and constantly adding or upgrading what we've got (it gets addicting), but there needs to be a limit for it to be healthy. I don't see it all unlike the hi-fi enthusiasts, I just hope that no one gets so obsessed with their gear so much that it ends up costing them as much as most of those guys.

[Gearjoneser]

It's all good as long as you're taking the time to enjoy it all.

When you've got a big collection of great sounding gear, here's something you've got to take the time to do. Hook up every guitar you own through every amp and pedal, and spend some time learning the tones you never even tried before! You'll realize that you may not have even heard some guitars through some amps, and also never heard them with all your pedals. It'll give you the opportunity to stop thinking about things you DON'T own, and focus on what you do own.

Of course, this rarely applies to those with a small number of guitars/amps, but when you've got a lot of stuff, take the time to do this.

[Vasshu the humanoid typhoon]

There is no best...shut up and play.....heh

[B2D]

I spend more than half my time on amp, guitar and pickup forums. I listen to countless hours of Youtube clips and read hundreds manufactures and harmony Central reviews. I argue with people about gear and even get into heated discussions and thrown off websites.
I can tell you pretty much anything from A to Z about any type of gear by now.
Ive gone through 20 bodies and necks, 10 different Maps and about as many Fenders and Gibsons. I have a revolving door for speakers. Speakers are a whole nother field and I have probably read and listened to over a hundred hours of speaker clips and specds and reviews. Nothing is insignigicant..tuners, pots, nuts..I can spout out jargon on each and every one of them.
I have in my memory bank 1000 questions and answers about pedals, and aoptehr 1000 video clips and another 1000 Harmony Central reviews on at least 100 of them.
Truth is , I'm so wrapped up in all this I barely ever play.
But I'm a perfectionist. I have what I beleive are the best cabinets, the best pedals, the speakers for the cabinets, the best pickups for the guitars, the best tonewoods , setups, tuners, nuts, strings etc etc, ad infinitum.
What do you think about all this?

...and that's where it becomes a problem.

Tweaking and tone hounding is fun but it shouldn't get in the way of the more inportant things, like playing and having fun and making music.

[TheLivingDead]

...and that's where it becomes a problem.

Tweaking and tone hounding is fun but it shouldn't get in the way of the more inportant things, like playing and having fun and making music.

Just about what I was going to say. What's the point of it all if you don't play?

[crusty philtrum]

I imagine it's different for each individual, and probably every one of us goes through phases too. I can imagine that continued intense tone-chasing would eventually take up playing time and in some cases (for some individuals) become more interesting than playing. The variety of individuals and their approaches makes life interesting.

Personally, I did a lot of experimenting with gear when i was younger and then eventually settled. In more recent times i found that my gear was run-down and in need of repairs, updates and replacement. Of course there had been great advances in gear technology, although i guess i still prefer the older style of gear from my younger days, but now i look for higher quality versions of what i started with. I build my own amps, so sometimes i spend a little time researching circuits or shopping for good components, but overall i am happy with what i have and don't need to spend much time obssessing over equipment. I am primarily a player with an interest in equipment and if i find myself becoming too absorbed in gear i become frustrated and yearn to get back to playing. Nowdays i live by a motto : 'do it once, do it right, damn the expense, and get on with music'.

But it is an absorbing area (it can absorb a lot of cash, too, hehe) and i can see how some folk could be quite happy playing less and experimenting more. I think the problem can be that it has a kind of momentum that can build up....getting one piece of dream equipment can lead to 'well this is great, but now i just need/want to hear that other one that some say is even better .... ' If the momentum of cycling through gear gets too rapid, it is probably likely that one never really explores the depths of any one item before moving on to the next big thing.

I think it's all personal choice, and if the individual is happy, it's all good. The downside might be that the target keeps moving... by the time one attains what they'd aspired too, their ideas about how they want to sound may well have changed.

[GoldenVulture]

Blink

Got any sound clips of you we can listen to?

[JOLLY]

I play my guitars. I don't worry much about the little crap. If I can't sound good with what I own, then I don't even need to be playing.

[Petrovsk Mizinski]

As someone who's personally interested in audio engineering, I came to learn that spending all that time on the guitar tone itself is a massive waste of time anyway.
Seeing as how your username is Metalmaniac, half the guitar tone is in the bass guitar anyway.
I'm honestly more interested in achieving a cool drum sound and/or bass guitar sound than a guitar sound these days, because without a good bass and drum sound, there is not gonna be a good guitar sound anyway

[That90'sGuy]

As someone who's personally interested in audio engineering, I came to learn that spending all that time on the guitar tone itself is a massive waste of time anyway.
Seeing as how your username is Metalmaniac, half the guitar tone is in the bass guitar anyway.
I'm honestly more interested in achieving a cool drum sound and/or bass guitar sound than a guitar sound these days, because without a good bass and drum sound, there is not gonna be a good guitar sound anyway

Well, actually, you'll find for most music that the bass does get compressed to hell, high and low passed and thrown all the way in the back of the mix where it can take up as little frequencies as possible. I do agree with you on the drums though, those are crucial. On crappy recordings, the drums are usually one of the main things that sticks out.

[GoldenVulture]

On crappy recordings, the drums are usually one of the main things that sticks out.

Mostly because they mix as if they're doing a live mix. All drums and vocals,
and they sound like ****. This is the most common and greatest mistake of the home produced product.

[crguti]

I stopped to care about tone chasing when I discovered that the problem was my lazy playing. After 30 minutes of playing, my guitar/pedals/amp begins to sound good.