ShortScale.org

Pointy guitars.

dodgedartdave wrote:

Chico Malo wrote:Everything made by Carvin.

Even thier Amps?

Yes.

3 saddles Tele bridges, I'm with Bob. Sacrificing proper intonation for a bit of a sustain and retrostyle? Fook orf.

String snobbery. Seriously, I've played £10 sets of strings and £3 sets. I've noticed no decent variation in tone, sound or life. Seems to me to just be another thing for guitarist to fuss about. PLAY THE FUCKIN GUITAR, MAN!

Overly-bassy guitar sounds in a live situation. WHY DO YOU FEEL THE NEED TO PISS OVER YOUR BASS PLAYER? JUST BECAUSE THE DIAL GOES TO 10 DOESN'T MEAN IT NEEDS TO. IT SOUNDS BAD AND LACKS DEFINITION. THX.

Peavey. yeah, yeah blah blah. I had a bad experience with my first amp. Never again. The logo is a heinous affront to good design as well and whoever is in charge of their aesthetics needs to be beaten.

And for me. (hear that sound...it's a can of worms opening up.)

Boss. I just can't bring myself to own a Boss pedal of any kind. They're like the Budweiser of guitar pedals. I just can't do it. It's not like I'm all super boutique about stuff. But I am particular and Boss is just so bland and bog standard. it's irrational, but it's so...


Oh and (more worms coming...) I generally find that if a guitarist is playing a Les Paul through a Marshall, I'm not going to enjoy what they do. Marshalls are fine. Les Pauls work. But the guitarist that chooses that combination tends to be pretty unimaginative. Not necessarily bad musicians, but just dull. That tone is just sonic vanilla pudding to my ears...

Boss are an industry standard for a reason - they're great value for money and very good effects.

Although it is irrational fair do's.

Totally, for delays Boss can't be beaten.

Doog wrote:
String snobbery. Seriously, I've played £10 sets of strings and £3 sets. I've noticed no decent variation in tone, sound or life. Seems to me to just be another thing for guitarist to fuss about. PLAY THE FUCKIN GUITAR, MAN!

I just like Roto-Sound strings. Ok? It's not snobbery, but they do have a very specific sound I like. That's the only string where I have noticed an appreciable difference.


And I'm not knocking Boss gear at all. I'm just not interested...

Yeah, come on guys this thread isn't the place for persuading each other what's cool and what's not. That's what every other thread is for (except the Classifieds, duh)!.

Cheesy overdrive.
If you can play E, D and A and it sounds like Back in Black, then your overdrive is too cheesy. I hate it when I have this tone.

I hate Elixir strings. They are expensive and sound like crap. People get all snooty about it and think they last SOOOO long. They don't. They suck.

I've gotten over my dislike of Rickenbacker basses and I like them fine now, having transferred my irrational animus over to Precision Basses instead. This is purely aesthetic. I mean, they have The Sound, but they just look wrong somehow. That curl on the pickguard -- can't a doctor fix that?

I don't get those heavy-metal planks that look like a strat body with sharpened horns. Actually, I don't get much about metal gear.

Fender guitars and/or Fender clones that don't say Fender on the headstock weird me out for no reason. It's like tucking your shirt in but not putting a belt on. I'll have to go through therapy or something someday when I build a Warmoth guitar.

Doog wrote: Overly-bassy guitar sounds in a live situation. WHY DO YOU FEEL THE NEED TO PISS OVER YOUR BASS PLAYER? JUST BECAUSE THE DIAL GOES TO 10 DOESN'T MEAN IT NEEDS TO. IT SOUNDS BAD AND LACKS DEFINITION. THX.

This goes just as well for a recording situation. In fact, the only time extended bass is good in a guitar sound is when the guitar's played all by itself, or when there's no bass player (duo bands), or when you're trying to impress somebody with an amplifier. "Oooh that sounds hyuuuge, don't it?" Otherwise, it's goodbye guitar low-end, hello bassline! Then there are the guitarists that don't understand how piercing their amps' upper-mids get at live levels. "Here, lemme grate your ears off like two blocks of fine dry Parmesan."


My list will pretty much get me kicked off the forums. For example, one of the two things that's keeping me from buying/building either a 3-saddle or 6-saddle bridge with a Telecaster hanging off the back of it is that absolutely everybody in town plays a Tele like it's the official Badge of Coolness. They have little racks of Telecasters in all the Starbucks shops right next to those dry bland Italian biscuits, it's gotten that bad. Policemen pull you over on the street and demand to see your license, proof of insurance, and a currently valid Telecaster. I love their sound and their simplicity and all. (The Telecasters, not the policemen.) I'm just worried that through sheer oversaturation, the 2000's are going to do for the Tele what the 1980's did for the Stratocaster or the 70's (at least temporarily) for the Les Paul.

The fun thing about Stratocasters is the challenge of getting a sound I =don't= hate out of them. I've gotten OK at that, but it's taken years.

That'n there's no way to fully measure the damage that local amateur grunge bands wrought upon the fine name of Marshall. Fortunately the stigma is being steadily healed by bands that know how to get more sounds than just mega-grind out of them. But there was a time when, around here at least, one could accurately predict an imminent set of hi-decibel boredom just by looking at the amps in the back line.

