why bother?

[Chuck H]

Velveeta.

Cheese food.

The whole name as I've heard it described is "pasteurized, processed American cheese food product". That's a mouthful, if you don't care what you put in your mouth. The implication being that there is some cheese in it and it can be eaten if you wish.

[Enzo]

Not to be confused with the ...

"Non-nutritive, non-dairy artificial coffee lightener product"

[Tooboob]

Well, I just didn't want to get into the argument about the toilet paper: should the roll be on the holder so the loose end is out front or back against the wall?

Depends on whether you've got cats.

Demise of the toob? Certainly the shifting of the market and the younger players to a soulless form of metal machine is a concern, and SS works pretty good for that, but you're missing the two bigger, less depressing trends, which also open opportunities for the little guy:

1. Records/CDs are dead. This puts music back in the hands of the people. Most players now record at home. Good part - everybody's a rock star. Bad part - fame is fleeting at best.
2. Folks are doing it in church. Count the live clubs you drive by on your commute. Then count the churches. Most all have choirs, and most have praise bands.

I look at the collection of the latest versions of Jimi Hendrix' amp at Musician's Friend, and realize that all the big players are building the wrong stuff.

[Chuck H]

I'm not sure what "all the big players are building the wrong stuff" means, but I would speculate that it is precisely because music is back in the hands of players that tube amps will fade. The media that will be used will all be digital. The forerunners of this trend will be those familiar with the media and therefor inclined to use compatible products, like digital amp simulator guitar programs. It will be good enough for what many of the recording artists want to do since they may well be primarily media savvy and guitar players second. Tone will suffer greatly and any intrinsic understanding of how to work a loud amp and the nuances of resonance may even be subtracted from the equation. In the end it will still be music even though the guitar part might be reduced to pasteurized, processed American Cheese feed product .

The good news is that rock isn't dying. It seems to keep reinventing itself with remarkable similarity to it's other incarnations in fact. And guitar is still a stand out for the most expressive means to aspiring players. So... There will still be wannabe guitar gods and there will likely be a number of them that want a tonal edge. And like the guitars niche, tubes also niche themselves with an ideal. At the very least we tube users/lovers should be OK for a long time. But there is a good possibility it could go another way. In life the only thing that remains consistent is that things will change.

[Tooboob]

I'm not sure what "all the big players are building the wrong stuff" means,

I decided to hang out on user forums to see what people needed (I always get stuck on how many knobs and what they should do). I see the same stuff over and over...

"I bought the hot 100W amp, and it only sounds good really loud. It wakes the baby in our small apartment. What should I do?"

"There's no room on the alter, so I run a real long cord downstairs to my half-stack in a storage room, mike it, and run the signal up to the board. I listen through a monitor."

"I like to record late at night. The amp's too loud. If I use the line output, do I have to hook up speakers?"

"I love my MIDI-capable guitar. I run the 13-pin cable to my Roland, and I take the mag output from my guitar to my guitar amp, and I send the piezo mix from my guitar to an acoustic amp."

"I love my 5150. I use these 8 pedals with it:..."

If you put yourself in the shoes of a guy playing along with a choir in a big church with a PA, or recording without a sound-proof studio, or hooking up to cool processing, you see that there are new needs.

Have you noticed how old the DJs are on rock radio? Gotta match the demographic.

The good news is that we old farts exist in ever-shrinking numbers. I met a guy at the Princeton Physics Shop in 1977. He told me "they only keep me around because I know how tubes work." The increase in life's technological complexity actually divorces most people from understanding it. We'll have a world full of users looking for wizards soon.

[tedmich]

I decided to hang out on user forums to see what people needed (I always get stuck on how many knobs and what they should do). I see the same stuff over and over...

"I bought the hot 100W amp, and it only sounds good really loud. It wakes the baby in our small apartment. What should I do?"

"There's no room on the alter, so I run a real long cord downstairs to my half-stack in a storage room, mike it, and run the signal up to the board. I listen through a monitor."

"I like to record late at night. The amp's too loud. If I use the line output, do I have to hook up speakers?"

"I love my MIDI-capable guitar. I run the 13-pin cable to my Roland, and I take the mag output from my guitar to my guitar amp, and I send the piezo mix from my guitar to an acoustic amp."

"I love my 5150. I use these 8 pedals with it:..."

If you put yourself in the shoes of a guy playing along with a choir in a big church with a PA, or recording without a sound-proof studio, or hooking up to cool processing, you see that there are new needs.

Have you noticed how old the DJs are on rock radio? Gotta match the demographic.

The good news is that we old farts exist in ever-shrinking numbers. I met a guy at the Princeton Physics Shop in 1977. He told me "they only keep me around because I know how tubes work." The increase in life's technological complexity actually divorces most people from understanding it. We'll have a world full of users looking for wizards soon.

quite true, the Science and Technology section of most online or print media are just marketing press releases. There is a DIY backlash but most users are sure that "stuff" is way beyond their understanding, like derivative trading and hedge funds...

[dai h.]

this video is sort of a contrast to the Adrian Belew one. I suppose he is a "keeper of the flame" or "doing the same ol' same ol'" depending on your perspective.

(running time long; about 43min.)

Rig Rundown - J.D. Simo - YouTube

[Chuck H]

I met a guy at the Princeton Physics Shop in 1977. He told me "they only keep me around because I know how tubes work." The increase in life's technological complexity actually divorces most people from understanding it. We'll have a world full of users looking for wizards soon.

