I'm Getting Reverse-GAS-Syndrome?

[Ted Keane]

I try to give guitars to kids.I just made a donation to the HS that's in a rough place.A few guitars,amps,ect.And I'm going to drop off some guitars to help the kids who lost everything in the Marshall fire nearby.I usually give the Harley Benton,Seagull,Epiphone and Squier.I found some great deals on Crate amps to give them.

 

[jays0n]

AAArrrggghh! You are soooo right - I've already got an irrational hunger for an AC30

That took exactly 17 min to resolve. Well done

 

[ChrisDowning]

Get behind me you - you - you 'hand-wired voice of God' VOX. You guys trying to torture me!? I was going down the sell three guitars - but now it's looking like swap for a VOX or a DLR. I need to walk the block - holding those amps - that maybe's the cure? Probably the kill.

 

[Wrighty]

Reverse gas is the normal state, GAS is the abnormal state.

 

[loopfinding]

I only bring a backup sometimes (depending on the music) in case a string breaks (which it almost never does, since I play 11-12 flats).

I give people who show up to a gig of like 30-50 people the side eye for not doing it with one guitar. In my book that is some rockstar cosplay stuff. It’s like those dudes that buy all that tactical gear fancying themselves commandos to just go shoot in the woods or something.

Having some stuff is cool for different tones on recording or with different projects. But you have the right idea with the tele (or whatever you bring to the gig). Don’t be a fussy weenie.

 

[teletail]

My self treatment has been to go up in price. One $2,500 guitar instead of three $800 models.

Next, it will be three $2,500 guitars!

 

[JL_LI]

I had my Gretsch Anniversary out for five weeks and got to the point where I was playing everything on it. What’s more, I like it… a lot. Not only is it one guitar for everything, I’d been playing everything with blended pickups, mud switch out, neck volume rolled down a tiny bit, and bridge volume rolled down a tad more.

I’ve started rotating through my other guitars. I’ll give my SG one more chance. Either TV Jones pickups get me what I want for it or it’s got to go. I’m more sentimental about my Fenders and I like them a lot but I spend too much time fiddling with settings with them and that gets in the way of playing. I have no original music except instrumental and I don’t play covers anything like the original so I have nothing I want to copy sound wise. I wonder how this will all shake out.

 

[sax4blues]

Next, it will be three $2,500 guitars!

Yeah, N+1 doesn’t say anything about price.

 

[drmordo]

I own a lot of guitars. I find different inspiration when I pick up each of them.

I always take at least two guitars to a paying gig, mostly in case one of them stops making sound or gets broken. I sometimes swap out the different guitars in between sets. I don't gig very much or I'd take two amps also for the same reasons.

The last gig I played, the other guitarist brought four guitars and two amps. We laughed about it and he said he has too many nice guitars he never plays. He brought a 60s SG, a 50s ES-225, a very pretty Strat he made, and I can't remember the fourth. He set them all up on stands, then proceeded to play the SG all night. I played my Tele for three sets and my Casino for the last.

That said, with regard to the OP, I wouldn't give anyone a weird look or twitch at all if he switched guitars in the studio, and I would think less of any "recording guy" who did. As I said, we find inspiration in different places, and if a Les Paul wasn't exciting a guy, I would expect him to switch. I have done that far more times than I can count. If the "recording guy" can't cope with a guitar switch, he is incompetent.

An example just came to mind, which is a song you may have heard called "Stairway to Heaven" by an obscure 70s group called Led Zeppelin. At that point, Pagey had played a Les Paul and a Marshall for years, but when he did the StH solo, he broke out his old Tele and Supro. Now, I have no idea if he tried to record the solo with his Les Paul/Marshall combo and then changed his mind, but in any case he found inspiration from a different setup than he normally used, and then he recorded what is arguably the greatest rock guitar solo ever.

 

[Alex_C]

I have too many guitars, but they all sound different.
Tele
335 (Semi hollow)
Emporer II (full hollow)
Carvin DC 135 (Neck thru super-strat, non locking vibrato)
Carvin Bolt (Strat with double-locking vibrato)
Ibanez/Carvin Strat (hardtail)
Baritone
Carvin SCB6 (Neck Through P-90)

In a pinch the SCB6 or DC135 would work as my one and only, but I'm lucky enough to not have to go there.

 

[richiek65]

I had gtrs for 4 x alt tunings and set up for slide, as well as standard, plus a std backup.

Then at home is my top shelf and sentimental stuff

 

[OmegaWoods]

I got fatigued of guitar shopping when it started cutting into my playing time. I have seven electrics, of which four need to go. They didn't cost much and I learned a lot about what I like and what I don't from playing them.

