The SD Forums are more like family...

[Kam]

Yeah, I mean, I totally think that most of you are kinda okay, I guess.

[Dr.K]

When I was just coming up, I had a friend who knew more about gear than I and he was very helpful telling me how to improve my tone. We used to chat on the phone or just hang out and talk. He never condescended to me or put me down because I had never changed pickups or I didn't know how to solder or I didn't know the difference between and active or passive or pickup or whatnot. His name is Gordon. He was kind of like an older brother to me.

When I started this board in '96, I envisioned it as taking those same conversations with Gordon and expanding it to other, similar-minded people around the world.

The funny thing is, nowadays, my gear collection far exceeds Gordon's and he always give me a ribbing when he hears about my latest acquisition. I wonder if he thinks of me as a cork sniffer...

... nah!

You're some other kind of "Sniffer" Evan! lol

I'm just playing with you. I'm pretty new here and I really have a lot of respect for you and most everyone on here. Thanks for allowing me to hang at your place.

[Jessie's ghost]

Det er Dolce & Gabbana. Det værste Italienske modehus nogensinde. Alle de der pop-drenge går med det lort. For eksempel.

Rosenkrans normal - 200kr måske

D&G designer - 895kr.

De er skudt i roen.

Du skal have en lyserød skjorte derfra og et par hvide bukser.. så er græker looket tilbage.

They're not that bad. Unless you're a dude, I mean. Their men's clothes suck hard.

[Red_Label]

Reading this series of posts made me check out TGP for the first time. Holy Crap! There was a post where people were invited to show pictures of their collections. One guy had a full wall (!!) of just telecasters. There must have been forty of them. Then he showed the rest of his collection. There had to be well over 100 guitars, and I don't mean racks of squires. At, say, an average of $1000 per guitar, well, you do the math.

Other guys had tons of amazing stuff too. Man, I used to be jealous coming on this site! I hope that guy was some kind of rock star using a fake name. And if I'm honest with myself, my main emotion was jealosy. I'd kill for a small fraction of that collection.

But then, in fairness to me, I suppose, there was a touch of "what is the point of that" in the back of my mind. I mean, If you have 200 really nice guitars, how much time can you possibly spend playing any one of them, esp. when 40 are teles. So there must be an investment/collector thing going on. Which led me to think

1. If this person is a rich rock star or something, he probably shouldn't boast: he could have put in a few pictures of his favourites;
2. If he isn't Eric Clapton, I hope he is a great player who also happens to be wealthy;
3. And if he isn't a great player but just conspicuously consuming these lovely guitars, it seems a bit crass to post them on a website to be drooled over by professional musicians who probably struggle to buy high quality gear for their livelihood.

Another post was "Please suggest something I can spend $3000 on". Yes, you read that right. What guitar player needs advice on how to spend that kind of money? Surely you would know what you want/drool over in that price range. And what kind of suggestions would you expect? A PRS? 800 packs of strings? A tele and two weeks in a Mexican resort?

So it was a much different place than here. Being a relatively new member of SDUGF, I can say I've never run into that attitude here. Sure, people are justly excited about new purchases and post great pics of great gear, but it seems to me to be more about sharing happy experiences that bragging. I got into this forum because a google search of Charvel guitars led me to probably the best, most thorough and objective review of a guitar by Xssessive. I was blown away by someone taking that much time to take apart a guitar and analyze each and every piece of it. And when I've asked for advice, I've gotten great responses. No condescension. And even though I've played for nearly 30 years, I was, until recently, out of touch with everything, technology wise, since about 1998, so I had a lot of catching up to do.

Maybe it's because this site is linked to the SD page, that a different sort of collector/user is attracted to it in the first place. If you've got a zillion dollars to spend, you don't necessarily look into after market pickups to improve your gear. Also, I suppose, a pickup website attracts tinkerers/pro set up guys.

I don't want to slag TGP or its users, or make overbroad generalizations (after all, that guy with the teles could be EC!) but I definitely prefer the general tone and community feel of this place, even if a certain brand of guitars made in the USA can get some passions bubbling.

Good stuff man.

I couldn't agree more. I've never had a fraction of the stuff that many of those guys have. And I used to be jealous, but not any more. I've been cleaning-out the man cave lately. I'm sick of all the STUFF. It makes me go "meh". Even if it was 40 vintage sunburst LPs, I'd go "meh". You know why? Because I've learned that when I've got too many guitars and amps, I don't really cherish any of them that much. It's like having 40 kids. Hard to develop a special relationship with ANY of them when you split your time between that many. It just gets to the point of silliness.

That's how I felt when I started putting my stuff up for sale. Right now, my ESP Eclipse, Bogner XTC, and TC G-System are all I need (well... I'm loving my Eleven Rack for daily practice and recording). But those four things are it for me at this point. I've got other cheap axes lying around, and my Traynor YCS100H has been my cherished amp for 4 years now, so it'll stay-on as a backup to the XTC. But the Fender Twin is gone. The TC Nova System is gone. The Vox Tonelab LE is gone. Three of my four Ltd EC400/401s are gone. The Egnater Tweaker is gone. My Traynor Custom Blue 50 is gone. All within the past month or so.

Honestly, I don't want 40 Teles. I got tired of trying to pick wich one of a dozen or so axes that I had to play. If they're vintage axes or ones with some sort of special mojo... it's cool. But I still submit that for me at least, it's nearly impossible to spend quality time with that many guitars. And the guitars that I played the most were the ones with the most mojo, or life to them. The ones that sat in cases all the time seemed fairly lifeless when I did dig them out.

I certainly do think that some of those guys just love guitars and it truly makes them happy to have a lot of them. And others, it's like being a member of an exclusive country club. Makes them feel puffed-up to show them off. Hey... makes me feel proud to post a pick of my Bogner. But I LOVE it and have wanted it and dreamed of owning it for a long time. The "honeymoon" wasn't a for-sure deal though -- took me a few weeks to get it where I wanted it. Nevertheless, if I were to ditch the Bogner and go back to my humble Traynor head, I'd still be the same player I am now and my playing would speak for itself. The boutique amp may catch someone's attention on the internet, but live at the club, I let my playing do that. And I wouldn't trade that for 100 vintage, museum-quality guitars. At this point I wouldn't even want to deal with that mess if it was given to me. I sell all of them but the ten most special ones. Just tired of the clutter...

[Red_Label]

The funny thing is, nowadays, my gear collection far exceeds Gordon's and he always give me a ribbing when he hears about my latest acquisition. I wonder if he thinks of me as a cork sniffer...

... nah!

I've got a friend who at the same time, encourages my GAS and then teases me about the stuff that comes and goes. He's been teasing me that he doesn't believe that I'm gonna stick with my current core rig, but I really do plan to. I am sick to the point of puking of GAS consuming my life. It's a distraction from doing what I really should be doing -- all PLAYING and no more scheming and plotting to afford new gear. I'm done with it. I'm tired of trying to fill the hole in my soul with more stuff. It'll never get filled that way.

Anyways... if you can play your suff... then you're no cork-sniffer. Honestly, I've got no beef with the guys with nice gear who can play. My sole beef is with the one's who really can't, but who like trying to substitute talent with money. Like many, I'm easily dazzled by collections of things that are expensive. But that wears-off FAST for me now. The only lasting thing is the talent. A guy who impresses me with his talent has earned my respect and that will remain. Someone who's only got the money part doesn't have ANY lasting effect on me and is soon forgotten.