When does DIY become more important then playing

For me, it's all about enjoying life and being happy. Both playing and building/tinkering give me joy, so why choose? I also spend a lot of time reading and dreaming about gear, which also makes me happy, so I'll keep on browsing the forum and thinking about my next project/pedal/amp/guitar.

I also like chocolate AND vanilla ice cream! Crazy, right?

 

I have no issues admitting that I am a better builder than player.

 

Oh man, Ever since Covid came, my wife and I are full time working from home with a baby. I hardly ever play anymore. Building guitars out in the garage is WAY quieter. I had to get an attenuator for a 5F1 haha. SMH

 

Theme seems to be consistent; we all would rather play but at times we need to be quiet so we tinker and build. I also watch YouTube videos now to learn how to play better or gain knowledge. When my kids were younger I spent a lot of time fingerpicking trying to play quietly around the house. Now just me and the wife and still cannot play loud unless she is out of the house. So it goes

 

The struggle is real...

 

What works for me, as I also have finite time for music, is getting all the research and decision making about what I want to build first. Then I put my head down and go. It's hard for me to dabble with a build and come back a bunch of times. I get bored, and the longer I spend on a project, the less interested in it I become, and more distracted I become as other crap surfaces. So, it's laser-like focus and bam. Done. Besides, it's also good to put the guitar down for a bit and cleanse the pallet.

OregonMike

 

Likewise. Im always having something going on like a mod or repair, but I have a guitar in my hands every day.
Sometimes the hobbies go hand in hand and you can start a business from it
Every purchase I've made has been to either pay itself off or break even, like investing in tools or a good amp to show off a pickup installation.
My practice comes right after a repair and I look up a lesson or a song and just noodle around the fretboard, making sure the guitar plays.
If I fixed an amp, its just cranking the **** out of it, shaking the rafters and straight jamming.

Answering the main question, my perspective is that playing has more fulfillment in being the reward for what I've built.
There's just not enough hours in the day to learn as much as I wish I could absorb to play as well as I can build, but those moments when Im in the eye of the storm, I'm sharpening that sword

 

Does air guitar count? I probably tinker more than play. I wonder if I played more than tinker, would I air tinker? Like listen to TAVA podcast while pretending to desolder a capacitor.

 

That sounds so familiar. It doesn't help that I'm a pretty awful guitarist who didn't even start playing until I was 30. Wehn I do play, I only play in my own basement. But any guitar is a mod-platform (even my '96 MIM got a new 3-saddle bridge in the end).

And as for amps, don't get me started. Always projects on the block. Always looking for a great sound in only a few watts. Low power 5E3 thing will probably be started at the weekend. But at least I'm stripping down some old builds and reusing parts.

I should really be practicing harder, not just trying to tweak great tones out of the latest amp build.

 

i

I'm sorry, what was the question?
By the way, my working guitar is above-left...

 

Yeah it's easier just to change the speaker or two

 

I try to play every day

 

Easier. But certainly not cheaper. The main point of tinkering is finding ways to make what you already have (or can afford) work for you.

Years ago I bought a cheap radio shack soldering iron, and taught myself how to use it. Just for that reason. I had a tuner that busted. I figured I could find a way to make it usable. A friend had a pot bust on his wah. Both were easy and cheap fixes for a young soldering noob. I've had the bug to tinker and fix ever since. And it's saved me many, many dollars.

My bassman is still a pricey example (for me, anyway). I did have to buy a 4ohm speaker for it. OTOH, I bought an older Boosta Grande off a local guy for $20. One teensy cap change, and now it's a true full range booster. But now that I tinkered my bassman to get more crunchy at low volumes, I no longer need the booster.

But I could use a treble booster. See where I'm going with this?

Helluva lot more fun and cheaper than buying yet another speaker. Or yet another pedal.

