Don’t Change Guitar Mid-Set!

ScreamingDave

BrizzleRocker said:

ScreamingDave said:

Just wondering what everyone’s feelings are on changing guitars frequently when playing live.

 

Personally I find it irritating when a guitarist keeps changing guitar.  I saw Spandau Ballet a few years back and Gary Kemp changed guitar just about every song. Pissed me off no wnd, especially as the guitar wasn’t that prominent in the mix.

 

My own take on it is to find a good gigging guitar and stick to it.  The only good reasons to change guitar mid set are:

 

1. Malfunction (broken string, etc. )
2. Fundamentally different kind of guitar (changing to a 12 string or an acoustic guitar)
3. Different tuning

 

Other than that, nobody cares!

 

I use 4 guitars live:

• Les Paul for standard and drop D/B
• Strat - standard tuning, single coil sound
• Tele - strung with 13s and tuned down a whole step
• Another LP tuned down a 1/2 step

I do it because I care!!! It makes me feel better and therefore I believe I play better. Also trying to capture the feel and sound of many different guitarists. 

It’s borderline wankery but I’ve not had any complaints!

Interesting, though, that all your different guitars fall under number 3 of the “get out of jail free cards” I generously gave you all, and many other people replying also cited one or all of them. Top marks, everyone

robinbowes

The state of some of the threads on here. Fucking hilarious!

One guitar? Two guitars? Ten guitars Who cares?

An artist can choose whatever the hell he/she wants to play.

Of course, if that makes you feel inadequate - tough, deal with it.

fretmeister

If it doesn’t interfere with the show then I don’t really care.

For me personally, I prefer to do an entire gig on the same guitar. I like familiarity. 

I also prefer hardtails so I only used to swap for a single tune that really needed a Floyd.

On bass, if I need something lower than an E for even just one tune, then the entire gig gets played on a 5 string.

PolarityMan

We try to limit to one guitar change by grouping songs together but we do almost always need one as we use multiple  tunings, 7 string versus 6 string etc.

The backing track allows 20 secs for the change and we usually put a little masking by dragging out a pad or something from  the previous song and having Ed chat a bit. 

PolarityMan

I have toyed with trying to write a song where half the band changes guitar to try and minimise further but currently 4 tunings across 6 / 7 strings means its a lot of combos.