As a guitar player, the only one who cares if you're amp sounds like a Dumble or any other high end amp are you and maybe another guitar player. I've played way too many gigs where the sound guy just destroyed the sound of my amps, and the crowd still went crazy because they are just looking to hear the songs they know.
I've played through Tech 21 pedals straight into a PA (Played both bass and guitar in one gig, and I took a pedalboard with no amp.) Nobody cared and it sounded fine. Would I use those in a studio? Maybe, maybe not. But no matter what it's whatever skill I have at playing the right notes in time that is more important than having a fancy guitar or amp.
@@MashaT22 unfortunately his is not a typical situation. There's a huge difference when you're an artist who has the advantage of a specific sound person traveling/touring with you as opposed to being a guitarist in a band playing gigs, one-offs, concerts, or touring with a different engineer on every gig.
I broke up a band because of how furiously I defended my Line 6 Spider 2 Custom. I didn’t have the money to buy a new amp, so I felt really attacked by the other guitarists complaining about my “tone”. I finally bought an Orange Terror and then, then I understood what tone was. Always remember, when in doubt, bump up the mids.
I had a similar experience starting with a Peavey Vypyr. When with other guitarist playing through real tube amps I hated how thin I sounded in comparison. I started with an Egnator, then got a Marshall clone. That solved the problem for me.
Honest question: What about the recording process where many engineers like to take the feed direct into their effects chain & mixing desk / DAW? Is the amp type so critical if you're not live or would you all prefer miking up your amps when cutting a track (which I guess would need isolation booths)?
My experience with Spotify as a listener (and I love listening to under-the-radar artists) is that it always had been good at recommending the same genre or style of music. So there is likely a chance that your song might get heard of as long as those people are inline with your kind of genre too.
I'm just a bedroom guitar player, like 85% of the rest of you out there, and I've found that going digital and having NO amps is the way now. I use TH-U and I can get WAY more tones than I could with physical gear because of monetary constraints, plus it's just so easy to plug in and throw on a set of headphones at night while the kids are sleeping to jam/practice for a bit in front of my computer.
I was just commenting and guessed our numbers at 90%. lol I have a PodGo that I play through all the time, but I also have a room with a bunch of tube amps and 4x12 cabs that I have collected over a lifetime. I like both. If I have a half hour to play, I'll use the Line6. If I'm playing for a longer time, I'll fire up a "real" amp. I have thought about selling many of the amps I don't use much, but I just enjoy owning them.
@@dennisneo1608 no one said it was. You CAN get extremely close to an "amp feel" from modelers and sims, you just have to run them through a power amp and a guitar cab, but not blowing out my ears to get a great tone has been heavenly, ESPECIALLY after moving on from TH-U to a Fractal Audio FM9 and using a powered stage monitor for non-headphone playing. To each their own, but I'm never going back; it's just too good and too versatile.
I think, when comparing the two amps, you need to keep in mind that the biggest difference that you hear comes from the speaker. So if you ran the line6 spider amplification section through the same cab you would use with the boutique amp, 99% of people would not be able to hear a difference in a blind test
This guy knows what is up. Same goes for home hifi... focus on the speakers when it comes to your budget and focus far less on the source path. Its all important, but like a rock band is only as good as its drummer... audio production is the same with the speakers.
+1 on the Spotify stuff, if you send out a Spotify link to all your friends they’re a lot more likely to actually listen to it more than just one time than if you sent out a link to sound cloud. I feel like most non musicians never use SoundCloud or anything other than Spotify/Apple Music
SammyG needs to create his own new music genre: Canadiana. I’d totally be down with that sort of vibe. Canada has some interesting cultural vibes. My personal fave is the Scottish immigrants in Nova Scotia. I’ve done road trips through most of eastern Canada (and have been on road trips through nearly every state in the continental US minus like 5 of them). For real, SammyG needs to get on this new genre - I’ll take a free tee for the idea and maybe an album liner credit. 🤓 🎸 👍🏻
My fav part about Canadian culture is the compelled speech laws and not being allowed to defend yourself legally. Or and make sure you don't protest or they'll shut your bank account down too, that little bit of culture is tops. Just kidding. I'm just ripping on Trudy. I'm sure Canada has real culture too that's not just totalitarianism.
Sammy, despite me being a bassist, I have a relatively unknown combo by Roland - ST-50r. It is an amazing-sounding combo with two channels and a spring reverb. I have the feeling that the amp was made by a company akin to Peavey
I do have some info on the Spotify thing, but it's a bit tricky to explain. Basically we're back to the "record deal yes/no" debate. Basically, record labels, mangers or the like, have contacts to different parts of Spotify offices around the world. Example, here I know a guy who's primary job is to pitch things to Spotify. So if you have a deal with him, he'd send it to Spotify in Sweden, they'll listen to it and push it through the algorithm, put it on playlist etc. This is all before it's uploaded anywhere. And it can make a huge difference. So basically, make sure to send your stuff to places or people like that, mingle with people at every chance you get cause there is still a lot of value in making the right people promote your music and not just upload yourself, though that is of course always also a good way.
For the question on 11:10, I think they mean if it's okay to not actively seek to improve anymore if your playing for fun. My answer to that is that it's okay, BUT: first you have to reach a level where you can play most of the stuff you would like to play, and keep learning new songs with a similar skill level. I'm saying this as a completely intermediate drummer with a full time schedule that rarely gets time to play. Anyways, example: if you really wanna play Metallica and you do reach that level, it's okay to plateau at that level. If you get bored you can turn to Megadeth, Iron Maiden, etc., you won't run out of things to play.
Exactly. It's difficult to have fun if you are struggling with technique all the time. So, even if you are just "doing it for fun", how much fun can you really have before you reach the skill level that you are at least somewhat satisfied with? But once you reach that level, then improving your technique doesn't really affect your ability to have fun that much any more. When your technique no longer holds you back, then learning technique is no longer necessary if you are only interested in having fun. But if your technique seriously limits your creativity, then it's quite obvious that learning more technique would make it easier to have fun (because I think one part of having fun is a certain kind of effortlessness - if you have to think about your technique all the time, it takes away from the enjoyment of making music).
Sammy G, no matter the topic, I always leave your videos feeling better, even on some pretty dark days. You’re a good person, a positive person, and you make the world a better place just being here. I enjoy your content for the info & the fun too, but I thought you should know you being you is a help to a lot of us. Thanks for sharing yourself and your work. Much peace to you. ✌️😌🎸
I'm a fairly skill-less guitar player, and have been having a blast learning new stuff and coming up with my own punk rock/thrashy riffs. I'd never play for another person to hear, because even though I've been playing guitar since I was about 12 or 13, I still consider myself hot garbage.
If you're learning new stuff and making up your own stuff, there's a decent chance you're not actually skill-less or hot garbage. At the very least you didn't stick with just hammering nails into a stump.
A grammy award deserves respect, I’ll say that much. Anyone trying to play guitar (for any reason at all) is gonna find out pretty quickly that you’re gonna have to learn *music* stuff. You’re not gonna play a 5 minute improvised solo without learning some music. The more you learn music the more you realize how simple of a formula that it is. That being said- hit music is catchy. There’s no denying it. Therefore a Grammy earns respect from me. Do I watch the show, or know all the winners? No. But when somebody’s a grammy award winner as a musician it still commands some respect from me as a musician. I have a great example: Afroman. Dude is a Grammy award winner. You could scoff at afroman, but dammit he did a thing- and he has a natural gift for melody and made all his own music. He did the thing. You have to respect that even if you’re bourgeoisie and elitist about your music being superior to other peoples opinions. Music is social. It’s in our DNA. You want to play music for other people, don’t you? Don’t you want other people to like it? Well, even if they’re engineered by somebody a grammy winner did the thing, and I respect it on some level. As a musician you have to respect a Grammy on some level for anyone. To play music for anyone besides yourself is a social attempt. Don’t hate on people’s success ya’ll. Respect it and keep working.
I love your Tom Delonge example. He's one of my favorite musicians, but like you said, its more he does a lot with a smaller skillset. Gives the less talented hope too :)
I think the difference between hearing amps on recordings can be minimal. You're not tasting it, like you would a piece of beef. You're not even playing the amp. So I think Mayer could be right, that the recorded version of an amp can be very similar. PLAYING it, on the other hand, is completely different and brings out different things from the player.
