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Perspective fella's
- Thread starter USAJO
- Start date
bongomania
Commercial User
+2 for NickyBass's post above
I doubt I would know what a gb440 is had it not been for AMP/thunderfunk gushes on TB.
Now, I have the TONE that was in my head.
If I sell it and buy a thunderfunk (a trade up) that oesnt detract from my appreciation for this fine piece of gear.
Like anything else, you have to weed through some excessive fluff.
TB rocks.
I doubt I would know what a gb440 is had it not been for AMP/thunderfunk gushes on TB.
Now, I have the TONE that was in my head.
If I sell it and buy a thunderfunk (a trade up) that oesnt detract from my appreciation for this fine piece of gear.
Like anything else, you have to weed through some excessive fluff.
TB rocks.
I consider TB a most valuable resource. There are players here from all spectrums. Sharing their knowledge (and prejudices, lol!). We, as members must filter all of the information that is presented here...and determine what is right-for us. Without TB, I don't think that I'd ever known about ThunderFunk amps. Damn, I'd be an unhappy camper! Hanging around here, one gets the feel for the poster's background and experience. If we are lucky, we get the feel for their taste in 'tone' as well.
I have learned more here in a relatively short period of time than anywhere else in my 36 years of playing (my skill definitely does not correspond with the number of years that I have been trying to play bass!) Gear that I would probably never have been exposed to otherwise. No one here, locally has heard of many of the brands/models of gear that are talked about here, daily. Based on very detailed descriptions of (normally intangible) nuances, such as 'tone'...I have made some very wise choices in gear. Thanks to you all. Here on TalkBass.
The beautiful thing, for me, is that your honest descriptions of gear have led me to purchase (sometimes more esoteric than I would have planned on) gear that has fulfilled my dreams. Your reality matched mine...perfectly.
The icing on the cake, for me, is that of all the gear that I have purchased as a result of rave reviews or 'hype' here on TalkBass...none of it is even remotely considered as being "For Sale"
My most humble and honest thanks to you ALL!!
kim
I have learned more here in a relatively short period of time than anywhere else in my 36 years of playing (my skill definitely does not correspond with the number of years that I have been trying to play bass!) Gear that I would probably never have been exposed to otherwise. No one here, locally has heard of many of the brands/models of gear that are talked about here, daily. Based on very detailed descriptions of (normally intangible) nuances, such as 'tone'...I have made some very wise choices in gear. Thanks to you all. Here on TalkBass.
The beautiful thing, for me, is that your honest descriptions of gear have led me to purchase (sometimes more esoteric than I would have planned on) gear that has fulfilled my dreams. Your reality matched mine...perfectly.
The icing on the cake, for me, is that of all the gear that I have purchased as a result of rave reviews or 'hype' here on TalkBass...none of it is even remotely considered as being "For Sale"
My most humble and honest thanks to you ALL!!
kim
Prolly not.
See above.To be exact, he was okay with no comma, since if he were trying to meet someone he would have said "prospective", not "perspective"
Spelling is important, too.
... no piece of gear is 100% perfect. I find the 'negative posts' (as long as they just don't say 'this thing sucks'actually more useful than the 'gushing' type reviews.
Big, big +1. I actively look for consistent negatives acorss multiple reviews when researching items for potential purchase. Those IMHO, are the most reliable and useful pieces of info.
Bryan R. Tyler
TalkBass: Usurping My Practice Time Since 2002
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Yup, and will continue to do so until you observe the difference between commas and apostrophes
I can see yr point.... BUT IMHO yeah SURE things do become popular at certain times, but ,again, IMHO these items USUALLY ARE quality items & often deserve the 'hype' they sometimes get. I, Like others here have mentioned, am GREATLY appreciative of the availability of YEARS of experience of knowledge that can be tapped into here! It gives someone like me, who, even tho I've 30+ years of experience of playing bass-27 of them in live gigging situations- the option of getting info on products that I can either 1. only get a "salesman's" perspective on. 2. cannot hear/try because I live in an Island state, where only 3 or so pro music shops are, & therefore on TB I can get MANY ppls views on a product-good & bad. 3. make MY OWN mind up on my decision of the gear I want after getting many different opinions.
