cobbler
Fractal Fanatic
I am no doubt one of those guys the pros and struggling musicians hate.
I'm 55 and was so busy with my work (IT for a major aerospace firm) and a sports career (traveled the world playing wheelchair basketball for the USA) that I never got the opportunity to follow a childhood dream and learn to play the guitar. I bought a nice Taylor acoustic in 95 and basically learned the same chords and handful of songs over and over again for over a decade. I finally retired from playing ball in 07 and am retiring this year from my real job. So early in 08 I decided to finally put some effort into learning guitar. Being a techie guy I was also interested in the new boom in home recording. I bought a Strat at that time and have an original 65 Deluxe Reverb that was given to me as a child by a neighbor who worked for Fender. I pulled it out and realized right away that learning and playing at volume does not sit well with the girlfriend and/or neighbors. Heck, it was downright embarrassing. Dogs, cats, squirrels, and children ran in fear. ops
So off to Guitar Center I went to buy a kidney bean I could use headphones with. They were out of stock and I have counted my blessings ever since. I did some research and decided to buy an Ultra. Was it way beyond my capabilities? ABSOLUTELY! But then again, so were my Taylor 810 and American deluxe Strat. But at my age and with my wallet I wanted quality gear and didn’t want to step my way up to it. I have had many friends or acquaintances tell me I don’t deserve such great gear along with all the horror stories of their transition through the amp, pedals, and guitar ranks. My thinking with the Ultra was I can play at low volumes or with headphones and try out all the amps and effects and when I get to where I am happy with my skills I’ll go out and get the real thing and know what I want in the process. No desire at all to do that now.
So I have been learning and consider myself a beginner to intermediate “bedroom” player. I have no desire to play in front of an audience. Now with all that said, I bought the Ultra and Danielle went way above and beyond the call helping me due to a mix up with the credit card company and I was sold on FAS as a small and emerging company along with their vision to be involved in the community and enhance the product whenever possible. I cannot think of a better piece of gear to learn the entire signal chain with. It’s a great learning tool if you don’t let yourself get too frustrated or intimidated. It was all there at my fingertips and would have cost me ten times what I spent simply to tryout what most likely would never be used to any real extent. I now have a II and several other guitars and again they are way beyond my skill level but that gap is closing daily. So yes, many pros and/or seriously skilled players may think its overkill and someone at my level just doesn’t deserve to own such quality gear and to them I simply say “you were not there all those 16 hour days debugging code that gave me the opportunities I have today”.
I have learned quite a bit over the last 3 years about guitars, amps, pedals, audio interfaces, recording, speakers etc. I truly believe, right or wrong, that it would have taken me many more years to get to this point had I gone the analog route of purchasing piece by piece. I owe much of that to the Axe-Fx and the many gracious and helpful people on this very forum. It’s the very reason why I try to do what little I can to answer this simple stuff here from time to time.
And IMO the cost has been relatively cheap when considering the hours on end of fun I have had on this journey. And for those few rare moments lately when it all clicks and I actually pull something off that all of you are so adept at…PRICELESS!!!!
Sorry for rambling...
I'm 55 and was so busy with my work (IT for a major aerospace firm) and a sports career (traveled the world playing wheelchair basketball for the USA) that I never got the opportunity to follow a childhood dream and learn to play the guitar. I bought a nice Taylor acoustic in 95 and basically learned the same chords and handful of songs over and over again for over a decade. I finally retired from playing ball in 07 and am retiring this year from my real job. So early in 08 I decided to finally put some effort into learning guitar. Being a techie guy I was also interested in the new boom in home recording. I bought a Strat at that time and have an original 65 Deluxe Reverb that was given to me as a child by a neighbor who worked for Fender. I pulled it out and realized right away that learning and playing at volume does not sit well with the girlfriend and/or neighbors. Heck, it was downright embarrassing. Dogs, cats, squirrels, and children ran in fear. ops
So off to Guitar Center I went to buy a kidney bean I could use headphones with. They were out of stock and I have counted my blessings ever since. I did some research and decided to buy an Ultra. Was it way beyond my capabilities? ABSOLUTELY! But then again, so were my Taylor 810 and American deluxe Strat. But at my age and with my wallet I wanted quality gear and didn’t want to step my way up to it. I have had many friends or acquaintances tell me I don’t deserve such great gear along with all the horror stories of their transition through the amp, pedals, and guitar ranks. My thinking with the Ultra was I can play at low volumes or with headphones and try out all the amps and effects and when I get to where I am happy with my skills I’ll go out and get the real thing and know what I want in the process. No desire at all to do that now.
So I have been learning and consider myself a beginner to intermediate “bedroom” player. I have no desire to play in front of an audience. Now with all that said, I bought the Ultra and Danielle went way above and beyond the call helping me due to a mix up with the credit card company and I was sold on FAS as a small and emerging company along with their vision to be involved in the community and enhance the product whenever possible. I cannot think of a better piece of gear to learn the entire signal chain with. It’s a great learning tool if you don’t let yourself get too frustrated or intimidated. It was all there at my fingertips and would have cost me ten times what I spent simply to tryout what most likely would never be used to any real extent. I now have a II and several other guitars and again they are way beyond my skill level but that gap is closing daily. So yes, many pros and/or seriously skilled players may think its overkill and someone at my level just doesn’t deserve to own such quality gear and to them I simply say “you were not there all those 16 hour days debugging code that gave me the opportunities I have today”.
I have learned quite a bit over the last 3 years about guitars, amps, pedals, audio interfaces, recording, speakers etc. I truly believe, right or wrong, that it would have taken me many more years to get to this point had I gone the analog route of purchasing piece by piece. I owe much of that to the Axe-Fx and the many gracious and helpful people on this very forum. It’s the very reason why I try to do what little I can to answer this simple stuff here from time to time.
And IMO the cost has been relatively cheap when considering the hours on end of fun I have had on this journey. And for those few rare moments lately when it all clicks and I actually pull something off that all of you are so adept at…PRICELESS!!!!
Sorry for rambling...
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