Oh, and +1 about the Peavey logo.

people who don't gig professionally/regularly and have two of the same guitar

super heavy strings- i think some people just like to pretend they're the incredible hulk, they often make for very plodding and clumsy guitarists though.

locking hardware - like fitting laces and putting a double knot onto sandals, really.

people who put tape on their guitar, no matter what it's there for - switches and strap retention are the worst excuses, but let's not forget Mr. My Feet Are Too Busy To Turn This Pedal On So It's Going On My Forearm-Contour. you just like looking garagey and stuff, it's cool.

gear-hoppers (people who move thousands of dollars of musical
equipment a month because they can't make their minds up).

dodgedartdave wrote:I hate Elixir strings. They are expensive and sound like crap. People get all snooty about it and think they last SOOOO long. They don't. They suck.

yes. they're coated in so much crap, you can't play them. and they sound like a dull thud.

i also am opposed to danelectro stompboxes. i have played them, and they sound cool and are fun, but all the plastic really just makes me hate them. they seem like you might be able to get a good 2 or 3 gigs out of 'em before they fall apart.

also, amps with onboard effects/ability to mimic other amps. i don't need my amp to play crappy flange or sound like a "50s tweed". the amp is to amplify my guitar, not do a bunch of other crap. and they always sound so fake and cheesy.

bubbles_horwitz wrote:i also am opposed to danelectro stompboxes. i have played them, and they sound cool and are fun, but all the plastic really just makes me hate them.

The plastic makes them easier to tape to my guitar though.

I hate tubescreamers.

I can't stand when I see or hear a band, and they're playing a really loud clean Fender amp, usually a Fender Twin. This is mostly done by terrible indie rock bands. It's the most boring sound in the world, them just strumming a clanky clean guitar and usually a Fender guitar.

I don't like when I see a bassist with more than 4 strings on his bass, I know I'm in for way too much Bass Playing. Also when I see a fretless Bass Player, you're not Jaco Pastorious please stop.Also add to this drummers with too much kit, or double bass drum.

I don't like amps with too many knobs, unless they have reverb and tremolo there is no need for all that shit. The more stuff between your Guitar and Speaker, the worst an amp sounds.

I don't like Line 6, I have never liked any of their products. I simply stopped paying attention to them as a company.

I don't like all those companies making Fuzzes and Noise Boxes that are supposed to be purposely BREWTAL or EXTREME, like E13 or whoever. That shit is boring.

I think guitar "improvements" that really are useless, like 6 saddles on teles, the smooth saddles on MIA Fenders, the 2 point strat tremolo, buzz feiten tuning system, all that stuff is so overated. It's amazing how in the 50's and 60's the two best decades of Guitar Tones people just played what they made and got awesome tones. Now we got a million upgrades and "improvements" and I can't remeber the last record I heard where somebody got a great tone. Guitars and Guitarists keep sounding worse and worse.

Ovations, christ I fucking think those things suck on every level.

modern lapsteel players. You listen to the old country records and you hear these beautiful round and balanced lapsteel and pedal steel riffs but modern country just has the winest, most over compressed piece of shit pedal steel debauchery all over a record, played at the worst times and overplayed.

I hate compression on modern recording, it's beyond annoying.

HI-FI guitar cables like Monster.

I don't like MP3's or MP3 players, in 15 years when you have a whole generation of kids who grew up listening to music on mp3 players it's gonna be a travesty. Since they never heard how a proper record is supposed to sound, they're gonna make the worst sounding music. I already heard people are starting to master recordings with the thought of what it will sound like on MP3. The Ipod is fucking annoying to look at also.

Malik wrote: If you can play E, D and A and it sounds like Back in Black, then your overdrive is too cheesy. I hate it when I have this tone.

that's my ideal tone.

i agree with jcyphe, mostly

filtercap wrote:

bubbles_horwitz wrote:i also am opposed to danelectro stompboxes. i have played them, and they sound cool and are fun, but all the plastic really just makes me hate them.

The plastic makes them easier to tape to my guitar though.

R D R R

I hate when fuckers go out of their way to rip on anybody in politics, (mainly Dubya) like it's some new idea they came up with and they feel the need to share it with the world because, you know, no other band has ever done that before... It's irritating.

Great example... a month or so ago I was at a show about 45 minutes from me, and this shitty "grunge-esque" wannabe band got up there, and after a few songs, the douche-lick guitarist/vocalist stops and starts tuning his guitar (Like he did after EVERY song, making us wait upwards of a minute between songs, although it was more of a break for my ears so it was okay...) and starts killing time by introducing the next track, he goes, "Well... as you all know... we have a complete idiot... um... total asshole in the white house... and we think something should be done about it. We don't need his dumb ass... this song is about George W. Bush. This song is called 'State Of The Union!"

I kinda wanted to heave a chair on stage... but whatever. Not saying I like Bush, just shut the fuck up...


Rant over.

bob wrote: Cloth wiring (especially the re-wiring of things with cloth)
Just use high enough quality wire and forget about it. It does look nice, but its inside the guitar so what does it matter.

Yeh it may look nice, but as I've found out, its much harder to use to wire. The cloth gets in the way, hard to strip wires and likes to set on fire and burn.

jcyphe ~ I agree with everything you said except I love my modded tubescreamer and I love playing fretless basses.

Fretwankery. I hate that shit, wanaby VanHalen/Satriani douchebags.

Jcyphe, I love you man, but everything you said is completely wrong.