There’s a video out there of Satriani playing some kid’s beginner guitar/amp. You can tell the tone isn’t “up to par”, but it still sounds like Satch. I don’t mean it sounds like his music, but rather it sounds like Satriani is playing (which he is). Basically, that kid will never get his rig to sound that good with his own fingers. The Line6 stuff... well, they’re built to a price point. If they sold a $99 Spider amp that sounded as good as their $1,500 Helix setup, well, they’d never sell another Helix! Everyone would just buy the cheap Spider! So you can’t fault a cheap amp for sounding cheap. A company would be shooting themselves in the foot if they made it too good. The Vox Pathfinder 15R is a good example. These were $100-120 new, and they sounded great. You could run it through a larger cabinet and use it in bands. I did - people IN THE BAND thought I was using a Vox tube amp and complimented me on my tone. They were shocked to learn how cheap the amp was!
I have the vox pathfinder, into a Gretsch It's fantastic, I live in a small space but for recording and small gigs it really is the business man, great amp, I love it.
Sammy G, I really liked this video. On the Nashville thing, I totally agree about Bro country. It sucks eggs. That being said, female country artist are still putting out good solid country music. Austin City Limits features them from time to time. Prince wrote lots of songs for female artist and was very successful as you know. Just food for thought. Keep up the great work.
I love gear but really we're fooling ourselves most of the time when it comes to thinking that money = tone, or that the details of your tone even matters to the listener compared to composition and performance when your in one of the basic forms, clean Fender, crunchy Vox, saturated JCM800. Same goes for guitar shred skills. A great skill to have is to hear a melody in your head and be able to pick that out on your instrument without blotting it out with linear scale shapes and box patterns.
I love your answer to the first question. And it's so true. I don't think he was being entirely sarcastic. Sure, yes, there's more headroom and all that jazz on a Dumble, but depending on how things are recorded, mixed, etc. etc. etc., as John said, people can be fooled. I play in my cover band with a Fender Champion 100. Would I rather use another amp? Sure. Did I save money on it and no one can tell it was cheaper? Yup lol
samuraiguitarist omg you nailed the point about TikTok and how a 2hr long movie seems daunting even though you love movies. I've been experiencing this lately. It's gotten to the point where I can't put my phone down while a movie is going on. I used to never have this problem.
The whole amp thing does depend on the genre, a big part of why I love Boris and Melvins are that super huge amp tone you can't really emulate through digital amps. For like most modern rock and metal the difference is negligible.
The Studio Rats did a video recently (actually two videos) where they did a shootout between some amps: a Marshall head, a Matchless and a Boss Katana Artist head. The Katana was actually the loudest amp. And in a blind test, the way the amps were set up, it was difficult to tell which amp was which. They weren't identical, but they're very close.
What matters the most with "amps" is actually the speakers. Amps actually have very little to do with changing the sound much. All the different sound qualities you hear between, say, marshalls, voxs, fenders, etc. is actually from the SPEAKERS, _not_ the circuitry...
@@-jank-willson My EVH sounds totally different than my marshall through the exact same cab. Also the EVH sounds great through it's matching cab but sounds like garbage through a home-made cab with the same speakers. It's obvious that amp, cab, and speakers all play a significant part in a rig's sound.
Hot take: I have nice amps. I do 90% of my stuff with my Helix. Yeah, I'm sure Kemper is better, etc., but the point is that by the time you add in an effects chain and other instruments, I can get something independently indistinguishable from any amp I want. Could you hear _a_ difference if you listened for it back-to-back with the real thing? Sure, if you're good, but you're not listening to the music at that point. So... I'll take my studio storage space back instead of my old collection of boutique amps.
For live and studio stuff I totally agree with you but I think when you’re in the room there’s something about having a real amp (or at least a real cab). It doesn’t matter if it’s solid state or tube, 1x8 or 4x12, it’s a whole different experience from using headphones or monitors.
Unpopular Opinion: I don't rely on amps for my tone, whatsoever. Any clean powerful amplifier will work, because I already have the signal processed the way I want it to sound. If it doesn't sound right through a new amplification source for whatever reason; a few eq tweaks later, then it does. To each thier own though😀
I gigged a line6 flex tone for years, eventually I took the badge off and told anyone who asked that it was 64 Marshall Bluesbreaker. They all said it sounded great !
I'm 53 and I've been playing since I was 15. 90% of the guitar players I've known don't play out or record. We might jam on occasion, but for the most part, we just play for fun. Owning amps for a HUGE segment of the population of guitar players is just part of the hobby. To ask if amps are pointless is such a stupid question to me. (so offense SG, love the channel!) It's like asking if old cars are pointless or if having an old house is pointless. You own what you enjoy, what gets the job done, and what you can afford. I honestly think this analysis of digital vs. "real" amps that everyone keeps doing is pointless. If you gig, lighter stuff is great. If your gear hasn't moved in a decade, glowing glass is cool. Whatever.
I don't bother any more with big tube amps. All they ever did for me was get me in trouble with clubs and sound guys. Good riddance. Biggest amp I still own is a Peavey Classic 30 1x12. Now I get compliments on how good it sounds, instead of complaints about how loud it is.
As a musician who has a lot of technical background (almost 2 decades of experience in the field of electronics - repair and design) i tell you - guitar amp hype is just another form of "audiophoolery" (audiophilia) :) You know that disease - cables that cost 1000000 gazillion dollars , claims that digital is "bad" , that tubes are superior to solid state 🤯 , etc. Many times i said - music comes from person , not amp . In 99.99 percent of cases , regular person cannot notice any difference between 200 dollar vs. 2000 dollar amp 😊 Cheerz SammyG
Hi Sammy G! Long time viewer, first time commenter. My band has seen a bit of success with that technique you talked about with the spotify algorithm, it definitely works! We released our first video that garnered a decent amount of views, with streaming release of that song coming about a week after. People were very excited to listen to it outside of youtube, so a large surge of people listened to it on spotify when it came out. Garned a few thousand streams in the first few days. All within 2ish years later, spotify shoved that song in it's algorithm and now it's on track to 700k in the next couple days or so, and that also provided a huge boost for our other songs we've released since!
I went to a show at a night club recently and the band played a 2h set; the guitarist was out of tune for 3/4 of the entire show... Asked some people around (and some of my friends who were there) if they noticed and nobody picked it up. To think that any "non-musician" can spot the difference between a X or Y amount of dollar equipment is absurd... Most non-musicians (and a not insignificant amount of actual musicians) can't tell the difference between two notes. Period. A distinction that has actual musical implications... Let alone if they are coming from a Line 6 or a Dumble. The things people listening to music in a live setting notice are: 1) It's too loud / not loud enough, and 2) the guy / girl playing that (instrument) looks hot.
I've been using the Line 6 Spider4 75W at home for a long time. The "green metal" channel sounds really good to me, especially at low volumes. I tried different amps at the store but never felt the need to upgrade.
I have a Spider 3 150w with a b52 cab. It sounds pretty damn good when I’m playing at home. I went in to buy a combo amp. Bought that half stack for $200. They only people that care about your gear are people that think they know shit
The guy at the back playing pool attempting to get into the pants of the girl at the bar doesn’t give a shit whether or not your gear is expensive or not. Trust me!
The cheap amp will sound cheap in any setting.. a crowded busy loud bar is going to sound worse with a cheap amp.. a good amp adds something to the air that makes it acceptable and any volume level.. however, a great guitarist through a clean amp, at reasonable coffee shop levels, will not notice the difference at all
I feel like a lot of the modelers(both low and high end) require the personality that likes to fiddle with settings to sound good. Personally, that’s my least favorite part of playing guitar so I like to stick with basic “meat and potatoes” amps. Gimme a tube amp with three knobs and I’ll be happy.
Speaking of hip hop, Young MC wrote both of Tone Loc's hits. Young MC later became a one hit wonder with "Bust a Move" which was boosted by Flea on the bass.
The only social media I have is here on TH-cam, and I rarely watch the Shorts, because I'm not entertained by a 30 second to 1 minute video. I love the long form videos. Especially, if it's a channel I really like. The longer the better. But, I am from a different generation, plus China gathers info on people on TikTok, so there's that as well.
I'm the same. I usually can't be bothered with the shorts, and what particularly irks me is the vertical format. I never watch YT on my phone, and I don't have TikTok, and never will.
