should i or shouldn't i?

chopvai · #1 01-21-2008, 09:19 PM

sell all my stuff for new...

currently

marshall tsl 100
tc electronic g major - effects
bbe sonic maximizer

I'm thinking about selling all and getting a nice combo with some nice clean headroom and going all pedals instead of racks for fx etc...

i'm sick of trying to find a good tone with the gear im using atm, so i'm gonna start from foundations.

i guess it would be easier to carry around as well. =)

CosmicDebris · #2 01-21-2008, 09:22 PM

What kind of guitar are you playing? All that good stuff is not gonna make a crappy guitar sound good.

**elcid** · #3 01-21-2008, 09:32 PM

I cant speak for you, but I'm a big fan of the combo and pedals instead of a half stack and rack multieffects.

chopvai · #4 01-21-2008, 09:35 PM

jem, strat, les paul...

It's not sound crap at all....
i'm just abit fed up of when i have to tweak something i have to go into the parameters of the gmajor to do it, rather than if i had pedals, i could do it right infront of me.

i'm nuts, i'm not sure what i want! argh

what's more versatile... having pedals, or rack gear.

CosmicDebris · #5 01-21-2008, 09:36 PM

Just send your gear to me to sort out for you and I will have them back asap.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chopvai

what's more versatile... having pedals, or rack gear.

Depends on if your used to bending over or standing up.

chopvai · #6 01-21-2008, 09:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CosmicDebris

Depends on if your used to bending over or standing up.

hahahaha!!

another reason... the only thing i use on the gmajor is the delay and boost... the other things i hardly use.. so there isnt' really a point in having the whole thing for just one effect. :S

**elcid** · #7 01-21-2008, 09:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chopvai

what's more versatile... having pedals, or rack gear.

Probably the rack gear if you want to spend all that time with the menus and editing, saving and mapping programs. Personally though I think people put too much emphasis on versatility. You may be able to have 128 presets but how many will you actually use? How different will that actually be? Different enough for the average listener you are playing to (if you are plaing out), or just different enough for guitar geeks? There have been countless great artists who wrote, and recorded great songs with a Les Paul and a single channel amp. Also some of the guitarists who are known for their town mainly use single channel amps. In my opinion more versatility doesnt always equal better. I would rather have a one channel amp that sounds awesome than a rack setup with 100s of sounds that are just "pretty good"

chopvai · #8 01-21-2008, 09:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elcid

You may be able to have 128 presets but how many will you actually use?

well, i've set about 12 presets, and only use about 2 of them. So you def have a point there...

kotornut · #9 01-21-2008, 10:13 PM

I think you should. Simply because the best tones I hear usually don't come from rack gear for myself or for others. I'm usually impressed with people who have simple setups.

Darin · #10 01-22-2008, 07:13 AM

A guitar, an amp, and the truth. That's all ya need brother.

Scali · #11 01-22-2008, 07:36 AM

Yea, how about just turning off the G-Major and going back to basics?
Just a guitar, an amp, bit of reverb perhaps... Might be refreshing.

**jono** · #12 01-22-2008, 01:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elcid

Probably the rack gear if you want to spend all that time with the menus and editing, saving and mapping programs. Personally though I think people put too much emphasis on versatility. You may be able to have 128 presets but how many will you actually use? How different will that actually be? Different enough for the average listener you are playing to (if you are plaing out), or just different enough for guitar geeks? There have been countless great artists who wrote, and recorded great songs with a Les Paul and a single channel amp. Also some of the guitarists who are known for their town mainly use single channel amps. In my opinion more versatility doesnt always equal better. I would rather have a one channel amp that sounds awesome than a rack setup with 100s of sounds that are just "pretty good"

A friend of mine who is in a band successful enough to know that most of us have heard them but not heard of them, once said to me that the audience only ever hears two guitar tones.

1) Loud and clean
2) Loud and dirty

So it depends if you want to create sonic landscapes in your spare room, or if you want to play club gigs and get folks moving.

Silverburst · #13 01-25-2008, 07:24 PM

I've been from side to side different times. With my first rack, I had way too much parameters, I've had the G major as well. pfffrt, way too much scrolling and scrolling. Decided I was tired of it, sold everyhting and went for a multichannel tubeamp. just wanted to plug in and play. least pedals and all that stuff as possible, but again I soon enough found out it lacked the bit of versatility I needed, so I'm back at rack, but easy simple rack stuff:

ADA is super simple to program. I can dail in the reverb I like on the boss and can be switched of in presets. I only use the Replifex (wich I found sounding better, more organice than a G major, except for the reverb, which I didn't like inthe mayor either. Replifex is more straightforward and 10x mor robust than a mayor) for an effect like a delay, phaser, tremolo once in a while.

Main thing was the preamp. I like having a clean or 2 (a more accoustic, one more spanky), a crunchy tone, a heavy fat palm muting rhythm, and a solo sound or 2. Way less than 128, but much more than a 3 channel amp. I don't like the hassle of 6 stompboxes, the whole issue of powering them etc. (especially if you're using different brands etc) I don't like to have to do more than 1 stomp to go from a rhytm to lead (other amp channel, delay disabled) and such. hitting just one knob on my midipedal is a bliss.

One really versatile head/combo you might try is the Hughes & Kettner Switchblade. it's like a 4 voicing head, but it's all midi and stores presets ! Meaning you can just turn nobs like a super straightforward amp, but if you like a tone you discover, you just can save it. I really hate to have to write discoveries down on a paper :/ blech. I was almost sold to the Switchblade. really well tought. even has some basic fx on board to get you rollin'.
http://www.hughes-and-kettner.com/pr...de=prod&id=109

check the test drive switchblade button.

On the other hand, all these unique stombox combinations you can make enable you to create really unique sounds. But I'm really happy with the ADA MP1 3TM (tons of useable quiet gain). so I'm more or less done on finding my base sound. Good luck on your search.

Mike

ME. · #14 08-05-2008, 02:08 PM

I'd say: keep the tsl. (That is, if you're happy with it tone wise)

Sell the G-Major

Go pedal hunting

(Only sell the G-Major if you need the money, otherwise keep it. I've just re-discovered mine after not using it for a year. It's a nice piece of equipment to have and play around with.)

You could offcourse also rack the pedals in combination with a switcher like the gcx. I do that and really like it. It's flexable, midi. But also the benefits of different pedals of different brands.

GLG421 · #15 08-05-2008, 02:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scali

Yea, how about just turning off the G-Major and going back to basics?
Just a guitar, an amp, bit of reverb perhaps... Might be refreshing.

+1

I was using a crappy little practice amp with no tone set to clean and using a GSP21 to model all my tone. My wah broke, and I went out and bought a Marshall AVT 20, and unplugged all effects for almost a year. Very refreshing.

I've slowly started adding pedals, and still use the GSP for delay/flanger/chorus, but the simplicity of Guitar -> Chord -> Amp is cathartic.

Geoff