i'll be the first to admit to having done this for most of my musical life. as teenager i bought amps that looked the part but did not give me the sound i wanted by a long shot... and then i had to play them for years because i didn't know any better but certainly didn't have the money to buy anything else even if i wanted to. as an adult i've bought plenty of guitars, basses, amps, pedals, etc. only to immediately toss them onto the pile of other stuff i won't ever use. i then head back to reverb and buy the next thing that will no doubt be the one thing that makes my sound complete.
i've learned my lesson... well, learning my lesson. i've really come to know what i like and what i don't, what i'll use and what will never ever be plugged into my rig. i've thinned out my collection quite a bit and am left with the essentials and just a few luxuries. i've had plenty of gear in my stable and i've come to the conclusion that tone is totally in the gear.
i know, i know... tone is in the hands or whatever, and i completely agree. nothing makes me happier than then blasphemy of some pro crushing it on pedestrian gear. look, high-end stuff is nice but it's like rooting for the yankees or something, they have all the money and are clearly going to win, so why bother? i'm sorry, i made a sports analogy and i hope it's apt... it makes me feel like the man i'm not speaking of such things that i have no knowledge of. the point is true, a good player will sound good on anything. however, even if you're good and can make anything sound good it doesn't me the sound is appropriate for the situation.
if Slash were to get up on stage and play a telecaster through a deluxe reverb, he'd still sound like slash... playing a telecaster through a deluxe reverb. that gear does not deliver the "Slash" sound and if you want that sound you're going to need some different gear. the tone is in the gear.
my first legit bass amp was an Acoustic of some sort... it was... an amp. i then upgraded in a big way to an ampeg SVT 3pro and it... was also an amp. i had gotten it used and all i knew is that i had seen a lot of big bands play ampegs and it looked serious, so it must be good. i never liked the sound, but that's what i had. we're not going to get into the fact i had no idea what i was doing, but i didn't like it. i found it difficult to get a good sound and even then it wasn't what i had in my head. i had that until something electrically catastrophic happened to it. after that i had a series of class D heads... carvin, peavey, a few sansamp rackmounts with a power amp, and some darkglass stuff (which is quite excellent but not me). i feel like i'm forgetting something in there, but you get the idea.
of all of those the darkglass VMT came the closest to being my sound. based on a classic ampeg it can be pretty vintagy or get grindy if you want it. as much as i raved about it when i was using it (for probably almost 2 years straight) there was just something didn't line up with what i had in my head. i assumed i wasn't doing something right... afterall that "ampeg sound" is so classic and everybody uses an ampeg it must be me, right?
well... no, tone is in the gear, this we know is true. well to bring this long ramble towards an end, i'm ashamed to admit that it wasn't until fairly recently that i got turned on to gallien-kreuger. sure, i've been familiar with their stuff for as long as i've been into gear, but honestly... i rarely saw people play them live. it always seemed to be ampeg or hartke, and to be honest, so they just sort of only existed in magazine ads. i actually thought about it and i don't recall ever seeing them in any guitar shops new or used growing up. it was always crate, peavey, the occasional ampeg and every now an again something like an swr or trace elliot... but never GK.
well, i scored myself a 400rb-iii and uh... it sounds uh... yeah, awesome. it has the throaty purr that i've wanted but never was able to find. turns out that's because other amps just aren't voiced like that and i was a dumb idiot for thinking otherwise. straight into the head it sounds pretty spot on, but i've been using a bit of OD in front to give a little bite with that purr. clean with some drive without sounding fuzzy or fizzy. use a pick and this thing is a rock machine all day long. use your fingers and... and, well it's still a rock machine. it sounds low, sturdy, throaty, muscular, and lacks difficult frequencies to deal with. and it's an older amp that gets little attention these days. in an era when bass amps routinely come in wattages in the ballpark of 1000 watts because more is more, an amp that only puts out a delicate 240 watts is passed over quite quickly. this is perfect for me.
i'm bummed it took me this long to find a sound that i clicked with so quickly but i'm happy i eventually did. a sound that's right for you is inspiring and tone can be found in gear.