It's a great time to be a guitarist. The amount of good gear that is affordable is limitless. I remember starting out on guitar 20 years ago and the Squier guitars were quite bad. Sure, you can find a diamond in the rough, but the majority were not gig-worthy. Nowadays? Wow, Squier is making some gig-worthy guitars and many musicians don't need to get a Custom Shop from Fender (even though you should still get it if you can haha). But technology has really made cheap guitar amps and modeling so good. The BOSS Katana and the Line 6 stuff is actually very good these days. I used to be the guy who wants to keep all my guitar pedals. Nowadays, I just use a $650 CAD Headrush MX5 and that is my WHOLE PEDAL BOARD, and it does 99% of the job!
Dude I'm telling you, I practice through a original metal zone in a blue tooth speaker,it sounds killer,and I'm old school have a old Beringer Vampire head,my buddy has a studio,and a lot of players love it.
I like the idea of the subscription to a website. I am getting really sick of TH-cam. Edit: I mean youtube as a company and media platform. Good ol' Sammy G is always good to see.
You’re right. Nobody care’s much about the fact that I put so much thought, sweat, blood, and cash into my Bass, Electric, and Acoustic Guitar tones. Other musicians are somewhat impressed (because they know I’m giving it my best shot), and I really enjoy using it…but most folks I play for, don’t really notice much of a difference between “just ok” and “Great” equipment. I’ve thought about selling all of my Mesa Boogie, etc stuff and buying cheaper equipment. I enjoy using it, and my kids will probably have to sell it at the estate sale, when I pass😉
In regards to expensive gear is a waste of money: Duh, That's obvious to anyone that's not committed to expensive gear because they already own some. They need to justify that cost somehow, because everyone else knows a speaker is a speaker, an amp is an amp. It's what you feed into it that matters. There's so much effects and filtering and eq going on these days that the speaker makes 0 difference at all unless you're just playing clean, which hardly anyone does any more.
My spider IV served me well. all the sounds I needed to play covers. Didn't have to worry about it getting destroyed. I had one for back up too. $125 each. Better than taking my 5150, blue voodoo, or fender. Drunk people don't notice what amp you are playing through.
Something I've found about boutique amps... they're inordinately expensive... and... my PODGO does a great job at 1/100 the price... the only people who care are nerdy guitarists who think gear makes the player... FTR... I use the Trainwreck model with the V30 Black IR... simply stunning for the price.
“ new subscriber” , Today is my birthday…🎶👍🏻🙏🏻🎉 ( 69 ) …! Being a Working Musician, most all of my life, including being on the road for almost 5 years … I have owned a plethora of multi faceted amplifiers throughout my illustrious musical career ….. And even now down in my studio, I believe there are six amplifiers that I can switch between all hooked up to my massive DIY Pedal board… , four of them are tube amplifiers… This comment is not about how wonderful my amplifiers are…! But the most incredibly fantastic sounding amplifier I have heard in my life..! When I was 16 or 17 I went over to my brother-in-law‘s house to jam…, with a couple friends that drove down from Chicago this one particular Guitar player, who is probably in his late 20s early 30s.. and was playing a beat up house painted green Blond neck and finger board, 68 Tele that had a Parsons White ( B ) Bender installed in it …! Not only was he one of the most phenomenal, blues and country players I have heard in my life…! But his sound was “off the hook..!!!” What a humble, soft-spoken brilliant Musician he was…🎶👍🏻🙏🏻👍🏻🎶. The amplifier he was playing through was a beat up Tube Sears Silvertone amplifier. That he said, his kids had pulled the knobs off of the front of it, except for two of them…😹😹😹👍🏻 My entire life I have been trying to achieve the sound of a guitar player nobody has ever heard of before…! Playing a guitar that inspired me to play a B bender telecaster most all of my life… Through a POS Tube amp that was missing most of the knobs on the front… I have several phenomenal sounding amplifiers…! That none will ever sound as good as my mysterious hero who I don’t think I even remember hearing his name…! ( The Jeff Galey Channel )
Here's an unfiltered opinion: This guy doesn't play with any feeling. It wouldn't matter if he played out of a Mesa rectifier or with an unplugged electric guitar.
There's no amp in the world I would choose over an Fractal FM9 or an Axe FX. Very few people can tell the difference and I don't care if they can. Amps are too heavy, and too much of a PITA.
On John Mayers comment and what you said: I don't think a single person (even gear snobs) would notice in a live setting if a guitarist had an expensive amp on stage with a hidden cheap one providing the real sound. Our brains are incredibly powerful at filling in gaps of information and just the sight of a nice amp will make the audience truly believe the sound is of higher quality regardless of musical experience. Lots of people like to think they would be able to tell the difference but when you aren't hearing isolated guitar and don't already know there is a second amp providing sound it is impossible to tell.
Never use an amp, the situations in house and local gigs can't allow me to have an amp. Always using a joyo american for that fender-y sound and it's good enough through PA Edit, spelling
Yes, the thing about skill sets is it's critical to not compare your skill set to others obsessively, particularly early in your progress (unless it's inspiring you to try harder). It's OK to make music with a limited skill set; what matters is honing that over time to get better with what you are good at. Lots of great great music made by musicians with limited technical skill sets, but they could extract an enormous amount from what they had. Your Tom DeLonge example applies with force to the Beatles.
Re: "Does skill level really matter if you're just in it for the creativity and fun of it?" I think that djmusey has their cause-and-effect backwards. It's not necessarily the case that getting more skilled will make it more fun or lead to more creativity, but having more fun and pouring more creativity into it will build your guitar-skills faster.
I think it works both ways. Creativity does require at least some skill/knowledge. The more skilled you are, the easier it is to apply those skills, because you aren't struggling with basic technique. If you have no skill and want to play a nice sounding melody, playing that melody takes a lot of effort, because your lack of skill gets in the way. And the same applies when it comes to writing music. If you have no skill, it's quite difficult to make the song sound the way you like, and it's difficult to have fun if you aren't satisfied with the way your songs sound. All in all, skill makes this process a lot more effortless. That way, you can focus on the "having fun" part, and not on the technical struggle. But it is true that when you have fun, you will automatically also learn faster. But I would also say that making progress is fun in and of itself. When you realize you can do something that you couldn't do in the past, it is inspiring and makes you want to learn more. I think at one point, people usually reach a skill level that they are pretty satisfied with. They no longer struggle technically with the parts they like to play, and they can write stuff that they are quite satisfied with. At that point, they probably feel no need to focus on their technique that much any more. But before one reaches this level, I would say skill level is definitely one part of the equation in your ability to have fun with the instrument. The fact that you can't do something that you would like to be able to do is exactly what makes people want to improve their skills. But of course even then, there are different ways of practicing. And when you are having fun and being creative, you make more progress.
Once I saw a Hendrix-Cover Trio playing in a club. The guitarist had a wall of two 100W Plexi-Marshall stacks and the drummer trouble fitting his drums on stage. The bassist got squeezed in the corner, although he was also the singer and therefore should have been regarded as the frontman of the band. But no, the frontman was the guitarist, who dressed up like Hendrix with that famous feather-hat and an expensive White-Custom-Hendrix-Reissue-Strat. After a while I thought the sound of the Marshalls was kind of strange and then I realized, that both of them were on standby-mode. So I went beside the stage and guess what I saw: Hidden behind the Marshalls was a Mesa Boogie MKIII happily running! But the funniest thing: A couple of days before, I went to a Jeff Beck Concert, where I spotted the Hendrix-Impressario in the audience. At that night in the club, he fancied the same moves and gestures Jeff Beck did in his Concert! Now This must have been nearly 30 years ago but I still remember it clearly as it was yesterday. One of the most bizarre events I ever witnessed besides the fact, that the guitarist couldn't even play. He had a Cry Baby Wah off course, which at some point he forgot to turn off. To this day I ask myself, who lugged the Marshalls in and out of the club? My guess: The drummer and bass player.
Satriani used a plugin all over his last album, so expensive amps in the studios days are numbered too. Fact is going Dumble is a status symbol, a lifestyle choice, an investment. In practical terms any watch can tell the time, like any amp or piece of modelling gear or plug in, can do a sound. But you will always have people who insist Rolex is superior, because it is Swiss made and because of its heritage etc.
I have a mix of gear. A ton of different stuff will sound great. There's no doubt at all. I played a solid state amp for almost 20 years. I won't try to claim that a good tube head through a 4x12 cab sounds better, but the difference in feel is dramatic. I finally understood why people go on about tubes. Not suggesting you change what you're happy with, but you owe it to yourself to give it a try if you can.
