For Guitarists Only

Like many of my contemporary guitarists, I like to keep informed about electric guitar, amplification and effect pedals. My inquiries usually lead me to YouTube, where countless guitarists and gear enthusiasts have started their own “channels” while often adopting irritating and phony broadcast personas that they seem to think they need to be bona fide cool. Think Steve Martin as a Vegas show host here. 

Me? I’m pretty old school when it comes to guitar tone. I have to have a great clean sound, a tone with a little bit of breakup, and a singing overdrive. I use compression, delay, overdrive and reverb as my key elements. 

So I will check out video demos of different pedals and electric guitar effects to get a sense of what the products sound like. Over time, I have begun to get a sense of which videos are going to instantly fail. Here are the warning signs of bad product videos:

1. When “Here is my clean tone” sounds like a can of bees before demoing a low gain overdrive pedal. 
2. When there are more tattoos than visible skin on the player.
3. Flying V Gibson style guitar or pointy headstock instrument.
4. Drop C open tuning through a decimated distortion driven amp, chugging incessantly.
5. When the host talks in condescending tones and can barely play a bar chord. 
6. “hair down to his knees”, skull images, rings, nose rings, neck tattoos and poetry tattoos written on faces. 

OK. I generalize with a sense of humor. Some of these cats can shred.

Now, to be fair there are a number of great guitar reviewers out there, and I greatly appreciate their efforts to inform us intelligently about new guitar products. And I have nothing against great overdriven sounds, but when demoing a chorus, compressor or delay, I would like to hear things begin with a clean guitar sound, so I can actually hear what the effects are doing to a clean guitar signal. Yes, I know heavy overdrive makes you sound big and badass, dangerous and some sort of cool, but not every guitarist is into death metal and grunge. Some of us, dare I say, still actually play music where chord changes are important, lol. You can’t tell what the pedals do when they are buried in metal distortion. 

You know, I think part of my dismay is based on the era I came from. Playing a slightly overdriven guitar in a bluesy style was once a rarity. Now, everybody can shred pentatonic blues, even while sipping on Nyquil cocktails. I used to see my guitar playing as special and something that set me apart. Now, I am just another nobody in a huge sea of guitarists who have learned to do what used to make me feel special. 

I find this drop C tuning, playing one finger bar chords up and down the neck through a highly distorted amplifier simply ugly. Aesthetically ugly and unpleasant. 

And it is certainly fair to label me a crotchety old man, screaming at demonic players to get off my lawn, lol. Call me Mr. Old School. I’m fine with that. Who says I have to change to “keep up with the trends”? What is wrong with perfecting style and tone that is aesthetically and harmonically pleasing? I just wish we could kill the heavy distortion ALL the time. It has its place at the right time and that is not ALL the time. 

The internet has become the great equalizer, where the best and worst exist side by side. I guess that is the cost of freedom…