LucSulla

As far as what they are doing that you haven't learned to do, it's not something one would learn. It's more a question of if you want/need what they do. They objectively are capable of increasing the voltage of the guitar's output before hitting the preamp section, and often they include the ability to add additional clipping to that signal and tone shaping. Eventually, you've turned up the guitar and amp as much as you can, and if you need more for some things, you can't learn to add more signal or shape it any further. Let's assume that you're willing to do everything via the volume in the guitar or by walking over to the amp and adjusting the control everytime you want to either get louder or get more saturation when using the guitar volume isn't sufficient. There is still a limit. You can't get the sound of something like James Hetfield's rhythm sound on Ride the Lightning on a stock JCM 800. Likewise, you don't get the brute force of the riff on "No More Tears" out of a JCM 800 either. There are lots of ways to get more out of a JCM 800, but you have to add something. The weapons of choice for those two examples were a Tube Screamer and an SD-1 respectively. (For an alternative approach, Kerry King used an EQ pedal into a JCM 800 with the mids boosted for Reign in Blood. ) Now, if those sounds are unappealing or, at the very least, not sounds you are interested in reproducing yourself, then you may not need on OD at all. Likewise, amps have come a long way since the 1980s, and many can replicate those tones and beyond with nothing out front. Still, a great many people in the metal world still love to use a Tube Screamer or SD-1 (or their many descendants) because they really do tighten the lows on an amp and make it more punchy. In the case of other genres, they can add sustain and compression to even a clean signal. I find they make country-style solos much easier to pull off, even when I'm running a compression pedal as well. They help hang the notes out there a little longer for me. I also find that when I am living in the clean and edge of breakup world, having the ability to boost volume/saturation and alter EQ with the click of a foot far more convenient than trying to reset the clean channel for each song and/or trying to find a balance between what I need for lead and what i need for rhythm with only the guitar volume. In fact, I probably find them more useful in the world of clean to slightly dirty than I do the high gain world when I think about it more. So returning to your two questions - it's not about "learning." That's a bit of false premise, I think. It's possible that, for other players, an overdrive solves a lot of problems that you don't have. You seem to be able to get all the tonal variation that you need out of your volume knob, but that doesn't mean that everyone could too if they tried. Nor does it mean that an OD pedal would be simpler that your solution for your use case. If a volume knob did it all for me, then I likely wouldn't use ODs either. In fact, ironically, since moving to ODs, I find I do control my saturation far more with the guitar volume than I ever used to because I don't have to drive my lead channel as hard. I can top it out as the most aggressive rhythm tone I want, use the boost for leads, but still be able to get the amp to clean up nicely with the volume because it is no longer set to kill on its own. Which is ultimately why people use them - they don't get (or can't get) what they need out of using just the volume knob and/or they like the convenience of not having to worry about purposely finding the sweet spot on over and over again on potentiometer during a live performance. For me, when my main band plays, we are doing everything from Creed and Alice in Chains to Waylon Jennings to 70s Soul, depending on our mood and how much we are whoring for that $$$. The easiest way for me to get all the different sounds I need ranging 00s-era nu metal to pop rock to Santo & Johnny is having some overdrive options in the mix. If you have a trick to make a bassman sound in the ballpark of a dual rectifier that doesn't involve 120 dB and is less invasive and cheaper than a pedal in front of some type, I'd love to hear it.

As smart as Leo Fender was, his company sure did have an issue with understanding what "vibrato" and what "tremolo" meant, haha.

I bought it FOR the tremolo more than anything else. I incorrectly called it a vibe in the OP, but I meant the Trem. When I first started playing, although all I wanted was all the metal and all the gain, I loved this Vibroverb reissue they had at the local music shop. Seemed like a one-trick pony to me though, and learning to play guitar in the 90s vs the 80s meant also learning to play in an era where tons of amps got all the gain you could ever want. The idea of needing pedals for dirt never crossed my mind. In fact, I was a member of this group and had been playing guitar for 20 years before I even understood properly what an effects loop did, much less a boost. Hell, I was buying boost pedals for a couple of years in the 2010s to use for distortion before I learned the trick turning the gain down and the volume up to hit the front end harder. This is all to say that I've always been a raging Marshall guy, and out of sheer ignorance was also a pretty much plug straight into the amp guy too in my salad days, which is weird. I went through the RIM program at MTSU, did a ton of studio and live stuff, was known locally as a pretty damn good player, and read guitar magazines religiously. Just never connected the dots that an SD-1 wasn't just for JCM-800s. The first time I ran a good boost into an already distorted amp, I thought, "Oh... so that's why everyone does that. What have I been doing to myself for 25 years?" So I've never owned a Fender-style circuit unless it was included in something - the clean channel on the BE-50 or the Shiva for example. This started out with the Royalist as an attempt to do a quiet stage thing but turned into an effort to get a good, Fender-style clean channel into a Quickrod or Helios. It's now expanded a bit beyond that.