I totally agree with you everything you said about TikTok and short form content. It makes perfect sense. It actually decreases your brain’s dopamine and ability to have self awareness. It’s so toxic, addictive and depressing.
I realize this comment may never get seen and its been 7 months since you uploaded this video but I just wanted to say that on the part you mentioned about short form content making you feel like you have a shorter attention span; I feel like short form content can be addicting but really kinda boring cuz I feel like I miss a lot of context or feel like I could instead watch a full length video as its kinda less exhausting. I also have ADHD so you'd think short form would be awesome but no its kinda just... a lot and not really informative, just junk food. I do short form content trying to explain stuff in an mmo called FFXIV but I never want my shorts/tiktoks to be mindless junk food. Note: love your stuff I didn't mean for this to seem like some plug comment or whatever just had a perspective.
Basing your gear on the listeners ability to hear what’s good is like a painter choosing colors based on the viewers understanding of color. That’s not very artistic. They might not truly appreciate the details of the art but they are there nonetheless. That’s for the artist to curate.
in my experience 90% of the reason modelling amps sound like p00p is the absolute rock bottom quality speakers they come with. This is particularly true of the various Vox valvetronics, but even Mouldy old Flextones can be dramatically improved by fitting quality spkrs.
I use an Oceans 11, Canyon, Mod 11 and Big muff, see the pattern? All EHX, one brand. I chose them all at the same time so I didn't need to buy pedals for the rest of my life but would work together to provide 90% of what any given musical scenario would ask for, it works totally, remember the audience doesn't know or care if you're using analog or digital or even just one brand
i scraped together 6 months of salary without spending 1 cent to buy a Marshal JVM410h + speaker and, considering it's my ONLY audio equipment (not counting guitars and acoustic guitars), I think it was really worth it. Still, I have to say that I'm not looking for an ultra-wide sound (effect pedals, etc.) and I don't even play live with it. If I were going to use the same amount of money to build something more professional and varied, I would never pick up a Marshall right away. It was a childhood dream, by the way.
I love my tube amps. I gig my high end Magnatones and my Marshalls to an Orange Rockerverb. Idcif anyone cares but I like playing them and they're reliable. As a gigging guitarist reliability is whats truly important. I've only had two amps fail. One being a beat up Marshall jcm2000 dsl100 from the 90s, which is expected and a brand new cheap Egnater tweaker. You buy cheap you get cheap
I think John was just saying that not many people know exactly what they’re hearing. Five watt world just did a video having people vote on which was which, as McLerin was playing an FM3 and a Two Rock. Which was which. The votes were pretty 50/50 and the funny part was his FM3 was a JTM45. So not even the same rig and people thought it was a Two Rock Studio Pro which is a clean fender/Dumble style against a Marshall legend. That’s what John Mayer was saying. Not literally that a line 6 spider could fool him.
Wow Sammy g that's some info bro I haven't watched a movie since I started regularly watching TH-cam that being said I do have a problem with patience and consideration.....experiment now pending
In my honestly opinion and personality plays on vintages and new marshall with Attenuator aka power soaker to lower master volume so I don't get FBI raiding my house. pixie head 50watt to jcm 2203 800 50 watt amplifier with Marshall 1960a 4x12 with evh 2x12 cabinet theres no other amplifier or cabinet beats their sound. Ps it depends what music you play. I play Gibson slash les paul standard and evh frankie and epiphone inspired Gibson line of les paul and sg.
The drunken crowd cant tell the difference argument isn't very strong. I want to sound my best to enjoy playing at my best. But you can get a whole lotta amp for $1500 CDN. I just upgraded my MarkBass CMD121 by getting a used expansion cab in mint condition for $300 less than retail. Always check craigslist and marketplace for deals. The 500W total isn't needed other than to improve the radius of the sound with the additional speakers. Unless I do an outdoor gig. I've only done one and the 300W on the amp was enough to drown out the guitarist. Buy smart.
Meanwhile me with my beat-up 1970's amp "Eltron-30" bought from old school for 60 PLN (about 12 dollars) that i have been using for a year now. It was made in Poland and it actually went on fire not long after buying, but i managed to reprair it by replacing two or three burned components for couple of bucks. It weighs about 10 kilograms because it's case is made out of wood entirely (but it barely contains anything electrical inside). It still works somehow tho. Someone tries to get cheaper than that?
There are instances where gear snobs can tell the difference. However you can literally get a cheap old out of date Line6 Pod HD500X or a cheap old out of date Boss GT-100 and if you set your settings right, even most of the so called “tone” experts wouldn’t be able to distinguish between the cheap pedalboard vs vintage amp with boutique pedals.
11:05 I seriously couldn’t agree more man. I am no fan of country music, with the exception of a country gospel touch of Randy Travis “Are you washed in the Blood?” but presently I ABHOR the sensationalism of pop country music that can almost be classified as, “Music, but has no taste with the literal music itself because it decided to party on farmer dad’s money.” An original analogy of mine to describe the relationship between new and old country music.
ITS SO COOL FINDING ANOTHER STEVE EARLE FAN!!! he’s such an underrated artist with an incredible style and he deserves a lot more recognition I saw him in concert a while ago and he is incredible on stage
Why is this about the audience member?? This is about the musician and guitarist. I've been playing in bands for 20 years. It's about me as the musician. I play exclusively through my valve amp because I like the way it sounds and feels. It inspires me. I use an attenuator so that I can drive the power valves of the amp. The feel and sound of power valve overdrive is completely unmatched by any digital amp modeling.
I don't hate on ghost writing, it just is what it is. I can say even though i don't feel like i'm disrespecting it, writing all your own music does inherently come with more respect obviously; but speaking as an artist, I don't get why you'd ever consider having someone else write a song that's supposed to be represented and perceived as part of your catalog. That's someone else taking the art and work and name you're married to, and letting them put their own baby inside your intimate space...I'm not into that. I'm with Eminem, anyone can do what they want, but I would never go that route personally. If some writer ever came to me with that amazing of a song that I couldn't pass up, I would never innuendo it as my song, it'd be written in the song title as an unreleased cover of whoever the person is, I personally feel like I'd need people to know I'm just performing a song someone else wrote. Idk I want my brainchild songs to be a representation of me and my writing abilities, I want to know anyone who likes my music likes MY music. Anyway, cheers!
As a guitar player, the only one who cares if you're amp sounds like a Dumble or any other high end amp are you and maybe another guitar player. I've played way too many gigs where the sound guy just destroyed the sound of my amps, and the crowd still went crazy because they are just looking to hear the songs they know.
No truer words have been spoken!
I've played through Tech 21 pedals straight into a PA (Played both bass and guitar in one gig, and I took a pedalboard with no amp.) Nobody cared and it sounded fine. Would I use those in a studio? Maybe, maybe not. But no matter what it's whatever skill I have at playing the right notes in time that is more important than having a fancy guitar or amp.
I agree . . . but pretty sure John Master’s sound guy won’t be screwing his sound up.
Same for guitars
"Nobody can hear the NAME on the headstock of your guitar" Either you can play the damn thing or you can't
@@MashaT22 unfortunately his is not a typical situation. There's a huge difference when you're an artist who has the advantage of a specific sound person traveling/touring with you as opposed to being a guitarist in a band playing gigs, one-offs, concerts, or touring with a different engineer on every gig.
I broke up a band because of how furiously I defended my Line 6 Spider 2 Custom. I didn’t have the money to buy a new amp, so I felt really attacked by the other guitarists complaining about my “tone”. I finally bought an Orange Terror and then, then I understood what tone was. Always remember, when in doubt, bump up the mids.
Now you'll probably experience them saying your sound is too dirty with the orange amp lol.
I had a similar experience starting with a Peavey Vypyr. When with other guitarist playing through real tube amps I hated how thin I sounded in comparison. I started with an Egnator, then got a Marshall clone. That solved the problem for me.
Honest question: What about the recording process where many engineers like to take the feed direct into their effects chain & mixing desk / DAW? Is the amp type so critical if you're not live or would you all prefer miking up your amps when cutting a track (which I guess would need isolation booths)?
My experience with Spotify as a listener (and I love listening to under-the-radar artists) is that it always had been good at recommending the same genre or style of music. So there is likely a chance that your song might get heard of as long as those people are inline with your kind of genre too.
I'm just a bedroom guitar player, like 85% of the rest of you out there, and I've found that going digital and having NO amps is the way now. I use TH-U and I can get WAY more tones than I could with physical gear because of monetary constraints, plus it's just so easy to plug in and throw on a set of headphones at night while the kids are sleeping to jam/practice for a bit in front of my computer.