But as I say- I make my OWN MIND UP AFTER getting LOTS of opinions from a wealth of experienced( & probly some not so experienced) bass players-some of whom have played LIVE for as long & longer than myself. AT LEAST I CAN GET that info/opinions. When I bought my 1st Ampeg a few yrs ago - I hadn't heard of/used Talkbass.......if I had, I may NOT have spent my hard earned $$$ on the amp I did buy(as I only had the salesman & my own ear to guide me- which-like TB- are another essential part of buying a new piece of gear IMO.
What I couldn't tell, tho, was how the amp sounded at a gig, what else may be available for similar $$$(as the shop/s here donot stock many brands)- if I had TB then I may've been able to ask for opinions of the amp, what else is similar, what other brands are available & the sounds of them in relation to the amp I was lookin at.
Now outta this- SURE, some amps/cabs etc DO come "in vogue" here on TB, BUT- IME they come in vogue for a good reason-usually- because they ARE good products.
But as I say- I make my OWN MIND UP AFTER getting LOTS of opinions from a wealth of experienced( & probly some not so experienced) bass players-some of whom have played LIVE for as long & longer than myself. AT LEAST I CAN GET that info/opinions. When I bought my 1st Ampeg a few yrs ago - I hadn't heard of/used Talkbass.......if I had, I may NOT have spent my hard earned $$$ on the amp I did buy(as I only had the salesman & my own ear to guide me- which-like TB- are another essential part of buying a new piece of gear IMO.
What I couldn't tell, tho, was how the amp sounded at a gig, what else may be available for similar $$$(as the shop/s here donot stock many brands)- if I had TB then I may've been able to ask for opinions of the amp, what else is similar, what other brands are available & the sounds of them in relation to the amp I was lookin at.
Now outta this- SURE, some amps/cabs etc DO come "in vogue" here on TB, BUT- IME they come in vogue for a good reason-usually- because they ARE good products.
+1.
I bought a 60th Anniversary Fender Jazz a month or so ago and I posted how amazing it was, how great it sounded, blah, blah, blah.....
Then I looked at all of my other basses and realized... 1. I play mostly 5 string these days (have 2 of those)... 2. I have a Geddy Fender Jazz.... 3. I have a 4 string MM.... 4. What the f%&# do I need another $1200 bass for?
I ended up taking it back. BUT... it is an amazing bass. I still want it but I just DON'T NEED IT.
"The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence."
I think there is something in a lot of us that wants to try new stuff after the newness has worn off what the the last 'best whiznitz'.
I've been that way in the past and probably will be that way in the future.
It's also a part of some humans' nature to attempt to share the joy of what the latest, greatest thing is and I'm sure, some seek validation from others who jump on the bandwagon with them.
YEP -- Human Nature -- ain't it a B!TCH!!!
I think there is something in a lot of us that wants to try new stuff after the newness has worn off what the the last 'best whiznitz'.
I've been that way in the past and probably will be that way in the future.
It's also a part of some humans' nature to attempt to share the joy of what the latest, greatest thing is and I'm sure, some seek validation from others who jump on the bandwagon with them.
YEP -- Human Nature -- ain't it a B!TCH!!!
I started Thunderfunk in 1977. An overnight sensation. In the early 1990's I built tube guitar amps. There was an internet but no WWW. Around 1995 someone told me that large companies had webpages to reserve space until they saw what the internet was worth. How do you sell over the internet? Today I look for auto parts, find a catalog page, and when I go to buy I'm in an eBay store.
I first thought the net was sales. Then I thought it was advertising. Think of how you can download my new version 8 Owner's Manual in a few seconds for "free" and it's in color! What a cost and efficiency savings.
I want to hear "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." Do you think if I go to Wal-Mart I'll find it there? maybe if I'm lucky to find it on an oldies collection. But I log onto iTunes and $0.99 later, I'm burning it on a CD to listen to in the car. How much would the gas have cost to drive to Wal-Mart? Efficiency.
So the web is a full color phone book, advertising, sales, and distribution. What I'm doing now with Thunderfunk could never have happened 15 years ago without spending a ton on advertising to get the dealer network interested enough to carry my amps so they'd be seen.
Now TalkBass provides a forum for real consumer reviews. This is OK with me because I'm not afraid to compete. It provides me with "free" advertising, "free" magazine type reviews, "free" word of mouth, "free" sales leads, and an oportunity to interact with my customers. Time was a lot of my sales were to TBassers. Now most of my sales are to non-TBassers. I've reached "critical mass" were there's enough amps out there that guys are running into their friends having one. That's real world word of mouth and demonstration. My best dealers are the specialty bass stores that have a lot of different brands. They're magnets that attract bass players and the only customers I hear about are the ones that bought my amp over everything else in the store. I don't hear about the others. No idea what the percentage is.
