Why having lots of guitars is a bad idea

Dominic

Easy......get a Helix and create a good patch for each guitar
1 foot click away when you swap guitars

Funkfingers

ICBM said:

For most people cats it goes -

A guitar
Two guitars
A lot of guitars

FTFY

stickyfiddle said:

Once you get ... towards the really good stuff, the differences between different body styles and wood become much more apparent and you end up wanting several. 

Scale length and the fret at which the neck joins the body also become factors.

Monstronaut

Buy a JTM45 and some pedals. Done.

I suspect your problem is the amps your currently using are quite preamp eq heavy and colour the sound a lot. Using something a bit more neutral like a jtm45/bassman would definitely involve less tweaking and if you needed more gain there are plenty of pedals that will take you there.

ICBM

andy_k said:

Also, no 2 of the same type are remotely similar, each piece of wood is different

Guitarist: "These two identical-model guitars sound completely different."

Non-musician: "All electric guitars sound the same."

Both things are true at the same time. We can hear the microscopic nuances when we're actually playing the guitars, but 95% of your audience can't tell if you're playing a Strat or a 335.

PolarityMan

zedhex said:

I think there's a lot to be said for concentrating on one particular style/sound and getting the best out of it. I don't think it's possible to have a huge range of guitars and be able to get the best out of each one of them. 

It makes me wonder what the bare minimum is. Do I need more than an LP, a 335, a Strat and maybe a Tele?

Sell the 335 and strat and but an acoustic and a bass.

PolarityMan

thegummy said:

What I have never understood though, from a musical point, is people having more than one of the same guitar (with the same pickup type etc.) It just seems redundant to me.

Backup purposes or to make it easier when using multiple tunings?

liamon

Get an amp with 1 knob. 

imalrightjack

I would argue it's the fact you can only play one at a time and surely more than three or four is covering some pretty unusual bases - for most of us.

Kemper is the answer though

melod

I’d much prefer 10 girlfriends but what can you do about that?

10 guitars ...maybe.

zedhex

Dominic said:

Easy......get a Helix and create a good patch for each guitar
1 foot click away when you swap guitars

That is exactly what I tried to do with the Boss GT100 - it didn't work for me. I find tinned preamps to be a bit 'cold' (why is it so hard to describe sounds?). Although I do have a buddy with a Kemper, and it sounds great. Maybe I need to ditch the GT100.

simonhpieman

ICBM said:

andy_k said:

Also, no 2 of the same type are remotely similar, each piece of wood is different

Guitarist: "These two identical-model guitars sound completely different."

Non-musician: "All electric guitars sound the same."

Both things are true at the same time. We can hear the microscopic nuances when we're actually playing the guitars, but 95% of your audience can't tell if you're playing a Strat or a 335.

I agree with this to a point in that if you asked 100 people "what's that sound" a lot of them (but definitely not all) would be able to say electric guitar.

But a fan of, let's say dance music, will not like a dance track if the timbres are not quite right. They might not be able to explain why they're not right but they'll know instinctively that they're not.

I taught a year 9 class and played them the exact same song in Garageband twice. First time it had piano chords, a clarinet for the melody with acoustic (garageband) drums and electric bass. They absolutely hated it, in some cases visciously, such are the delights of teaching in East London.

When I changed the sounds over to synths and 808 style drums nearly all said they liked it and some of those who really hated it before made a point of saying how much better this song was than the other one, clearly not realising that the notes were exactly the same.

You can argue that your average listener doesn't care but there has to be a reason producers pour over the sound of a snare or add a barely audible pad in the background or, or, or... The average punter still hears the overall affect and if you've ballsed it up/not done it very well the average punter can still tell even if they don't know why. If they didn't we'd all be recording live rehearsals on pots and pans in the ringy bathroom with the portable cassette player your nan used to use to listen to her story tapes.

skunkwerx

I cut back to 3. One with Actives standard tuning, a tele and an Ibanez in D standard/drop c. 

It lasted a month or so. 

Then I bought an Lpj and an Eclipse shaped Ltd.. 

I agree its annoying though. I usually binge on one for ages then by the time I pick another one up its coated in dust and could do with a string change.. 

Would love to keep them all in cases but theres no bleedin room!

PhilKing

For a long time I had 10 guitars, 3 Strats, a 1960, 1963 and a 1982 Fernandes Revival 57.  A 1973 Ric 4001 and 1966 Precision, Hamer Sunburst, 61 SG Junior, MIJ Tele Custom and Ovation 6 & 12 strings.  Then I got into buying guitars with a friend and also started to have some made and to make some myself.  I now have well over 100, which includes some great vintage guitars.  I will admit that it is too many, as just maintaining them and storing them takes a lot of time and space.  I've decided to cut down, but then I start to think what to get rid of and how much it is worth.  In my head it's easy to justify the 12 Les Pauls I have, 1952 sunburst conversion, 1954 Goldtop Standard, 1955 Custom, 1959 DC Junior, 1960 Special, 1970 Custom, 1972 Deluxe, 1972 55 Special, 1986 Darkback Goldtop Standard, 2005 SG/Les Paul Custom, Epiphone Jeff Beck Oxblood and Feline Lion 20th Anniversary.  However, try explaining the difference to someone who isn't into guitars.  I used to have enough problems with my ex with the 3 Strats.

Also, I have about 16 amps, which take up a lot of space as well.  I'm lucky in that I have enough space in the house for them, but, even though I do play in a band, I really don't play them enough.  However, it's still a pain to figure out what to sell and what to keep.  I think though that I am really a secret (or not secret) hoarder, as I don't like to get rid of anything.

Keep an eye on Reverb for my sale (though I'm in the USA), and then you'll know that I'm starting to recover!

simonhpieman

Oh, and on loads of guitars:

For me it's gone from being a journey of experimentation and discovery to a pain in the arse.