I was just commenting and guessed our numbers at 90%. lol I have a PodGo that I play through all the time, but I also have a room with a bunch of tube amps and 4x12 cabs that I have collected over a lifetime. I like both. If I have a half hour to play, I'll use the Line6. If I'm playing for a longer time, I'll fire up a "real" amp. I have thought about selling many of the amps I don't use much, but I just enjoy owning them.
100% agree.
It's come a long way.
I know exactly how you feel, I play without an amp mostly, and I wouldn't want to have to use one.
Drummer here
It's not the same as hearing the guitar through an amp.
@@dennisneo1608 no one said it was. You CAN get extremely close to an "amp feel" from modelers and sims, you just have to run them through a power amp and a guitar cab, but not blowing out my ears to get a great tone has been heavenly, ESPECIALLY after moving on from TH-U to a Fractal Audio FM9 and using a powered stage monitor for non-headphone playing. To each their own, but I'm never going back; it's just too good and too versatile.
MY GUY! Sammy G is the only entourage i need!
The most important thing in music is authenticity. If you can fake authenticity, you've got it made.
The country music for farmers line was resonant.
Well put.
I think, when comparing the two amps, you need to keep in mind that the biggest difference that you hear comes from the speaker. So if you ran the line6 spider amplification section through the same cab you would use with the boutique amp, 99% of people would not be able to hear a difference in a blind test
This guy knows what is up. Same goes for home hifi... focus on the speakers when it comes to your budget and focus far less on the source path. Its all important, but like a rock band is only as good as its drummer... audio production is the same with the speakers.
+1 on the Spotify stuff, if you send out a Spotify link to all your friends they’re a lot more likely to actually listen to it more than just one time than if you sent out a link to sound cloud. I feel like most non musicians never use SoundCloud or anything other than Spotify/Apple Music
SammyG needs to create his own new music genre: Canadiana. I’d totally be down with that sort of vibe. Canada has some interesting cultural vibes. My personal fave is the Scottish immigrants in Nova Scotia. I’ve done road trips through most of eastern Canada (and have been on road trips through nearly every state in the continental US minus like 5 of them). For real, SammyG needs to get on this new genre - I’ll take a free tee for the idea and maybe an album liner credit. 🤓 🎸 👍🏻
“WERE GONNA NAME A SONG AFTER YOU. CALLIT CANADAAAA
My fav part about Canadian culture is the compelled speech laws and not being allowed to defend yourself legally. Or and make sure you don't protest or they'll shut your bank account down too, that little bit of culture is tops.
Just kidding. I'm just ripping on Trudy. I'm sure Canada has real culture too that's not just totalitarianism.
"Canadiana" does exist! In a looser sense there's a large group of bands that are collectively known by pretty much every Canadian.
Ever heard of The Tragically Hip?
Colter Wall is legit af!
Sammy, despite me being a bassist, I have a relatively unknown combo by Roland - ST-50r. It is an amazing-sounding combo with two channels and a spring reverb. I have the feeling that the amp was made by a company akin to Peavey
I do have some info on the Spotify thing, but it's a bit tricky to explain. Basically we're back to the "record deal yes/no" debate. Basically, record labels, mangers or the like, have contacts to different parts of Spotify offices around the world. Example, here I know a guy who's primary job is to pitch things to Spotify. So if you have a deal with him, he'd send it to Spotify in Sweden, they'll listen to it and push it through the algorithm, put it on playlist etc. This is all before it's uploaded anywhere. And it can make a huge difference. So basically, make sure to send your stuff to places or people like that, mingle with people at every chance you get cause there is still a lot of value in making the right people promote your music and not just upload yourself, though that is of course always also a good way.
For the question on 11:10, I think they mean if it's okay to not actively seek to improve anymore if your playing for fun.
My answer to that is that it's okay, BUT: first you have to reach a level where you can play most of the stuff you would like to play, and keep learning new songs with a similar skill level. I'm saying this as a completely intermediate drummer with a full time schedule that rarely gets time to play.
Anyways, example: if you really wanna play Metallica and you do reach that level, it's okay to plateau at that level. If you get bored you can turn to Megadeth, Iron Maiden, etc., you won't run out of things to play.
Exactly. It's difficult to have fun if you are struggling with technique all the time. So, even if you are just "doing it for fun", how much fun can you really have before you reach the skill level that you are at least somewhat satisfied with? But once you reach that level, then improving your technique doesn't really affect your ability to have fun that much any more. When your technique no longer holds you back, then learning technique is no longer necessary if you are only interested in having fun. But if your technique seriously limits your creativity, then it's quite obvious that learning more technique would make it easier to have fun (because I think one part of having fun is a certain kind of effortlessness - if you have to think about your technique all the time, it takes away from the enjoyment of making music).
Sammy G, no matter the topic, I always leave your videos feeling better, even on some pretty dark days. You’re a good person, a positive person, and you make the world a better place just being here. I enjoy your content for the info & the fun too, but I thought you should know you being you is a help to a lot of us. Thanks for sharing yourself and your work. Much peace to you. ✌️😌🎸
I'm a fairly skill-less guitar player, and have been having a blast learning new stuff and coming up with my own punk rock/thrashy riffs. I'd never play for another person to hear, because even though I've been playing guitar since I was about 12 or 13, I still consider myself hot garbage.
If you're learning new stuff and making up your own stuff, there's a decent chance you're not actually skill-less or hot garbage. At the very least you didn't stick with just hammering nails into a stump.
A grammy award deserves respect, I’ll say that much. Anyone trying to play guitar (for any reason at all) is gonna find out pretty quickly that you’re gonna have to learn *music* stuff. You’re not gonna play a 5 minute improvised solo without learning some music. The more you learn music the more you realize how simple of a formula that it is. That being said- hit music is catchy. There’s no denying it. Therefore a Grammy earns respect from me. Do I watch the show, or know all the winners? No. But when somebody’s a grammy award winner as a musician it still commands some respect from me as a musician.
I have a great example: Afroman. Dude is a Grammy award winner. You could scoff at afroman, but dammit he did a thing- and he has a natural gift for melody and made all his own music. He did the thing. You have to respect that even if you’re bourgeoisie and elitist about your music being superior to other peoples opinions. Music is social. It’s in our DNA. You want to play music for other people, don’t you? Don’t you want other people to like it? Well, even if they’re engineered by somebody a grammy winner did the thing, and I respect it on some level. As a musician you have to respect a Grammy on some level for anyone. To play music for anyone besides yourself is a social attempt. Don’t hate on people’s success ya’ll. Respect it and keep working.
You’re the man Sammy G i’m a blind guitarist and I was wondering if your courses would work for me
I love your Tom Delonge example. He's one of my favorite musicians, but like you said, its more he does a lot with a smaller skillset. Gives the less talented hope too :)
I think the difference between hearing amps on recordings can be minimal. You're not tasting it, like you would a piece of beef. You're not even playing the amp. So I think Mayer could be right, that the recorded version of an amp can be very similar. PLAYING it, on the other hand, is completely different and brings out different things from the player.
There’s a video out there of Satriani playing some kid’s beginner guitar/amp. You can tell the tone isn’t “up to par”, but it still sounds like Satch. I don’t mean it sounds like his music, but rather it sounds like Satriani is playing (which he is). Basically, that kid will never get his rig to sound that good with his own fingers.
The Line6 stuff... well, they’re built to a price point. If they sold a $99 Spider amp that sounded as good as their $1,500 Helix setup, well, they’d never sell another Helix! Everyone would just buy the cheap Spider! So you can’t fault a cheap amp for sounding cheap. A company would be shooting themselves in the foot if they made it too good. The Vox Pathfinder 15R is a good example. These were $100-120 new, and they sounded great. You could run it through a larger cabinet and use it in bands. I did - people IN THE BAND thought I was using a Vox tube amp and complimented me on my tone. They were shocked to learn how cheap the amp was!
I have the vox pathfinder, into a Gretsch It's fantastic, I live in a small space but for recording and small gigs it really is the business man, great amp, I love it.
Sammy G, I really liked this video.
On the Nashville thing, I totally agree about Bro country. It sucks eggs. That being said, female country artist are still putting out good solid country music. Austin City Limits features them from time to time.
Prince wrote lots of songs for female artist and was very successful as you know.
Just food for thought.
