Audio Gear Collecting

Collecting guitars, bass, guitar pedals, and other musical equipment. Can be great, but here are a few thoughts Jim had about his guitar collection and what collecting guitars can become. Does anyone else collect music gear? What is it?

 

The Good, The Bad, and Everything Else

Hey folks, Jim from Slick Audio today, I’m going to talk about a very simple subject. And that subject is collecting music gear, so if you’re a drummer collecting drums or pieces of cymbals. You know well we say a gear whore in general. I collect guitars and amps and I’m going to give you a little taste of that so here’s a word to the wise before I show you a piece of my collection be careful starting to collect because it can become an addiction real fast and then it hits to a point where you don’t have time or the resources to be able to play. What you bought and then they sit and you can look at the pictures of them because you don’t even have time to pull them out of the cases.

The Guitar Collection

To look at them I’m gonna give you a quick case in point as I slide around this way and this would be actually part of my guitar collection so as you could see yes I built the rack it’s not the prettiest thing in the world but I did build it because I have many freaking guitars. And well there’s no such thing as too many guitars to guitar player so now that I’ve said that you know it just it turns into such an obsession I mean guys you’re not saying is there are guitars behind here stuff behind here I’ve got a room in the other room that’s got multiple closets stuffed in there. And the shame of it is we’re not talking, you know, cheap stupid guitars. I mean here’s a music man. Look at three and two mess and signed by Steve Lukather,

Collecting Guitars - Slick Audio Collecting Guitars - Slick Audio Collecting To Many Guitars

I need my freakin glasses on so I can see them better. Its hard majesty of music and dance is a kind of like my music man: there’s a blueberry, JP 15 that is limited, and a signed Warrior Guitar Draco. I got an entire row that is all Jackson’s, all custom shops, by the way. No regular GP Jackson’s. These are all custom shops. These are my three-six signature models. I mean, it’s just it gets insane, you know. PRS is I mean, this little chunk here is Paul Reed Smith. These are the GNG Guitars. There’s an old Kramer in their custom shops Lido Guitars collections. Here there’s Buck Dharma guitar. The two Melancon Guitars’ own guitars are very beautiful. The Jackson’s done by Grover Jackson to some of my acoustics, like Martin, Riversong, Taylor, Framus Guitars, Devin Townsend model

 

What I mean is it just turns into a total section Jackson double max there’s Jackson’s up here because I couldn’t put them down here. You just start to get to this point of Ludacris. I would love to be able to play every one of these guitars again and have the time to do it just how I honestly into the point where it’s like you know I mean I’ll give you an example. You know the two Knaggs Guitars here and the Doug Rapport I have yet to play. Two massive Luke 3s I have never played, it’s in the case. This one Taylor here is semiacoustic-electric, and this is Keanu Reeves Custom Shop Matrix bass. Its serial number is zero, zero, zero, zero it’s like wow. But I mean, you know the shame of it is that look through here and it’s like oh man, there’s a 1985 Jackson first-year Jackson’s Saturn; you know. I just look at it and I just think to myself, oh my GOD collecting can turn into a very dangerous thing.

 

So when you start the whole collecting thing, it’s dangerous, Will Robinson. And I can tell you right now you’re gonna get to a point like this where you end up with instruments and I’m damn lucky to have them and proud to have them. And you won’t have time to touch them so, my advice doesn’t start it seriously as cool as it is. It’s not really cool because these instruments deserve to be played. Consequently, I’m selling a bunch of them. Some are going to be sold and some won’t I’m not selling them all by any stretch.

 

I’ve got probably a dozen or so and change up for sale, but you know it just stinks, you know. I’m telling you to be very careful when you go to your Gear Acquisition Syndrome. So, my amplifier collection you guys saw here pre-amps or whether it’s you know interfaces, whatever the problem is going to happen the same way, you’re gonna end up using one or two and that’s it pedals.

 

Guitar Petal Collecting

Guitar yeah, there’s that’s a good point. I don’t even think about that, so my fetish is rockier. Let’s step over this way a little so I can get the hell out of the darkroom of the world, but yeah, I mean pedals. Dear God, I mean think about it. There are guys you know I’m not a big floor pedal board guy. I don’t really like to use pedals. My problems rack, you know, at one time I literally had 6 Axe Effects. Six, not one, six of them, and it was like you know a couple for this rig couple for that rig. You know, and it was just like it was ludicrous. I mean, one you know actually did the job quite well, but you know I didn’t have one. I had six. Because I might run this with that, this could become stupid. I’m down now to one Axe Effects too and I do have an Axe FX 3 and I just keep that as a standalone device.

But yeah, floor pedals, my god you know when you start, talking you know compressors; I mean, those guys are by compressors or distortion pedals. That’s classic. You know this was cool, that was cool. Atmos I think I have three. But there are guys that use, you know, literally have dozens and dozens and dozens of just distortion pedals alone and then you have modulation pedals. You know echo, delay flange. I mean, I’ve literally heard of people having, you know, four and five hundred pedals to choose from. What the hell would you even know what to pick and use? You know “oh there’s my new favorite of the day.” Or what’s cool is that one will be tomorrow. And oh, by the way, it hasn’t come out yet. That’s gonna be the next day. I mean at some point in time like this stuff like the guitars. You’ve got to stop and say, okay, this guitar fits me. This distortion pedal fits. It’s my sound. It’s me. It’s everything that embellishes the way I play from a comfort standpoint.  You know fits the hands fit the playing style has the tone of the sound that matches with your amplifiers. It really is a mix. I mean, you know I’ve I love my guitar rig. Do you know when I was playing out?  I was, for the most part, I was using a Mark Five Mesa Mark Five, but there were certain guitars that hated that rig. Sounded like crap and you know my signature model sounded great.

Finding Your Tone

I use the EMG pickup. I’ve kind of always been an EMG guy, and it’s really is just it’s a rabbit hole that it turns into a black hole. And you will get sucked down that black hole so fast it’s pathetic. So my words of advice are when you find your tone. Just stop, and stick with it when you find the pre-amps that you won’t just stop. Now and there’s a way to demo pre-amps and there’s a way to demo guitars, so if you’re going to buy you know a new guitar, my recommendation is to pick your least favorite guitar that you hardly ever play. Then sell it and help finance the new guitar and not only is that fiscally responsible.

Funny, I’m the guy talking about fiscal responsibility, right? Again, I feel I have abandoned most of these instruments and it’s not what I want to do. I love them all. They’re incredible guitars, but there’s no freaking time to play. And you know, and when I do, I’m usually picking one of my three Jackson Custom Shop signatures. One is the Purple Heart or the blue quilt and this is the color that actually is on their custom shop website right now is the last one that Mike Shannon made.

So I don’t even know what to say other than don’t go down that don’t go down the black hole. Screw the rabbit hole to the black hole, so anyway, hopefully, that imparts a little bit of practical help and knowledge to those of you who haven’t started collecting it. Or maybe just started and know again this could play anything other than guitars as well, so just be careful.

Signing off, I’ll talk to y’all in a little. Cheers are good.