Unpopular opinions on gear

[prlgmnr]

I don't think I have any unpopular gear opinions, I'm trying to think.

 

[viifox]

Even then as weird as the setups are they sound massive and huge and then tight enough for faster riffing like in the bridge of Stars or Green to Me

what cabs did they use?

Right?! I still can't get over that the bulk of their distorted tones came from old distortion pedals. They just sound too big and full, like recto/wall of sound type huge.

I know Matt always used Orange cabs. Can't remember what Tim used.

 

[narad]

Tube preamps are overrated. Tubes help a lot in the power section, but solid state preamps sound just as good as tube to my ear.

OP said unpopular opinions, not wrong ones.

 

[Spaced Out Ace]

Correct. Tim Lash ran a sansamp gt2 into a Hiwatt. I bet that combined with Matt's Orange/Boss rig is what makes their sound so massive. Even live, their sound is just huge. They also have a pretty heavy hitting drummer!

If I didn't have two Tech 21 British pedals and a Joyo American Sound, I'd get a GT2.

 

[Vostre Roy]

OP said unpopular opinions, not wrong ones.

I think that it depends of the context its being used. For anything that is not stupidly aggressive metal, I would prefer an all tube setup. But for a tight modern death metal tone, I'm getting more than decent results with a solid state preamp pedal going into the effects loop of a tube amplifier (solid state for tightness, tube power for that magical tube low end "oomph")

And that comes from someone who has built tube amplifier and actually have some tatooed on his arm.

Just wanted to add my grain of salt as I don't have any unpopular opinion on gear that I can think of lol

Edit: Didn't realized until I saw my post how contradictory my statement is compared to my forum signature.

 

[Werecow]

What model pickups are in the guitar? H4?

Yup H4. My SLSMG is one of my standard tuning guitars. There's something about the palm mutes i just love for thrash and 90's rock. They have this chunk i've not found with any of my other guitars. It seems to start going away when moving down to Drop D, so not sure i'd like the pickups so much with other tunings. Doesn't matter to me though as that's not what the guitar is for.

 

[Spaced Out Ace]

Yup H4. My SLSMG is one of my standard tuning guitars. There's something about the palm mutes i just love for thrash and 90's rock. They have this chunk i've not found with any of my other guitars. It seems to start going away when moving down to Drop D, so not sure i'd like the pickups so much with other tunings. Doesn't matter to me though as that's not what the guitar is for.

I use an H4 in the bridge in Eb. It sounds pretty cool with the ABQ from the EMG ALX set.

 

[wheresthefbomb]

- My non-lm308 90s big box RI RAT sounds just as good as the LM308 Rat King I used to have, to the point where I bought it intending to swap chips and never bothered.

- reverb before distortion (into more reverb)

- headless guitars are ugly, so are parker guitars, so are dingwall basses. actually most ERGs are ugly, and the djentier and stringier they are the uglier they tend to be. sorry I don't make the rules.

- the correct amount of distortion is generally the absolute least amount possible, actually probably less than that, there you go, which seems to be a very unpopular perspective with the "metal" guitarists I end up in bands with.

- I don't know how "unpopular" it is, but thinking about price points, my Gibson Baritone SG was $900 used, it's a nice instrument but it isn't twice as good of a guitar as the Mushok sig I paid less than half as much for. Similarly, my Agile AL-2000 was $250 shipped brand new in a case, and I've invested probably around that much again in upgraded parts over five years. I use all three guitars regularly, they all have individual strengths and weaknesses that suit different aspects of my playing, but their original price points really do not reflect their comparable effectiveness as tools.

Similarly, I've got a pair of Dragonfire P90s that I paid $45 for in the Agile. I've got a BKP supermassive P90 in the neck of the PRS that I paid $175 for, the supermassive is definitely awesome, but it's not "better" than the Dragonfire to my ear, just a different voice. I don't regret paying for it, I've got another handwound pickup in the mail (Avedissian Night Prowler), but it's important to be aware of the sharpness of the curve of diminishing returns with increased in price. That's why I almost never buy new and I like old dusty pawn shop Peavey SS heads so much.

 

[efiltsohg]

(certain) neck humbuckers are great for metal rhythm tones

v30s are actively unpleasant sounding, especially the mesa ones

(certain) solid state amps are perfectly fine - they have this damping factor that tubes can never match, which sounds great for specific music styles

basically every "boutique" amp has nothing special about it, they are almost all hotrodded marshalls, which you can find countless other examples of for like 400$

 

[Spaced Out Ace]

- the correct amount of distortion is generally the absolute least amount possible, actually probably less than that, there you go, which seems to be a very unpopular perspective with the "metal" guitarists I end up in bands with.

I like to get a little gain from several sources rather than all from one place most of the time. Ie, a little from the pickup, a little from the EMG ABQ Preamp, a little from an OD, a little from the Tech 21 British. Then once it comes out the speaker, it's a huge articulate tone.

 

[wheresthefbomb]

I like to get a little gain from several sources rather than all from one place most of the time. Ie, a little from the pickup, a little from the EMG ABQ Preamp, a little from an OD, a little from the Tech 21 British. Then once it comes out the speaker, it's a huge articulate tone.

Agreed, I use a RAT and a Pharaoh but both are set to very minimal gain levels, I find that too much gain tends to cover up the individual articulation of pickups, pedals, even the power amp section very quickly, not to mention picking dynamics.