Keep up the great work.
I love gear but really we're fooling ourselves most of the time when it comes to thinking that money = tone, or that the details of your tone even matters to the listener compared to composition and performance when your in one of the basic forms, clean Fender, crunchy Vox, saturated JCM800. Same goes for guitar shred skills. A great skill to have is to hear a melody in your head and be able to pick that out on your instrument without blotting it out with linear scale shapes and box patterns.
Shredding is dog shit, I can barely listen to it, good melody every time
We need to get this man a Grammy immediately 🤣
1MM subs... we could actually pull this off for the record. I've got free time. Wanna try?
I love your answer to the first question. And it's so true. I don't think he was being entirely sarcastic.
Sure, yes, there's more headroom and all that jazz on a Dumble, but depending on how things are recorded, mixed, etc. etc. etc., as John said, people can be fooled.
I play in my cover band with a Fender Champion 100. Would I rather use another amp? Sure. Did I save money on it and no one can tell it was cheaper? Yup lol
samuraiguitarist omg you nailed the point about TikTok and how a 2hr long movie seems daunting even though you love movies.
I've been experiencing this lately. It's gotten to the point where I can't put my phone down while a movie is going on. I used to never have this problem.
The whole amp thing does depend on the genre, a big part of why I love Boris and Melvins are that super huge amp tone you can't really emulate through digital amps. For like most modern rock and metal the difference is negligible.
The Studio Rats did a video recently (actually two videos) where they did a shootout between some amps: a Marshall head, a Matchless and a Boss Katana Artist head. The Katana was actually the loudest amp. And in a blind test, the way the amps were set up, it was difficult to tell which amp was which. They weren't identical, but they're very close.
What matters the most with "amps" is actually the speakers. Amps actually have very little to do with changing the sound much. All the different sound qualities you hear between, say, marshalls, voxs, fenders, etc. is actually from the SPEAKERS, _not_ the circuitry...
@@-jank-willson My EVH sounds totally different than my marshall through the exact same cab. Also the EVH sounds great through it's matching cab but sounds like garbage through a home-made cab with the same speakers. It's obvious that amp, cab, and speakers all play a significant part in a rig's sound.
@@-jank-willson a year later and I'm still laughing at this comment! 😂😂😂
Thanks for coming straight to the point that you teased in the thumbnail
I’m so relieved to find so many other guitarists repeating what i’ve thought for so long. Less gear, more playing.
7:19 I feel you so hard on this one Sammy
Hot take: I have nice amps. I do 90% of my stuff with my Helix. Yeah, I'm sure Kemper is better, etc., but the point is that by the time you add in an effects chain and other instruments, I can get something independently indistinguishable from any amp I want. Could you hear _a_ difference if you listened for it back-to-back with the real thing? Sure, if you're good, but you're not listening to the music at that point. So... I'll take my studio storage space back instead of my old collection of boutique amps.
For live and studio stuff I totally agree with you but I think when you’re in the room there’s something about having a real amp (or at least a real cab). It doesn’t matter if it’s solid state or tube, 1x8 or 4x12, it’s a whole different experience from using headphones or monitors.
6:46 Truer words can't be more well spoken.
Unpopular Opinion: I don't rely on amps for my tone, whatsoever. Any clean powerful amplifier will work, because I already have the signal processed the way I want it to sound. If it doesn't sound right through a new amplification source for whatever reason; a few eq tweaks later, then it does. To each thier own though😀
I gigged a line6 flex tone for years, eventually I took the badge off and told anyone who asked that it was 64 Marshall Bluesbreaker. They all said it sounded great !
@Mr_SamuraiGuitarist.. Hi there, that sounds interesting.
I'm 53 and I've been playing since I was 15. 90% of the guitar players I've known don't play out or record. We might jam on occasion, but for the most part, we just play for fun. Owning amps for a HUGE segment of the population of guitar players is just part of the hobby. To ask if amps are pointless is such a stupid question to me. (so offense SG, love the channel!) It's like asking if old cars are pointless or if having an old house is pointless. You own what you enjoy, what gets the job done, and what you can afford. I honestly think this analysis of digital vs. "real" amps that everyone keeps doing is pointless. If you gig, lighter stuff is great. If your gear hasn't moved in a decade, glowing glass is cool. Whatever.
I don't bother any more with big tube amps. All they ever did for me was get me in trouble with clubs and sound guys. Good riddance. Biggest amp I still own is a Peavey Classic 30 1x12. Now I get compliments on how good it sounds, instead of complaints about how loud it is.
I'm glad I only post to TikTok and don't actually watch anything on there.
As a musician who has a lot of technical background (almost 2 decades of experience in the field of electronics - repair and design) i tell you - guitar amp hype is just another form of "audiophoolery" (audiophilia) :)
You know that disease - cables that cost 1000000 gazillion dollars , claims that digital is "bad" , that tubes are superior to solid state 🤯 , etc. Many times i said - music comes from person , not amp . In 99.99 percent of cases , regular person cannot notice any difference between 200 dollar vs. 2000 dollar amp 😊
Cheerz SammyG
Hi Sammy G! Long time viewer, first time commenter. My band has seen a bit of success with that technique you talked about with the spotify algorithm, it definitely works! We released our first video that garnered a decent amount of views, with streaming release of that song coming about a week after. People were very excited to listen to it outside of youtube, so a large surge of people listened to it on spotify when it came out. Garned a few thousand streams in the first few days. All within 2ish years later, spotify shoved that song in it's algorithm and now it's on track to 700k in the next couple days or so, and that also provided a huge boost for our other songs we've released since!
I went to a show at a night club recently and the band played a 2h set; the guitarist was out of tune for 3/4 of the entire show... Asked some people around (and some of my friends who were there) if they noticed and nobody picked it up.
To think that any "non-musician" can spot the difference between a X or Y amount of dollar equipment is absurd... Most non-musicians (and a not insignificant amount of actual musicians) can't tell the difference between two notes. Period. A distinction that has actual musical implications... Let alone if they are coming from a Line 6 or a Dumble.
The things people listening to music in a live setting notice are:
1) It's too loud / not loud enough, and
2) the guy / girl playing that (instrument) looks hot.
I've been using the Line 6 Spider4 75W at home for a long time. The "green metal" channel sounds really good to me, especially at low volumes. I tried different amps at the store but never felt the need to upgrade.
Being satisfied with what you have is great!!
I have a Spider 3 150w with a b52 cab. It sounds pretty damn good when I’m playing at home. I went in to buy a combo amp. Bought that half stack for $200. They only people that care about your gear are people that think they know shit
My Favorite amps are Roland Cubes! I have tube amps but they are too loud still love them for what they are!
The guy at the back playing pool attempting to get into the pants of the girl at the bar doesn’t give a shit whether or not your gear is expensive or not. Trust me!
Why pay for that Dumble when you can download the kemper profile 🗿
The cheap amp will sound cheap in any setting.. a crowded busy loud bar is going to sound worse with a cheap amp.. a good amp adds something to the air that makes it acceptable and any volume level.. however, a great guitarist through a clean amp, at reasonable coffee shop levels, will not notice the difference at all
I have no studio and the few I’ve been in were no better than my person practice rig.. practice, practice, practice!
There is no substitute for hard work
I feel like a lot of the modelers(both low and high end) require the personality that likes to fiddle with settings to sound good. Personally, that’s my least favorite part of playing guitar so I like to stick with basic “meat and potatoes” amps. Gimme a tube amp with three knobs and I’ll be happy.
“Expensive amps are pointless. Buying a bunch of different guitars is much better.”
Yes, now if I can only convince the wife that more guitars = better.
BUT CAN YOU PLAY A KATANA?
Sure can. 100 watts, my preferred amp
He’s got a hockey stick guitar… Samurai Sword guitar next?
Free Pentantonic Mastery? Best ad ever. Signed up, because I still can't do anything but run up and down with it. I suck, I know.
Speaking of hip hop, Young MC wrote both of Tone Loc's hits. Young MC later became a one hit wonder with "Bust a Move" which was boosted by Flea on the bass.
Wow Sammy G thanks for the plug at 10:03 so cool
The only social media I have is here on TH-cam, and I rarely watch the Shorts, because I'm not entertained by a 30 second to 1 minute video. I love the long form videos. Especially, if it's a channel I really like. The longer the better. But, I am from a different generation, plus China gathers info on people on TikTok, so there's that as well.
