GreatGreen
Power User
Amp Mojo
Something interesting occurred to me the other day. A buddy of mine told me about a new music store in town that had some really cool amps I'd always wanted to play, but never had the opportunity to do so. Well, I called and asked when a good time to come to the store might be, letting the guys know I wasn't really planning on buying anything, but have always wanted to try this and that, etc, so hung out with the guys there for a bit while trying a couple of very high-end amps. The guys at the store were nice as they could be, and the amps sounded great! Not better than I've dialed in the Axe, but still, the amps sounded great and I had a great time there that day.
Anyway, I caught myself wondering why I'd liked playing those amps so much even though literally the exact same tones were available to me at my house through in the Axe, and it occurred to me that it wasn't just "the tone" but the entire experience, the chase. Finding the music store, getting to know the people who worked there, seeing the amp well lit in a very expensive, treated studio room, getting to play it after having read up on how great it was for months, etc. All that stuff was great, but it was really totally inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, networking and relationship building aside of course. Then it occurred to me that in the Axe-Fx, all that "extra mojo" of the gear modeled within it is totally removed, which I think is a very good thing.
Think about it for a second. In the Axe, calling up a Fender Champ to play around with is every bit as easy as calling up a Dumble, which is every bit as easy again as calling up a Mark IIC+ or a 70's 100 watt Plexi or a plain old Fender Twin, which you can find in your nearest Guitar Center right now if you wanted. There's no having to drive to obscure music stores, having to sign up on some long waiting list, knowing just the right friend of a friend, or getting caught up in how awesomely purple the tolex is or how badass the diamond plate on the front looks or that the amp costs $7,000 surely it has to be awesome right? or whatever other mythology exists around any piece of gear or any number of other factors that honestly don't really matter in the grand scheme of things, that only really distract you from what the amp you're playing actually is. You're free to A/B as many amps as are in the Axe without so much as getting up from your chair. There's no driving to this or that store or even switching out this or that cable. The tone is right there, and that's it.
With the Axe, you don't have to deal with all the extra stuff. All you have to deal with is tone. All other variables are nullified so they have as little influence on your opinion as possible. What you're left with is simply "what your guitar sounds and feels like" and nothing else. Of course, some folks like getting caught up in the whole experience of playing through a giant stack or a small beat up tweed combo, or whatever latest and greatest thing is, rare as can be and finished in red snakeskin or whatever, and that's cool too. After all it's no happenstance that guitar amps look as diverse as they sound. Still, for me, I much prefer the instant availability of just about every great amp I can think of, along with the ability to bend, twist, mix, and route all of them in just about every way I can think of and then some over the mystique and mojo of this or that wooden and metal box laying around needing to be plugged into and maintained, no matter how ornate the tolex it's covered in may be!
Something interesting occurred to me the other day. A buddy of mine told me about a new music store in town that had some really cool amps I'd always wanted to play, but never had the opportunity to do so. Well, I called and asked when a good time to come to the store might be, letting the guys know I wasn't really planning on buying anything, but have always wanted to try this and that, etc, so hung out with the guys there for a bit while trying a couple of very high-end amps. The guys at the store were nice as they could be, and the amps sounded great! Not better than I've dialed in the Axe, but still, the amps sounded great and I had a great time there that day.
Anyway, I caught myself wondering why I'd liked playing those amps so much even though literally the exact same tones were available to me at my house through in the Axe, and it occurred to me that it wasn't just "the tone" but the entire experience, the chase. Finding the music store, getting to know the people who worked there, seeing the amp well lit in a very expensive, treated studio room, getting to play it after having read up on how great it was for months, etc. All that stuff was great, but it was really totally inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, networking and relationship building aside of course. Then it occurred to me that in the Axe-Fx, all that "extra mojo" of the gear modeled within it is totally removed, which I think is a very good thing.
Think about it for a second. In the Axe, calling up a Fender Champ to play around with is every bit as easy as calling up a Dumble, which is every bit as easy again as calling up a Mark IIC+ or a 70's 100 watt Plexi or a plain old Fender Twin, which you can find in your nearest Guitar Center right now if you wanted. There's no having to drive to obscure music stores, having to sign up on some long waiting list, knowing just the right friend of a friend, or getting caught up in how awesomely purple the tolex is or how badass the diamond plate on the front looks or that the amp costs $7,000 surely it has to be awesome right? or whatever other mythology exists around any piece of gear or any number of other factors that honestly don't really matter in the grand scheme of things, that only really distract you from what the amp you're playing actually is. You're free to A/B as many amps as are in the Axe without so much as getting up from your chair. There's no driving to this or that store or even switching out this or that cable. The tone is right there, and that's it.
With the Axe, you don't have to deal with all the extra stuff. All you have to deal with is tone. All other variables are nullified so they have as little influence on your opinion as possible. What you're left with is simply "what your guitar sounds and feels like" and nothing else. Of course, some folks like getting caught up in the whole experience of playing through a giant stack or a small beat up tweed combo, or whatever latest and greatest thing is, rare as can be and finished in red snakeskin or whatever, and that's cool too. After all it's no happenstance that guitar amps look as diverse as they sound. Still, for me, I much prefer the instant availability of just about every great amp I can think of, along with the ability to bend, twist, mix, and route all of them in just about every way I can think of and then some over the mystique and mojo of this or that wooden and metal box laying around needing to be plugged into and maintained, no matter how ornate the tolex it's covered in may be!
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