I've now owned most of the guitars I've ever wanted to own. Rickys (sold), vintage Jazzmasters (sold) and Jaguar (may sell soon), Starcaster (also likely to be on the chopping block)... You try them out, you do something you were doing with them at the time but now don't do that sound/style anymore and you move them on. Or you don't like them as much as you liked the look of them before you had to actually spend time playing them.

If they're old you might worry about taking them out and harming the value. If they look nice you might convince yourself they're worth keeping even though the tiny neck cripples your massive hands. Both issues my brain adds to a whole list of considerations when weighing up buy vs keep vs sell.

I've got a Les Paul Studio. There's no reason I couldn't get a nice flamey Standard, too, but the Studio's been with me since I was 14 and I like it. Both is excessive, wouldn't get rid of one to get the other.

Now I have a small cottage, I value space more than guitars. Even in their cases they take up a ton of room.

Pre-covid I was playing more than ever before and for a living. Having loads of guitars meant remembering which type of strings and which gauge I'd used on each one. 10-15 guitars and that starts to get expensive and I also hate changing strings. Can't be in a situation where an old string might break on you mid set. How can I remember how old the strings are on 15 guitars that you chop and change gig to gig?

Then there's the constant setting up. I'm not very good at setting up and to be honest would rather pay someone to do it properly so I don't find myself fighting my already expensive guitars. 15 x £40(plus?) a pop even once a year is silly money.

I've just managed to make it back into single figures but I'm sentimentally stuck with a few guitars I just can't get rid of as I'd like to get down to 5 or 6 at most, really.

The lovely 80s Fender acoustic my folks got me for Christmas aged 12 but I couldn't sell for more than £100; the Squier Venus that I bought for myself when I did my GCSEs; my trusty old Les Paul Studio; the US strat I got for my 30th from my family but that ruins my left hand... All difficult to part with.

That said, I still miss my Danelectro Convertible, I miss the Epiphone J200 and Dot Studio that I traded for a Gibson 330 (now sold), I miss my old blue Jazzmaster and would have any of them back but then I'd lose the space again.

Not really sure what the ultimate answer is but my mindset is definitely that I want to keep numbers down so I can keep on top of maintenance costs and time.

Only ever had one amp at a time, too! And have a Helix on its way as backup... BORING!

Lestratcaster

zedhex said:

I think there's a lot to be said for concentrating on one particular style/sound and getting the best out of it. I don't think it's possible to have a huge range of guitars and be able to get the best out of each one of them. 

It makes me wonder what the bare minimum is. Do I need more than an LP, a 335, a Strat and maybe a Tele?

Looks like all those will cover most rock tones from the 60's to modern day. I would love a 335 and a Jaguar then I can pretty get all the sounds I need across different artists. But my Les Paul can sorta do 335 type songs if I turn down the gain and for Jaguar stuff I'll use my Tele or Strat.

Seziertisch

ICBM said:

andy_k said:

Also, no 2 of the same type are remotely similar, each piece of wood is different

Guitarist: "These two identical-model guitars sound completely different."

Non-musician: "All electric guitars sound the same."

Both things are true at the same time. We can hear the microscopic nuances when we're actually playing the guitars, but 95% of your audience can't tell if you're playing a Strat or a 335.

I have to confess, that on most recordings of six-string electric guitars I hear, I would be hard-pushed to say what (type of) guitar it was. Sometimes it's obvious that it's not one thing (i.e. an in-between setting on a Strat wouldn't get mistaken for a 335 neck position say),

However, the reality is with pedals, amps, mics, pres and other outboard and whatever goes on at mix down and the various tone-shaping options all these things offer it is possible to make two guitars which sound very different on their own, sound a lot more alike than would ordinarily be the case. And this is particularly true in a recording/band context because usually someone is trying to get everything to sit in particular places in the mix. 

HAL9000

I’ve got half a dozen guitars, and find that I only play two of them regularly - a Tele and a Strat. Both have only regular single coils. The others have various combinations of humbucker, P90s, and singles and I have to force myself to play them. I had intended to sell them earlier this year but then lockdown happened. Nevertheless they will get moved on at some point, possibly to fund a second Strat.

So, yes, I think it is possible to too many guitars if...

a) Like me, you only play a subset of what you own.

b) You have several guitars that are essentially identical.

c) You are HarrySeven ;-)

TTBZ

DrBob said:

Hattigol said:

Sassafras said:

I can understand having loads of acoustics cos there's not much you can do to alter their sound whereas electrics can be made to sound like each other with a bit of amp or pedals jiggery-pokery.

Am I the only one who finds acoustics soooooo boring?

Oh here's some acoustics, let's look.....20 identical natural ones, oooooh look,  sunburst, another 15 identical natural ones. Visually, they're just so dull, they occupy a tiny proportion of my GAS time.

Each to their own though.

Nope, completely with you

Same for me, sold my token acoustic recently as it was just gathering dust. I just don't know what to play on one. Though I'd probably still rather play an acoustic than a clean electric guitar which to me is the most boring uninspiring sound. Weirdly I've seen that new PRS parlour acoustic and thought I wouldn't mind a bit of that. Don't mind the birds on an acoustic for some reason and I'm thinking the smaller parlour body size would make it something I'd want to pick up more often.

zedhex

Non-musician: "All electric guitars sound the same."

There is only one possible solution: we have to kill all the nonmusicians.

AK99

zedhex said:

Sorry - Hattigol, that wasn't the intention. oh, and I can tell where Page switches to an LP - to me it's very very clear.

Any specific tracks you could point to zedhex ?  I'm interested to hear how/where  his tone changes between the two, as I've never been able to clearly distinguish one from the other.