I'm the same. I usually can't be bothered with the shorts, and what particularly irks me is the vertical format. I never watch YT on my phone, and I don't have TikTok, and never will.
The last time I saw any part of the Grammys Paula Abdul was winning all the awards.
It's a great time to be a guitarist. The amount of good gear that is affordable is limitless. I remember starting out on guitar 20 years ago and the Squier guitars were quite bad. Sure, you can find a diamond in the rough, but the majority were not gig-worthy. Nowadays? Wow, Squier is making some gig-worthy guitars and many musicians don't need to get a Custom Shop from Fender (even though you should still get it if you can haha). But technology has really made cheap guitar amps and modeling so good. The BOSS Katana and the Line 6 stuff is actually very good these days. I used to be the guy who wants to keep all my guitar pedals. Nowadays, I just use a $650 CAD Headrush MX5 and that is my WHOLE PEDAL BOARD, and it does 99% of the job!
Dude I'm telling you, I practice through a original metal zone in a blue tooth speaker,it sounds killer,and I'm old school have a old Beringer Vampire head,my buddy has a studio,and a lot of players love it.
I like the idea of the subscription to a website. I am getting really sick of TH-cam.
Edit: I mean youtube as a company and media platform. Good ol' Sammy G is always good to see.
You’re right. Nobody care’s much about the fact that I put so much thought, sweat, blood, and cash into my Bass, Electric, and Acoustic Guitar tones. Other musicians are somewhat impressed (because they know I’m giving it my best shot), and I really enjoy using it…but most folks I play for, don’t really notice much of a difference between “just ok” and “Great” equipment. I’ve thought about selling all of my Mesa Boogie, etc stuff and buying cheaper equipment.
I enjoy using it, and my kids will probably have to sell it at the estate sale, when I pass😉
My opinion is that Chester Bennington is one of the most powerful, talented, and dominant frontman of all time, if not the best.
Was
@@Optiman5000 he still is even in death.
RIP
@Optiman5000 As long as his legacy lives, his music lives, and he still lives though it,
Learning Jay-Z wrote Still D.R.E is still a mindfuck to me.
In regards to expensive gear is a waste of money: Duh, That's obvious to anyone that's not committed to expensive gear because they already own some. They need to justify that cost somehow, because everyone else knows a speaker is a speaker, an amp is an amp. It's what you feed into it that matters. There's so much effects and filtering and eq going on these days that the speaker makes 0 difference at all unless you're just playing clean, which hardly anyone does any more.
My spider IV served me well. all the sounds I needed to play covers. Didn't have to worry about it getting destroyed. I had one for back up too. $125 each. Better than taking my 5150, blue voodoo, or fender. Drunk people don't notice what amp you are playing through.
Something I've found about boutique amps... they're inordinately expensive... and... my PODGO does a great job at 1/100 the price... the only people who care are nerdy guitarists who think gear makes the player...
FTR... I use the Trainwreck model with the V30 Black IR... simply stunning for the price.
“ new subscriber” , Today is my birthday…🎶👍🏻🙏🏻🎉 ( 69 ) …!
Being a Working Musician, most all of my life, including being on the road for almost 5 years …
I have owned a plethora of multi faceted amplifiers throughout my illustrious musical career …..
And even now down in my studio, I believe there are six amplifiers that I can switch between all hooked up to my massive DIY Pedal board… , four of them are tube amplifiers… This comment is not about how wonderful my amplifiers are…!
But the most incredibly fantastic sounding amplifier I have heard in my life..! When I was 16 or 17 I went over to my brother-in-law‘s house to jam…, with a couple friends that drove down from Chicago this one particular Guitar player, who is probably in his late 20s early 30s.. and was playing a beat up house painted green Blond neck and finger board, 68 Tele that had a Parsons White ( B ) Bender installed in it …! Not only was he one of the most phenomenal, blues and country players I have heard in my life…! But his sound was “off the hook..!!!” What a humble, soft-spoken brilliant Musician he was…🎶👍🏻🙏🏻👍🏻🎶. The amplifier he was playing through was a beat up Tube Sears Silvertone amplifier.
That he said, his kids had pulled the knobs off of the front of it, except for two of them…😹😹😹👍🏻
My entire life I have been trying to achieve the sound of a guitar player nobody has ever heard of before…! Playing a guitar that inspired me to play a B bender telecaster most all of my life… Through a POS Tube amp that was missing most of the knobs on the front… I have several phenomenal sounding amplifiers…! That none will ever sound as good as my mysterious hero who I don’t think I even remember hearing his name…! ( The Jeff Galey Channel )
Here's an unfiltered opinion: This guy doesn't play with any feeling. It wouldn't matter if he played out of a Mesa rectifier or with an unplugged electric guitar.
There's no amp in the world I would choose over an Fractal FM9 or an Axe FX. Very few people can tell the difference and I don't care if they can. Amps are too heavy, and too much of a PITA.
On John Mayers comment and what you said: I don't think a single person (even gear snobs) would notice in a live setting if a guitarist had an expensive amp on stage with a hidden cheap one providing the real sound. Our brains are incredibly powerful at filling in gaps of information and just the sight of a nice amp will make the audience truly believe the sound is of higher quality regardless of musical experience.
Lots of people like to think they would be able to tell the difference but when you aren't hearing isolated guitar and don't already know there is a second amp providing sound it is impossible to tell.
Never use an amp, the situations in house and local gigs can't allow me to have an amp. Always using a joyo american for that fender-y sound and it's good enough through PA
Edit, spelling
Yes, the thing about skill sets is it's critical to not compare your skill set to others obsessively, particularly early in your progress (unless it's inspiring you to try harder). It's OK to make music with a limited skill set; what matters is honing that over time to get better with what you are good at. Lots of great great music made by musicians with limited technical skill sets, but they could extract an enormous amount from what they had. Your Tom DeLonge example applies with force to the Beatles.
Re: "Does skill level really matter if you're just in it for the creativity and fun of it?" I think that djmusey has their cause-and-effect backwards. It's not necessarily the case that getting more skilled will make it more fun or lead to more creativity, but having more fun and pouring more creativity into it will build your guitar-skills faster.
I think it works both ways. Creativity does require at least some skill/knowledge. The more skilled you are, the easier it is to apply those skills, because you aren't struggling with basic technique. If you have no skill and want to play a nice sounding melody, playing that melody takes a lot of effort, because your lack of skill gets in the way. And the same applies when it comes to writing music. If you have no skill, it's quite difficult to make the song sound the way you like, and it's difficult to have fun if you aren't satisfied with the way your songs sound.
All in all, skill makes this process a lot more effortless. That way, you can focus on the "having fun" part, and not on the technical struggle.
But it is true that when you have fun, you will automatically also learn faster. But I would also say that making progress is fun in and of itself. When you realize you can do something that you couldn't do in the past, it is inspiring and makes you want to learn more.
I think at one point, people usually reach a skill level that they are pretty satisfied with. They no longer struggle technically with the parts they like to play, and they can write stuff that they are quite satisfied with. At that point, they probably feel no need to focus on their technique that much any more. But before one reaches this level, I would say skill level is definitely one part of the equation in your ability to have fun with the instrument. The fact that you can't do something that you would like to be able to do is exactly what makes people want to improve their skills. But of course even then, there are different ways of practicing. And when you are having fun and being creative, you make more progress.
I missed the free pentatonic class I think. It’s 4 days. I’d love to have it If you can please.
Once I saw a Hendrix-Cover Trio playing in a club. The guitarist had a wall of two 100W Plexi-Marshall stacks and the drummer trouble fitting his drums on stage. The bassist got squeezed in the corner, although he was also the singer and therefore should have been regarded as the frontman of the band. But no, the frontman was the guitarist, who dressed up like Hendrix with that famous feather-hat and an expensive White-Custom-Hendrix-Reissue-Strat. After a while I thought the sound of the Marshalls was kind of strange and then I realized, that both of them were on standby-mode. So I went beside the stage and guess what I saw: Hidden behind the Marshalls was a Mesa Boogie MKIII happily running! But the funniest thing: A couple of days before, I went to a Jeff Beck Concert, where I spotted the Hendrix-Impressario in the audience. At that night in the club, he fancied the same moves and gestures Jeff Beck did in his Concert!
Now This must have been nearly 30 years ago but I still remember it clearly as it was yesterday. One of the most bizarre events I ever witnessed besides the fact, that the guitarist couldn't even play. He had a Cry Baby Wah off course, which at some point he forgot to turn off. To this day I ask myself, who lugged the Marshalls in and out of the club? My guess: The drummer and bass player.