So I got a Tone King Imperial Preamp. After I tried running the Royalist in an effects loop I realized I got the wrong box because everything I own is "Marshall-esque." So I put that on the market (and one of you who has the opposite issue - all Fender or Vox and no Marshall tones - should buy it) and got the Imperial. OK, now the Bogner Helios has an amazing clean channel and several kinda dirt options along with it's killer lead channel. But I was now going down the rabbit hole after seeing all the possibilities here. So I picked up a Friedman IR-X to run as the "amp" with the Tone King Imperial. The Imperial allows you to program an IR onto the bypass, so the Friedman doesn't have to run out of the balanced out to still sound like a cabinet. What this means practically is that you can use the Tone King as the nerve center for everything, and I did. I ran it into a really shitty Peavey DM 112 powered main speaker. "Wait a minute... this is far from awful." What else can I do? OK, well, my Splawn is sitting here... what if I bypass the IR on the Friedman's output and that run straight into the return of the Splawn? Oh shit... now things are getting really interesting. This sounds great. In fact, the IR-X preamp section into the Splawn power section sounds better than the BE-50 ever did. But I'm not lugging around a full sized head. What to do about the a power amp... Use my Quiliter? by just hitting the return? Buy something like a Seymour Duncan Powerstage? Wait a minute! I own a Fryette PS2! I always forget that I own it. I bought to run with the Plex and decided to keep it despite moving the Plex along. Seemed like it might come in handy, but it really hadn't yet. So it just kinda got forgotten about. So I dig that out and run it into a 4x12 that has two Greenbacks and two Fane m65s. I run the IR-X out to the return on the PS2 with the Tone King still sitting as the control hub for all of this shit and, my god, it's great! I've got both channels of the Tone King, both channels of the IR-X, my pedal board works seamlessly with all of them with everything either in front or in the loop as I would with an amp, and I get the reverb and vibe from the Tone King even on the IR-X. The PS2 gives me presence and depth control with some additional EQ settings and the best damned "Master Volume" you could ask for. I can also run everything straight to FOH in mono or stereo via the Tone King's L/R XLR outs with IRs on that path but not going to the PS2. I can do all of this at the same time even. I could go with no cab at all (which will never happen) and do the whole quite stage thing (which I also hate) without substantially changing... well, anything. This is the lightest, most versatile, and maybe best sounding set-up I've ever run. I'm absolutely gobsmacked. Now that I "get" how this stuff can talk to each other, it's basically everything I liked about something like an Axe-FX or Helix without the other bullshit that gave me analysis paralysis. For you dinosaurs like me who have liked the idea of something more portable but still like actual fucking knobs rather than surfing through menus and sub menus, this is the tits! Even the software aspect of the Tone King and Friedman is really user friendly. The options all make sense, and you can fuck around with it while the units are plugged into whatever you want to run them through. It makes dialing it in really easy. Suddenly, I have a lot of gear that seems completely redundant.

I took care of this issue by getting a 25.5" Shishkov DC years ago (fuck, I think the order was placed over 10 years ago 😳). A true visionary I am.

I've developed a bit of trigger finger in my left hand, which causes my left index finger to freeze. Thinking back, I think I've had this for years and thought it was just cramps, but nope! I've gotten back into lifting in the last year, which taxes my grip and, I think, in turn has made this worse at times. Among the different things I've been doing – warm-ups, stretches, more use of lifting straps and compression sleeves, reconsidering hand and strap position, and daily practice where I play actual songs for 30 straight minutes rather than just noodling – is re-examining my strings preference. Once I use up the current stash of 10s, I'll probably move to 9s across the board (25.5 and 24.75) for standard tuning. I find 10s work OK for tuning from a half-step down to D standard. For below D standard, 11s feel comfy. To be totally honest, I never really noticed a dime's worth of difference in my tone beyond the slightest tweak of EQ on the amp other than I felt that heavy string gauges took away from the twang on a tele or strat (and this was long before Rick's video, which felt validating). I never really bought into the dick measuring contest over string gauges that SRV seemed to inadvertently start either. I've always just played what seemed to be the easiest thing to get along with for the give and take I need in a string to suit my playing style. When I actually get to do it, the downtuned stuff I play is all from that Sabbath school of stoner/doom/southern sludge rather than tech death and djent. I think the low strings pulling slightly sharp for a second when you hit them hard is an essential part of that sound. You don't really need super heavy strings for that if your guitar is set up properly. Which is all to say, why kill yourself? Beyond the actual functioning of the instrument (which can be set up to accommodate a wide variety of string gauges and tunings), play what feels good, and allows you to play how you want for as long as you need. The rest is what those EQ knobs are for.