I couldn't agree more!!! It seems like ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING ANYONE KNOWS ANYMORE is just rote information. The idea of understanding something is almost secondary. The trouble in my mind is that someone needs to understand it in the first place to render it rote information!?! But it does seem like there are too many people that know what they're doing without any understanding of why they're doing it. I'm not entirely sure if this is a consequence of capitalism or not

[eschertron]

I couldn't agree more!!! It seems like ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING ANYONE KNOWS ANYMORE is just rote information.

Futurists and 'Speculative Fiction' writers have been writing on the theme of the high priesthood of technology since I was a boy, maybe before. I agree that it's getting truer each day. I can't imagine someone starting a computer company from scratch in their garage; too many precursor technologies to master before the actual computer could be developed.
What I think it means is that as technologies are developed (and abandoned) the choices are set in stone and next gen technologies have only those choices for the precursor technologies to be used as a basis. For example: when the last high priest of tube tech dies, the engineers employed by existing companies will perform their rote rituals - hoping that they can maintain or sustain their processes - until the equipment, or the materials, or the process fails to produce the hoped-for result. Without the ability to understand the whole chain of precursor technologies from the most basic up to the current generation, current engineering practice is limited in scope to what available to develop from the current-gen technologies. Heaven help us! Says the acolyte

[tedmich]

I agree. How about SRV and Eric Johnson. Both commercial careers started after EVH. Even today there are some guitar hero's that we just aren't familiar with. I'm not a big Avenged Sevenfold fan but have you heard Synyster Gates play!?! He's fast, creative and brings more touch and feel and phrasing to the pop metal genre than I'm use to. Great player. Uses a tube amp of course.

Chuck you need to listen to more stuff, this guy knows some scales and is pinky enabled but as far as progressing the instrument he's not even the best guy at GC.

And SRV would have told you in a heartbeat that Hendrix was a better player than he could ever be, likely EJ would too (when he wasn't going on about the tonal differences of brass vs steel screws in the back panel of his OD pedal...

Try some Govan, Eklundh and Thall!

[Chuck H]

Chuck you need to listen to more stuff, this guy knows some scales and is pinky enabled but as far as progressing the instrument he's not even the best guy at GC.

Nice

To be fair everybody sounds like a wanker when they're just wankin'. And man that tone blows. Way too much mid cut. Actually sounded like walking into GC.

Whatever SRV or EJ think of JH (acronym much?) they were players with their own style, and great ones. As to listening to more stuff... Yeah, I prolly should. I've always been a fan of pop rock so if it's not on the radio I may not have much exposure.

[uneumann]

The good news is that we old farts exist in ever-shrinking numbers. I met a guy at the Princeton Physics Shop in 1977. He told me "they only keep me around because I know how tubes work." The increase in life's technological complexity actually divorces most people from understanding it. We'll have a world full of users looking for wizards soon.

Just an observation... technology is rarely completely displaced or somehow lost. There are still wooden ships being built and sailed. There are still crossbows, and there are many such examples. I also see trends in the amplifier business that suggest tubes are going to be with us for a long time. Yes, there are DSP boxes, but analog tube amps are getting cheaper and more competitive all the time. There are soooo many Valve jrs and it's like out there. The Bugera v22 is amazing for it's cost ($335). I'm not saying its a replacement for a vintage amp, but it's competing in a range even SS or DSP amps have to work for. I take rising prices often indicate that something is going away and becoming a collectable. Tube amps on the other hand are getting cheaper. That means somebody (lots of people) are designing and building them. Just my observation, but I see tubes still on the rise from their lows in the 80s and 90s.

[Chuck H]

That raises a very good point.

I typically have a real problem with the outsourcing of too much industry overseas. I actually blame corporate America and our government for this. I'm not saying Americans should be working for the same wages as overseas labor, but there must be a better solution won't cripple our economy beyond repair. Terriffs and taxes on anything we can still compete on to make the corporations consider keeping some labor domestic would be a good start. But I digress.

If there's one good thing about all the cheap tube amplifiers being imported it's that they are accessible to more and younger players. And that DOES help keep the tube ideology and production in a viable place.

Everything else about it still sucks though... Oh... Sorry. I digress again.

[Enzo]

It seems like ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING ANYONE KNOWS ANYMORE is just rote information.

Blame google. A while back I was crying over our youth and that they know nothing and are taught nothing. I asked some questions I felt any American person ought to be able to answer, like "what are Honshu and Hokkaido?" They are the two largest islands of Japan. Before anyone objects, anyone want to bet the average japanese couldn;t tell you what Texas and California were?. We discussed it a little while, there were more examples of the stunning ignorance of typical Americans. I was stunned that for the most part no one shared my concern, but beyond that the response from several was, "Why bother, they can just google it." Apparently google is solution to not knowing a damned thing.

[loudthud]

A surprising trend in the semiconductor industry is that none of the engineers coming out of school these days has a clue how to make the old parts. If a company needs to keep the old parts in production, they have to find retired engineers willing to go back to work. Most of the old parts are made on old equipment in facilities that aren't clean enough for the new MOS processes. As these engineers die off, old parts will go out of production. The old Plessey analog parts were a cash cow because of replacements needed for the Military. Production had to be shut down because they couldn't find the people that knew how to make them.