Come to think of it, I now have a greenback I'm not using. I have several options. Buy or make another cab for it? Sell it and use the dough for something else I need or want to make/tinker with? Take the greenback out of my AC15, sell them both and buy a blue? Decisions, decisions...

And despite all that fun, I still find time to play guitar. Not only that, I'm inspired to play more. Right now I'm thoroughly enjoying my bassman. I've improved the last few days more than I have in a while. When the itch comes again to tinker, I'll find a way to satiate it. Until then I'm gonna just enjoy playing.

 

Yeah, I get very little time to play guitar, (GRANTED, taking time is the key), with wife working and having 5 dogs and all...the Pandemic has been "helpful" to doing the builds in the first place, having been on furlough from my job...still there...thankfully, still guitar work to do...

 

This. This right here. Anything more than a quick cap or pot fix on a pedal or guitar requires time and research beforehand. I rarely open up an amp chassis unless I have a plan on what to do once it's open. Too much time and mess otherwise. I have no dedicated bench or fancy test tools. Open first time to get tons of gutshots. Then not again until I have plans and parts ready to go. After years of poverty/debt, work, school, and kids you learn to maximize time, money, and space. It's either that, or you don't get to do your hobbies at all.

 

As tfarny said, "It's all good."
I played guitar for ten years before I got up the nerve to attempt a mod. Some were successful, others were... not so much.
My soldering skills are still marginal; I will not be attempting an amp kit, or repair either, any time soon, however, putting together partscasters has been its own reward.
I get a unique guitar, even when it doesn't go perfectly, and that's always fun. It's part of the "quest", whatever that is, and I love guitars, deeply.
My nephew is a total natural at fixing amps, etc. He is a fine guitarist and musician, is developing a real proclivity for fret work and setup, but, oddly, I have a better idea of what to do when you pop the hood on an electric guitar. Years of experience, I guess.
Enough ramblin'. I think most of us do all these things that we do, as pertains to guitars and such, out of love. So it's also all the same.

 

Tom Scholz

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My builds haven't detracted from my playtime at all. Now when it comes to recording that's a whole other story. Talk about a bottomless rabbit whole.

 

I build now to compliment the group I'm playing in. My current telecaster build is a monster gadget guitar for basically a Steve vai style of play in an outlaw country band. Floyd rose, gadgets on board kind of thing plus I'm doing an outrageous paint job on it myself. I play quite a few instruments so I don't feel I'm losing anything

 

Haha that was just my quick quip so I could get back to the tinkering I was doing! When I read your post I immediately thought of that old cartoon, I think it was Bugs Bunny when he would break the wall and look into the camera and say "he don't know me very well do he"... My strat is apart because I'm chasing a ground issue when I turn the pot down it starts to buzz, my mahogany Tele with Jazzmaster pickups has the cover off as I'm rewiring it for two volumes two tones or maybe two volumes one tone, but the main issue is the placement of both volume knobs for ease of playing, as I built it myself and used a melamine clipboard for part of the pickguard so I could drill holes at will, as a sacrificial 'R&D'. Oh yeah and my sunburst Tele has the pickguard removed because I've been checking out a PAF in the front, and vintage Seymour in the rear.

My pop was a machinist and a woodworker but would openly admit he knew nothing about wiring and electricity, and made it clear that I was on my own. my memory is a little sketchy for things 50 years back or so but I clearly remember doing my first fixes with huge plumbing soldering guns and the big 75 w Archer gun. After a couple weeks stay in the UCI Burn unit good years ago I delved into learning how to make my own amps and effects while I was recuperating, and if it wasn't for being ripped off I had a whole shop worth of parts, Transformers, resistors, capacitors... Hell they even got got my vices and favorite hand tools, and yeah even my favorite greenbacks and Mojo's, and three or four of my own hand built amps. I'm looking at a bag of eight no nine nine volt regulators that I'm getting ready to start making into a isolated power supply with. My motto is if I can't fix it I'll fix it to nobody else can!