 

[budda]

The hell, people are talking about Hum in this thread?

And we didnt mention what Cave In did with boss pedals on antenna and jupiter (and live nowadays? For shame!

Unpopular gear opinions?

Hm. Can I just generalize beyond a brand?

 

[oniduder]

i really disliked every diezel i've ever owned, don't sound good

herbert, vh4 i assume the other varieties are similar so whatever

but the vh4 i found particularly disappointing, and i think i may be one of the few who doesn't really care for marshall-esque tones, some i like others or most i find lacking

in ways i can't describe, because i suck at life

 

[wheresthefbomb]

And we didnt mention what Cave In did with boss pedals on antenna and jupiter (and live nowadays? For shame!

RIP Caleb

 

[TheWarAgainstTime]

(certain) neck humbuckers are great for metal rhythm tones

v30s are actively unpleasant sounding, especially the mesa ones

(certain) solid state amps are perfectly fine - they have this damping factor that tubes can never match, which sounds great for specific music styles

basically every "boutique" amp has nothing special about it, they are almost all hotrodded marshalls, which you can find countless other examples of for like 400$

Agreed on all points besides the V30 thing. I even vastly prefer the Mesa V30 to regular ones

I think my only unpopular gear opinion is that the lunchbox amp craze is kinda dumb. Little EL-84s and 6V6s and tiny transformers just don't do it for me, at least for metal. Plus I usually like amps with three channels, or at least two channels with switchable boost options. In my experience, full-sized amps can do low/moderate volumes just fine as long as they either have a decent master volume design or if you run a volume/eq pedal in the loop to tame the overall level in fine adjustments. If you need a completely silent stage solution, pretty much any modeler will deliver the goods and offer way more tones than what most lunchbox amps can offer. Same deal with weight and portability concerns.

EDIT: I guess "dumb" is the wrong descriptor. Maybe "unnecessary" is more what I mean since it seems like a very roundabout way of achieving basically what either modelers OR regular amps can do, but with more limitations.

 

[viifox]

The hell, people are talking about Hum in this thread?

Funny you say that.

Downward is Heavenward didn't sell enough records, so their label dropped them. But it's easily one of my top 5 favorite albums.

How's that for an unpopular opinion?

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

OP said unpopular opinions, not wrong ones.

Nah, AMT's knocking it out the park, the ISP Theta kicks ass, and Crate supposedly has a killer sounding rackmount preamp.

I've been wanting to try a Carvin SX15. I've heard the Carvin SS amps are good. I never really liked their tube amps to be honest.

 

[lewis]

Unpopular Opinions:

Fishmans range from "ok", to "meh" to shit sounding

literally none are absolutely sensationally stunning tonal euphoria - like the Internet has you believe.

Jack of all trades master of none is the best description for them

opinion 2:

Boss pedals are criminally underrated. Things like the SD1 is still one of the most awesome and appropriate sounding OD/Boosts on the market for High Gain and to make things better, one of the cheapest too.
Also, things like the Boss Delay to my ears (and others when I was recoding an album) destroyed my Carbon Copy Delay.

Opinion 3: BluGuitar has really stumbled upon something genuinely mind blowing with their Amp1 products and thats just the start - how most people havent gone mad for them is crazy to me. Everything about them is incredible. They still seem fairly small and underrated.

opinion 4: Taking "cheap" production or kit guitars and investing good money into better hardware/electronics is fine and enjoyable, despite what people online will tell you. "just save your money and buy a £2k guitar instead dude" is often the response I see when people want to upgrade old or cheap guitars instead. Its Nonsense tbh.

 

[vilk]

Most people seem to love BOSS pedals, but i generally kinda hate them. I've yet to play anything from boss that really did anything for me, aside from the Tera Echo (which is pretty cool). I also do own the FV500, which is solid AF.

Ironically enough, one if my all time favorite tones is from HUM's Downward is Heavenward album, which one of their guitarists mainly used a Boss distortion/feedbacker pedal into a vintage 200w Orange. I actually bought that same pedal, but it sounded like complete ass, so i have no idea what kind of magic tricks they did to get that kind of tone from it. Probably had something to do with them running it into that Orange amp with massive headroom.

But yeah, I'd basically take any other pedal company over boss any day of the week, well, except for maybe Zoom.

The trick with a DF-2 is the turn the tone knob down to zero (or close to zero)... and you still need a somewhat dark sounding rig, too. I actually think mine sounds pretty great with my Marshall Origin, but again I turn the brite knob way down, and I have to take down the presence, too. But then it's jammin! I think it's a cool pedal because it does not sound just like a DS-1, but it's in the ballpark. Gets that Boss Distortion sound but without being the exact same DS-1 tone everyone has. Honestly it reminds me in some ways of a Rat, but noticeably different midrange sound. But then again way less versatile than a Rat, since you can't really do anything with the tone knob and the volume knob has to be dimed. I don't think I sound just like Hum but I'm not like worlds apart.

 

[Emperoff]

- I love Boss pedals
- Headless guitars look hideous
- I don't use boosts.
- Evertunes are ugly as sin.
- You don't need to spend 400$ on a delay.
- Buying an amp to play at home with a loadbox is ridiculous. Just get a damn preamp.

COME AT ME!