But I think the point about this thread is that there are shills here.
"The intention of the shill is, using crowd psychology, to encourage other potential customers."
But after being here for a while you learn who the shills are. They might not even think of themselves as shills. "They're only trying to help you buy their favorite brand." The problem is, ego being what it is, they couldn't resist posting sound bites of their playing. Game over.
So TalkBass (or really the internet) has allowed me to succeed in this market where I couldn't get traction without it. You might be seeing all these small companies sprouting for the same reasons. Ampeg and SWR had the market because being mass produced amps they could sell for less and therefore sell more units and therefore sell for less and therefore sell more. Having a dealer network assured spreading the word and moving units. But large companies now need large unit sales to survive. They need to "feed" the dealer network. I'm not interested, but I now it won't last. SWR wanted to stay small too.
But there's something else going one. Clarence White bought a '54 Tele in '64. Why? Because it was used and therefore cheaper. When I played in the '60's and '70's, if I wanted a new bass, I had to sell my old one. Today people really have a lot more money. Do you see junk cars on the road anymore? Guys now have multiple instruments. The number of players has dropped but the number of amps and basses owned has increased dramatically. (IMHO of course).
And I have a LOT of players in their '40's and '50's who now have bad backs.
I have spent thousands of dollars in the last couple of years looking for bass nirvana. I'm 100% satisfied now with my current setup. I'm glad that people hyped the Berg NV series and Ampeg SVT II. Love them both. I do still like to try new things, but always come back to this setup.
Excellent post!I started Thunderfunk in 1977. An overnight sensation. In the early 1990's I built tube guitar amps. There was an internet but no WWW. Around 1995 someone told me that large companies had webpages to reserve space until they saw what the internet was worth. How do you sell over the internet? Today I look for auto parts, find a catalog page, and when I go to buy I'm in an eBay store.
I first thought the net was sales. Then I thought it was advertising. Think of how you can download my new version 8 Owner's Manual in a few seconds for "free" and it's in color! What a cost and efficiency savings.
I want to hear "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." Do you think if I go to Wal-Mart I'll find it there? maybe if I'm lucky to find it on an oldies collection. But I log onto iTunes and $0.99 later, I'm burning it on a CD to listen to in the car. How much would the gas have cost to drive to Wal-Mart? Efficiency.
So the web is a full color phone book, advertising, sales, and distribution. What I'm doing now with Thunderfunk could never have happened 15 years ago without spending a ton on advertising to get the dealer network interested enough to carry my amps so they'd be seen.
Now TalkBass provides a forum for real consumer reviews. This is OK with me because I'm not afraid to compete. It provides me with "free" advertising, "free" magazine type reviews, "free" word of mouth, "free" sales leads, and an oportunity to interact with my customers. Time was a lot of my sales were to TBassers. Now most of my sales are to non-TBassers. I've reached "critical mass" were there's enough amps out there that guys are running into their friends having one. That's real world word of mouth and demonstration. My best dealers are the specialty bass stores that have a lot of different brands. They're magnets that attract bass players and the only customers I hear about are the ones that bought my amp over everything else in the store. I don't hear about the others. No idea what the percentage is.
But I think the point about this thread is that there are shills here.
"The intention of the shill is, using crowd psychology, to encourage other potential customers."
But after being here for a while you learn who the shills are. They might not even think of themselves as shills. "They're only trying to help you buy their favorite brand." The problem is, ego being what it is, they couldn't resist posting sound bites of their playing. Game over.
So TalkBass (or really the internet) has allowed me to succeed in this market where I couldn't get traction without it. You might be seeing all these small companies sprouting for the same reasons. Ampeg and SWR had the market because being mass produced amps they could sell for less and therefore sell more units and therefore sell for less and therefore sell more. Having a dealer network assured spreading the word and moving units. But large companies now need large unit sales to survive. They need to "feed" the dealer network. I'm not interested, but I now it won't last. SWR wanted to stay small too.
But there's something else going one. Clarence White bought a '54 Tele in '64. Why? Because it was used and therefore cheaper. When I played in the '60's and '70's, if I wanted a new bass, I had to sell my old one. Today people really have a lot more money. Do you see junk cars on the road anymore? Guys now have multiple instruments. The number of players has dropped but the number of amps and basses owned has increased dramatically. (IMHO of course).