Satriani used a plugin all over his last album, so expensive amps in the studios days are numbered too.
Fact is going Dumble is a status symbol, a lifestyle choice, an investment.
In practical terms any watch can tell the time, like any amp or piece of modelling gear or plug in, can do a sound.
But you will always have people who insist Rolex is superior, because it is Swiss made and because of its heritage etc.
I have a 40W Bluetooth amp/speaker that cost about $200. It sounds great.
I run all the effects through my phone with an iRig and Bandlab btw...
I have a mix of gear. A ton of different stuff will sound great. There's no doubt at all. I played a solid state amp for almost 20 years. I won't try to claim that a good tube head through a 4x12 cab sounds better, but the difference in feel is dramatic. I finally understood why people go on about tubes. Not suggesting you change what you're happy with, but you owe it to yourself to give it a try if you can.
I totally agree with you everything you said about TikTok and short form content. It makes perfect sense. It actually decreases your brain’s dopamine and ability to have self awareness. It’s so toxic, addictive and depressing.
I'd like to see a source for that, because it seems completely pulled out of your ass
The Roland ST-50R is actually a seriously rare amp. Have you heard of it?
I realize this comment may never get seen and its been 7 months since you uploaded this video but I just wanted to say that on the part you mentioned about short form content making you feel like you have a shorter attention span; I feel like short form content can be addicting but really kinda boring cuz I feel like I miss a lot of context or feel like I could instead watch a full length video as its kinda less exhausting. I also have ADHD so you'd think short form would be awesome but no its kinda just... a lot and not really informative, just junk food. I do short form content trying to explain stuff in an mmo called FFXIV but I never want my shorts/tiktoks to be mindless junk food.
Note: love your stuff I didn't mean for this to seem like some plug comment or whatever just had a perspective.
The thing I will say with Spotify is I make maybe $.20 for every $10 I make on Apple Music. Spotify doesn’t pay ya crap
Basing your gear on the listeners ability to hear what’s good is like a painter choosing colors based on the viewers understanding of color.
That’s not very artistic. They might not truly appreciate the details of the art but they are there nonetheless. That’s for the artist to curate.
in my experience 90% of the reason modelling amps sound like p00p is the absolute rock bottom quality speakers they come with. This is particularly true of the various Vox valvetronics, but even Mouldy old Flextones can be dramatically improved by fitting quality spkrs.
I use an Oceans 11, Canyon, Mod 11 and Big muff, see the pattern? All EHX, one brand. I chose them all at the same time so I didn't need to buy pedals for the rest of my life but would work together to provide 90% of what any given musical scenario would ask for, it works totally, remember the audience doesn't know or care if you're using analog or digital or even just one brand
i scraped together 6 months of salary without spending 1 cent to buy a Marshal JVM410h + speaker and, considering it's my ONLY audio equipment (not counting guitars and acoustic guitars), I think it was really worth it. Still, I have to say that I'm not looking for an ultra-wide sound (effect pedals, etc.) and I don't even play live with it. If I were going to use the same amount of money to build something more professional and varied, I would never pick up a Marshall right away.
It was a childhood dream, by the way.
I love my tube amps. I gig my high end Magnatones and my Marshalls to an Orange Rockerverb. Idcif anyone cares but I like playing them and they're reliable. As a gigging guitarist reliability is whats truly important. I've only had two amps fail. One being a beat up Marshall jcm2000 dsl100 from the 90s, which is expected and a brand new cheap Egnater tweaker. You buy cheap you get cheap
I think John was just saying that not many people know exactly what they’re hearing. Five watt world just did a video having people vote on which was which, as McLerin was playing an FM3 and a Two Rock. Which was which. The votes were pretty 50/50 and the funny part was his FM3 was a JTM45. So not even the same rig and people thought it was a Two Rock Studio Pro which is a clean fender/Dumble style against a Marshall legend. That’s what John Mayer was saying. Not literally that a line 6 spider could fool him.
Wow Sammy g that's some info bro I haven't watched a movie since I started regularly watching TH-cam that being said I do have a problem with patience and consideration.....experiment now pending
In my honestly opinion and personality plays on vintages and new marshall with Attenuator aka power soaker to lower master volume so I don't get FBI raiding my house.
pixie head 50watt to jcm 2203 800 50 watt amplifier with Marshall 1960a 4x12 with evh 2x12 cabinet theres no other amplifier or cabinet beats their sound.
Ps it depends what music you play. I play Gibson slash les paul standard and evh frankie and epiphone inspired Gibson line of les paul and sg.
The drunken crowd cant tell the difference argument isn't very strong. I want to sound my best to enjoy playing at my best. But you can get a whole lotta amp for $1500 CDN. I just upgraded my MarkBass CMD121 by getting a used expansion cab in mint condition for $300 less than retail. Always check craigslist and marketplace for deals. The 500W total isn't needed other than to improve the radius of the sound with the additional speakers. Unless I do an outdoor gig. I've only done one and the 300W on the amp was enough to drown out the guitarist. Buy smart.
Meanwhile me with my beat-up 1970's amp "Eltron-30" bought from old school for 60 PLN (about 12 dollars) that i have been using for a year now. It was made in Poland and it actually went on fire not long after buying, but i managed to reprair it by replacing two or three burned components for couple of bucks. It weighs about 10 kilograms because it's case is made out of wood entirely (but it barely contains anything electrical inside). It still works somehow tho. Someone tries to get cheaper than that?
Samuraiguitarist is a brand in which you have invested. How well has changing brand names worked out for others?
There are instances where gear snobs can tell the difference. However you can literally get a cheap old out of date Line6 Pod HD500X or a cheap old out of date Boss GT-100 and if you set your settings right, even most of the so called “tone” experts wouldn’t be able to distinguish between the cheap pedalboard vs vintage amp with boutique pedals.
11:05 I seriously couldn’t agree more man. I am no fan of country music, with the exception of a country gospel touch of Randy Travis “Are you washed in the Blood?” but presently I ABHOR the sensationalism of pop country music that can almost be classified as, “Music, but has no taste with the literal music itself because it decided to party on farmer dad’s money.” An original analogy of mine to describe the relationship between new and old country music.
I don't think John Mayer is joking. I know guy's playing stadiums with Kempers. Nobody can tell the difference if you set your stuff up right.
Hahaha.... if you say the G,
in Sammy G,
stands for Grammy,
I'm going to start calling you....
Spammy G
ITS SO COOL FINDING ANOTHER STEVE EARLE FAN!!! he’s such an underrated artist with an incredible style and he deserves a lot more recognition
I saw him in concert a while ago and he is incredible on stage
I was his guitar tech for a few years in the late 90s!
I thought he was a really renowned guy. Weird to hear him called underrated.
I pretty much avoid shorts and shit-crok for the same reasons. It's mindless and it's only there to suck people into that awful form of thinking.
Why is this about the audience member?? This is about the musician and guitarist. I've been playing in bands for 20 years. It's about me as the musician. I play exclusively through my valve amp because I like the way it sounds and feels. It inspires me. I use an attenuator so that I can drive the power valves of the amp. The feel and sound of power valve overdrive is completely unmatched by any digital amp modeling.
Sammy Grammy merch. Just your face on a Grammy
I don't hate on ghost writing, it just is what it is. I can say even though i don't feel like i'm disrespecting it, writing all your own music does inherently come with more respect obviously; but speaking as an artist, I don't get why you'd ever consider having someone else write a song that's supposed to be represented and perceived as part of your catalog. That's someone else taking the art and work and name you're married to, and letting them put their own baby inside your intimate space...I'm not into that. I'm with Eminem, anyone can do what they want, but I would never go that route personally. If some writer ever came to me with that amazing of a song that I couldn't pass up, I would never innuendo it as my song, it'd be written in the song title as an unreleased cover of whoever the person is, I personally feel like I'd need people to know I'm just performing a song someone else wrote. Idk I want my brainchild songs to be a representation of me and my writing abilities, I want to know anyone who likes my music likes MY music. Anyway, cheers!
If someone can use Modeling FX or Plugins sound like EVH Balance Album Tone, I will throw all my pedals amps cabs mics away.
I've seen Robben Ford 6 times. Twice with his Dumble his performance and overall tone was not any different.
"Maybe I'll win one next year"
We'll get you a Juno... - the participation ribbon of prestigious awards