Severe case of being in your 90s.

...but I learned that in the video, lol. I'd never heard that until I watched it. I don't think the script and voice were AI. At least one of the images might have been. It was definitely a little thrown together in places though.

It didn't seem to me like he was comparing them but explaining there are two very different design philosophies at each company. I felt like part of the point was agreeing with what you said - it's dumb to compare them because they were designed with completely different goals. I actually found it kind of interesting, but I didn't already know the differences in what got DiMarzio into pickups vs. Duncan or that Larry had at least some education in electrical engineering and Seymour was just winging it. I didn't know that DiMarzio basically hated stock pickups and wanted to build something different vs. Duncan wanted to figure out what made certain PAFs stand out and standardize it. I could see where that may be old hat to some by now, but I'd really never taken the time to look it all up. I enjoy pickups from both brands for a variety of things and really never got all that partisan over them, so I just never really got into the forum lore of it all.

I've gotten upgraded to comfort+ a couple of times on international flights. I could give a rip domestically, but that 4 inches or whatever really adds up over eight hours of throbbing, hot international travel. But I just can't sleep on a plane. Even if I take meds, I end up too tired to read and too awake to sleep beyond sometimes entering this very disconcerting liminal space where I keep thinking about falling through the sky. And Geoff Tate is there smiling next to me. Also disconcerting. No bueno. I'm hoping that if I can lay down I can actually knock out for a few hours. Plus, I'm flying with a partscaster, so having the guaranteed closet access is worth at least a couple of Benjamins to me. The flight over, one of the attendants had just bought his son a guitar and made a point to put it in the Delta One cabin even though I was in economy (actually the first time in years flying felt like how it was pre-9/11). I wasn't sure if I'd get that lucky again, but at least I don't have to worry about it now.

I went for it. I do have enough guitars, and I still have to drive from Atlanta to Oxford, MS, after landing. Getting some sleep on the way back means making that trip day of rather than spending a couple hundred bucks on getting a room in Atlanta due to be too exhausted to drive another five hours.

Talking to the GF about getting back to the States after this study abroad trip I lead ends. Me - "The plane ride from Naples to Atlanta is 11.5 hours, and an upgrade to Delta One is $1400. That's something like $120 an hour, but maybe I could actually sleep for once." Her - "Or you could look at it as the price of one guitar, and you certainly buy enough of those every year." Me - "You know far too much these days about how expensive my hobbies are."

RIP, Johnny.

Apparently, never, nor was he the sole designer of the strat. Nor was there ever a transfer of copyright between him and CBS when CBS bought the company, more than likely because one was never assumed to exist. I'm not sure when circumstantial evidence becomes material, but it sure is weird that with all of those sales of Fender of the years that no contracts around the ownership of the Stratocaster copyright ever took place. Seems like a pretty valuable piece of intellectual property to happen to forget about when selling a company to new owners. The fact that FEIC DID trademark and copyright this and that, thus indicating that were aware that intellectual property was a thing and that it needed to be officially documented and/or enforced, depending on what type it was, can't help. Fender even trademarked the P Bass then never enforced it. There is a pretty extensive papertrail of FEIC (OG Fender Company Pre-CBS) having never designed around aesthetics per se but from a solely utilitarian approach and that they had little interest in policing their designs, which should be just poison for arguing there is anything here deserving of copyright protection, should doing a lot of work there. There's actually more evidence that Leo thought it was awesome if other people thought his designs were so good that they imitated them. It's always seemed to me that date of creation, chain of ownership, and some clear intent to protect something are of paramount importance in intellectual property disputes. Fender did none of this for nearly half a century with the stratocaster, even marketing themselves as an original in a see of clones quite often in the 80s and 90s. They were openly acknowledging the ubiquity of the strat design for two decades and not lifting a finger about it legally, according to that attorney's response to Fender's initial notice. I would think that would all be far too much to overcome, but I am just a pastiche of a copyright attorney. I'd be curious what actual IP lawyers think.

^Man, that attorney really bodied Fender in my amateur opinion.