And I have a LOT of players in their '40's and '50's who now have bad backs.
I'm a little late to this one, but I agree that the hype machine is well oiled here. This can be good though because getting several opinions is better than getting none or "X-brand? I've never heard of that".
There is a large tendency to bash here as well though which I find much less helpful since it usually is also hype driven and not based on actual gigging use of the gear. (My other favorite is the pseudo-vintage snobbery angle...which I'll mention in a minute. I don't mind that someone hates a particular bass or amp, but I'd like to hear the reasons why as opposed to "this one guy I knew told me at a gig once that he knew someone who owned one that _____ happened to."
The best recent memory example I can think of to reference is the whole Ashdown amp heads bit. (N.B. I have an Ashdown head that works great, so a little hype here I suppose, but meh...) But this one gives a pretty standard sequence of the hype machine as I've observed it. Its kinda funny too because I see this pattern over and over looking through the older forum entries.
1. the first threads come out about "this is the best thing since sliced bread!", and everyone of course goes surfing the web to learn more.
2. a few more people get to try them and word spreads, then some reason why they aren't perfect eventually comes up. (in the Ashdown case, it was bad power transformers in a batch that got fixed relatively quickly if I recall)
3. Then the mob splits, and half of them talk about how great the customer service was and how quick they helped to rectify the issue, and the other half starts the "Ashdown heads will kill your father and rape your mother" type threads and start to offer "A sucks, but the new A is awesome"
4. (my favorite one, the pseudo-vintage snobbery slant) Not too many new threads, but any new questions about the item are met with "well, you have to be careful about problems A-F, but mine was made in X month of year Y, and its totally great, does my laundry, and cooks my meals...but you probably can't find one like that anymore" (usually its 1-2 years ago, hence the pseudo-vintage moniker)
This isn't meant to target anyone in particular, nor to start a flame war, I just wanted to point out the pattern that I've started to notice to see If anyone else has noticed it as well.
for reference, the ones I can remember are:
Ashdown heads, Neo vs. Standard cabs (various manufacturers), SX basses, Trace Elliot, Peavey, Ampeg moves to China, a few others...
There is a large tendency to bash here as well though which I find much less helpful since it usually is also hype driven and not based on actual gigging use of the gear. (My other favorite is the pseudo-vintage snobbery angle...which I'll mention in a minute. I don't mind that someone hates a particular bass or amp, but I'd like to hear the reasons why as opposed to "this one guy I knew told me at a gig once that he knew someone who owned one that _____ happened to."
The best recent memory example I can think of to reference is the whole Ashdown amp heads bit. (N.B. I have an Ashdown head that works great, so a little hype here I suppose, but meh...) But this one gives a pretty standard sequence of the hype machine as I've observed it. Its kinda funny too because I see this pattern over and over looking through the older forum entries.
1. the first threads come out about "this is the best thing since sliced bread!", and everyone of course goes surfing the web to learn more.
2. a few more people get to try them and word spreads, then some reason why they aren't perfect eventually comes up. (in the Ashdown case, it was bad power transformers in a batch that got fixed relatively quickly if I recall)
3. Then the mob splits, and half of them talk about how great the customer service was and how quick they helped to rectify the issue, and the other half starts the "Ashdown heads will kill your father and rape your mother" type threads and start to offer "A sucks, but the new A is awesome"
4. (my favorite one, the pseudo-vintage snobbery slant) Not too many new threads, but any new questions about the item are met with "well, you have to be careful about problems A-F, but mine was made in X month of year Y, and its totally great, does my laundry, and cooks my meals...but you probably can't find one like that anymore" (usually its 1-2 years ago, hence the pseudo-vintage moniker)
This isn't meant to target anyone in particular, nor to start a flame war, I just wanted to point out the pattern that I've started to notice to see If anyone else has noticed it as well.
for reference, the ones I can remember are:
Ashdown heads, Neo vs. Standard cabs (various manufacturers), SX basses, Trace Elliot, Peavey, Ampeg moves to China, a few others...
Well, that almost exactly my current set up ... using a Peavey CS 1200 power amp and four Ampeg 8x10s, but I play mostly children's songs ... Peter, Paul, and Mary ... etc. at the Kinder Care pre-school down the street. And this rig works pretty well for that, too. Blast those little #$%&ers right off their naptime roll-out beds.
On other fronts ...
Every forum on the net has the gushing and slamming goin on. As someone mentioned, it's just human nature.