I am genuinely afraid to start buying amps but I know that's probably in my future. For now, I'm not buying anything for a while...

 

[39martind18]

My criteria for obtaining a new piece of gear is fairly simple: Would what I'm considering obtaining double something I already have, will I use it reasonably often, and is it a bargain?
Recently I bought an inoperative 1979 Vibrolux Reverb at a pawnshop for $250. My preferences in a tube amp tend toward 6L6 powered through two speakers. The Vibrolux fit that bill to a "T." Prior to finding it and getting it running, I had been gigging a TMDR or a 1969 DR modded to run 6L6s and 2x10 JBLs. The Vibrolux was/is basically the same amp, and with the extremely low price point for the VR, I'll probably pull the JBLs out of the DR, reconvert it to 1x12, and sell it, since it has become redundant. Guitars are a bit different, but the same criteria applies: will I use it, does it double something else I have, and is it a bargain. Each of my guitars meets all of these conditions- these are my "keepers." Other guitars I have obtained as part of a trade with an eye toward resale. I have one of those right now, a Martin DX1e. I neither need nor particularly want it, so on the market it goes!

 

[String Tree]

There’s nothing wrong with minimalism, but I worked hard and made a lot of sacrifices to get to the point where I can afford some luxuries; I don’t think there is anything wrong with that either.

If someone buys a nice picture or sculpture and they just look at it, no one blinks an eye. A guy spends 10-15 hours a week during the summer to have a nice yard, no one thinks twice. But own a guitar “just because” and some people have a problem. I make no apologies for owning nice guitars that I never play. View attachment 943220 View attachment 943222

Minimalism is ok, so long as you don't use too much of it.
YEP!!!

 

[DougM]

I'm ready to sell everything except my 2 favorite Strats and my 2 favorite Teles

 

[Happy Enchilada]

The eternal conflict between WANT and NEED, and the gray area in between that depends on how much you can justify it to yourself.

There seems to be a whole lot of threads on this forum nowadays discussing thinning the herd. I myself am doing this after a couple of attacks of GAS over the past few years (some of which were instigated by things I found on this forum - cause and effect).

When I was doing worship music, we did a Saturday night service and three back-to-back on Sundays, and I did this about every other week for years. I played a Gibson LP double cutaway with SD pickups as my main axe, and had a Korean Hamer that resembled their US Studio model with the same pickups as my backup. That's all. And we worked harder than most house bands in Vegas for Pete's sake. I could justify having a backup because the "show" had to go on.

But now that I'm not playing all that much, I fell into the trap of acquiring and upgrading guitars as a hobby. It beats chasing redheads and collecting Ferraris, but it's still self-indulgence, and I admit it.

So I'm keeping 2 or 3 acoustics and 2 or 3 electrics and a couple amps, selling the rest off, and banking the cash. I know from experience that should I ever go back to gigging that much (which is highly doubtful at my age), I'd want the very same thing - one main guitar and a less-expensive but equally good backup. Ironically, when I'm busy playing, there's no time to doat on collecting guitars. Life is strange that way.

Good luck!

 

[985plowboy]

Ah yes, a worthy topic and oft asked around here.
I will respond in the manner that has become my habit, by paraphrasing Ecclesiastes.
“There is a time for gathering guitars together, and a time for casting them away”.
Only you know where you are on this scale and wherever you find yourself is OK.

 

[ChrisDowning]

I think if I were going hand-wired I'd want a kit and make it myself. Afterall it's just lots of soldering on old fashioned posts / aluminium chassis. Not rocket surgery! Just follow the recipe that comes with a kit.

 

[Call Me Al]

I’m pretty minimalist by nature. Not chaste buy any means, but I also don’t like clutter. I do prescribe by “you get what you pay for,” but also try to find good values, and minimize unnecessary purchases.

I found I really had to buy stuff to learn what works for me. I also found I had a tendency to obsessively A/B similar pieces, to the point where it interfered with practice time.

Now I’ve got it whittled down to one main each of acoustic, electric and bass. The backups live in their cases. Got my headphones amps, my rehearsal amps and my gig amps. tube amp, which I didn’t need, but just because; got one too many bass amps so I could stand to sell one of em.

 

[Fearnot]

As I get older, I'm starting to look at my 10-12 guitars, 4-5 amps, and waaaayyy too many pedals, and make a list of what I can get rid of. I've loved every damned one of them, but as they sit increasingly idle, it seems to me they could be making music somewhere else. Not sure which will go yet, or when, but I could get rid of half of them and still have a nice variety of things to play.

I don't enjoy hoarding gear. Waste not, want not.