OffsetGuitars.com

There are lots of things I don't like on guitars(Floyd) but i wouldn't call them pet peeves.
My biggest pet peeve regarding guitars comes from "perceived value."
If you have a guitar that is beat up to hell and is really difficult to play and sounds horrible... You shouldn't have to sell your kidney to afford it just because it says "gibson" at the top.
On the other end, I have an Indonesian squier strat that plays beautifully, sounds great(even stock pickups)... And I would have trouble finding someone to want it for free.

FightingPlankton wrote:There are lots of things I don't like on guitars(Floyd) but i wouldn't call them pet peeves.
My biggest pet peeve regarding guitars comes from "perceived value."
If you have a guitar that is beat up to hell and is really difficult to play and sounds horrible... You shouldn't have to sell your kidney to afford it just because it says "gibson" at the top.
On the other end, I have an Indonesian squier strat that plays beautifully, sounds great(even stock pickups)... And I would have trouble finding someone to want it for free.

What colour? I'd take it! But yeah, paying for the name and an enormous overhead sucks. I guess that's what happens when companies grow old and big. They sort of transcend, but not in a good way.

mackerelmint wrote:Well, there's this godawful cafe in the town where I spent my formative years call the old town. And it was crunchy. Barely any meat on the menu, "home fries" with everything, 29 grain bread for your toast. So every time friends would want to go out to breakfast, one person would whine about wanting to go to the old town and I was the only one with taste buds, I guess. Anyway, every time old town music was mentioned, my brain filled in a picture of acoustic guitars and hammer dulcimers and shit. Because the name is just associated with hippie stuff for me. Funny because it was the most conveniently located place to me, but my brain would squeeze it out of my mental list of options. Such is the strength of my disdain for hippies.

This is hilarious...

Pictorial threads with 10+ shots of the front of the guitar and nothing else. Followed by updates of the same fucking angle with some close up shots of the same area. Like seriously, i dont need to use up all my data to look at all those pictures of the exact same thing.

That beautiful 1953 Les Paul is excluded from this comment as i realize the owner, just took a few quick shots to show us.

Laundry lists of replacement parts and 'upgrades' for guitars people haven't even purchased/received yet

tribi9 wrote:Pictorial threads with 10+ shots of the front of the guitar and nothing else.

Somewhat related:

Hey guys, check out my new Jazzmaster!





Sorry about the blurry iPhone photos.

andy_tchp wrote:Laundry lists of replacement parts and 'upgrades' for guitars people haven't even purchased/received yet

Bwhahahaa most of those never ever materialize..

We should start a subforum called imaginary mods and projects.

tribi9 wrote:

andy_tchp wrote:Laundry lists of replacement parts and 'upgrades' for guitars people haven't even purchased/received yet

Bwhahahaa most of those never ever materialize..

We should start a subforum called imaginary mods and projects.

Or a band....

Hyphen Nation wrote:

mackerelmint wrote:Well, there's this godawful cafe in the town where I spent my formative years call the old town. And it was crunchy. Barely any meat on the menu, "home fries" with everything, 29 grain bread for your toast. So every time friends would want to go out to breakfast, one person would whine about wanting to go to the old town and I was the only one with taste buds, I guess. Anyway, every time old town music was mentioned, my brain filled in a picture of acoustic guitars and hammer dulcimers and shit. Because the name is just associated with hippie stuff for me. Funny because it was the most conveniently located place to me, but my brain would squeeze it out of my mental list of options. Such is the strength of my disdain for hippies.

This is hilarious...

So, while my friends and I were back there this weekend, guess what was suggested as a breakfast spot?

It was scuttled in no time.

ok. i really dont mean to keep railing so hard on modern blues culture in the guitar world but recently, i feel like it's really taken over the market to the degree where it's been effecting the culture as a whole. the market has always been a bit skewed but for the most part, the blues guys are really taking up a great deal of the market buying over-priced tube screamers and fuzz faces. most pedal demos seem to reflect this by mostly having blooze laywers pulling faces like someone hooked their mouth to the bumper of a pickup truck filled with all their white guilt and tried to drive into the sunset. some will argue that it's a nice counterpoint to the years of shred/metal guitar players but i want to remind them it's 2 side of the same coin. replace the pickups and change the amp to a mesa rectifier and there is nearly no difference in gear. it's became to the guitar world what the latte is to the coffee world. a good one will blow your mind and interesting things can be done. but it's all dependent on the person making it.

part of me thinks the andertons videos have something to do with it given how they treat what they do as polar opposites when really, one just plays faster with more gain. plus the trends in modern "rock" music seem to be leaning to each of those sides right now. it reminds me of what happened in the uk 10 or so years ago when the main prevailing sides of "rock" music was the whole "indie vs. emo. vs. metal" when really, they were all as bad as one another on the surface. the indie bands that were getting big were the most marketable, least offensive crap out there. the emo that was getting big seemed less like the emo of old (cap'n jazz, rites of spring) and more like boybands who were dragged through a hot topic backwards. while the metal bands were more focused on appearing to be as tough and masculine as possible to the point where anything with a melody was considered "GAY". where as any bands who combined elements of all of them were mostly ignored (see reuben and yourcodenameis:milo) despite critical acclaim.

part of me wants a bit more varity in the guitar world rather than the current duality but with the way the market is self sustaining at the moment, i see little chance of that.

There's so much we could unpack here. I think you have to look at who buys guitars these days, as well as market segments, pop music, who's buying what, etc. The "cool kids" are into synths, turntables and laptop as music device. The modern pop celebrities and the garbage machine that feeds this one type of music beast is not about the guitar. TV shows like Idol or who ever has talent are almost never about guitarists. It's about feeding the teeny bopper beast.

Guitars are inherently slow to evolve and conservative. There's like 5-10 core designs, most of which were locked in before 1965? Look at the conversations around authenticity we have on here. Same goes for amps and effects.

Lastly, who has enough money to spend, to keep people who make this stuff, in business? Blooz lawyers. The super smart and progressive musician plugging away late night in their tiny apartment is probably not buying a whole lot of gear. The gear they are buying is either helping with their creative vision, and simultaneously they are going to make sure they can sell and recover their investment if worst came to worst.

Blooz Lawyers have money. They are a major segment who has liquid capital to spend on guitars and gear. There are specific fantasies they indulge in. Think about touring acts these days. Most of my favorite bands play small to mid sized venues. The only people selling out huge arenas are pop stars and country, and a little bit of that blues. So if this group with money wishes they were Gilmore meets Hendrix, meets Stevie Ray, we can pretty easily figure out what they are going to buy.

All that being said, there are fantastic pedal, guitar and amp builders who cater to a more progressive spirit and are doing interesting things in a way that keeps them afloat, like the limited runs that Small Sound/Big Sound or Hologram is doing. It's cliche to say at this point, but the digital landscape and social media is amazing. Just chatting with Doug Kauer on Instagram or on here helped me buy one of his Banshees, and I have a short list of builders who I hope to purchase from because of social media and forums. Most of these guys do not focus on the blues lawyer crowd.

Lastly, and I am rambling, there's something damn satisfying about a powerful blues riff. I haven't really been playing any in a few years, and then two days ago, was going over some scale exercises to try and not suck at this guitar playing thing, and found myself practicing some minor pentatonic scales. Guess what, it's fun. It's not what I'd get in front of someone and play, but it's emotive, and powerful, and if your amp is loud and dirty and greasy, it's pretty effing fun. Blues Lawer guy probably works an outrageous amount of hours trying to take care of his family, and if this is how he lets off some steam, I am not going to begrudge him that one bit. It's a lot better than cheating on his wife, or becoming an alcoholic.

s_mcsleazy wrote:ok. i really dont mean to keep railing so hard on modern blues culture in the guitar world but recently, i feel like it's really taken over the market to the degree where it's been effecting the culture as a whole. the market has always been a bit skewed but for the most part, the blues guys are really taking up a great deal of the market buying over-priced tube screamers and fuzz faces. most pedal demos seem to reflect this by mostly having blooze laywers pulling faces like someone hooked their mouth to the bumper of a pickup truck filled with all their white guilt and tried to drive into the sunset.

I hear ya, but a peeve of mine is rock players who renounce the blues. It's an underlying influence on the music we make, period. The key like you said is to take the building blocks and make something interesting with them rather than just rehashing ripoffs of ripoffs.

marqueemoon wrote: I hear ya, but a peeve of mine is rock players who renounce the blues.

Foed

and renounced

Hyphen Nation wrote: It's a lot better than cheating on his wife, or becoming an alcoholic.

Depends on the wife and booze > blooze every time.

Here's a classic example of a bad string-through conversion. No mention of it in the listing.



Also, from the same listing.

"The guitar is in outstanding playing condition, absolutely no issues. Vintage Telecaster tone and snap. It weighs about 9.5 pounds."

I know weight isn't everything, but seriously?