trends in gear..all you lemmings

If i cant write properly, does it means i must only use a freaking 20 cents pen?
I write like shit but i can still use a 500 dollar fountain pen
 
To be honest I don't understand much of the TS's rant. I can only gather that he's upset about young guitarists having good gear, and more obviously, young guitarists posting here asking for advise and/or help.

Take a look.

arctopus said:
i think the "million pedals/guitars/amps" part of my post wasn't related to the main point i was trying to get at and may have mislead some, my bad. theres absolutely nothing wrong with spending your own money on gear whether you're playing out or not.
 
If you compare it to its yester-years, maybe there is a degradation of what it used to be. I wasn't around long enough to see the change as you probably did.

But "a overblown gear classifieds site with little to none intelligent discussions"? I beg to differ.

Started joining this forum not knowing a single thing. Now know alot more than I thought I could ever know than reading through books alone. Perhaps knowledge is better gained hands on, but how could a guy who have absolutely no knowledge of anything bring himself to believe that he is "worthy" of some experienced and knowleadgable person's time and patience? So he turns to the next best thing: a community (I repeat, COMMUNITY, not a website) of like minded individuals made up of noobs like himself as well as experienced heads like the ones listed who are willing to share what they know, and give some form of DIRECTION as to where to start out and try out first.

It is unfortunate that a part of it has turned into an outlet of frenzied buying just cos someone else say it is good (even cool) to have. I am partly with you on this: it gets annoying when it becomes less of mission for discovery of signature style and tone and more of a mission of to-have-something-everyone-have-and-then-some. Or that there are some who are just waiting to be spoon fed and swayed by what the popular mass says.

But dig deeper and you will get to see throughly insightful stuff that you might not find anywhere else, or at least some direction that can help lead you to certain discoveries eg digital vs analog, tube vs solid states etc. These kind of debates of opinions on gears and technicalities catalyses interest to discover the 'truth' or just to find your own preference. At the very least, there IS a direction. Nobody can say they are going aimless. But from there on, where are you gonna take yourself? That's where a lot of people start to do things wrong: back tracking to the source to ask for more directions in stead of being brave enough to explore on their own.

And starting this discussion in the Guitar section is just constraining it further. Gain insight into the forum as a whole, and what it has to offer to non-guitarists as well in terms of information, and you can see that, hey, it's not THAT bad...

At the end of the day, yes, you can get only so far by reading people's thoughts and opinion. Unfortunately, to alot of people here, it gets only as far as that: reading people's thoughts, taking it as the entire truth, and ditching it when it is no longer regarded as such. Some are pure hobbyist, others are... well.. kids. But should we blame the forum itself what it has become? I wouldn't. I rather blame the fact that we are so spoilt for choices.
 
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Hmm.

I think what you're observing is the "herd mentality" that plagues everybody from teengae girls who seem to really think that black stockings go with mini skirts, to middle-aged ladies who fight to buy a bag that says "this is not a plastic bag" to normal chaps who fight for hello kittie toys for their girlfriends.

It's all about popularity that wanes. Indeed it may seem silly, buying a piece of gear then dumping it for a loss later. Too bad for those people who can't decide what they want, nor are willing to put in the personal man-hours to try it for themselves.

In any case, if what you want is "in season" now, if you know it might just die off in a while, just capitalise on it next time when the ooohing and aaahing has long died down.
 
In any case, if what you want is "in season" now, if you know it might just die off in a while, just capitalise on it next time when the ooohing and aaahing has long died down.

You know.. sometimes what is 'in season' now, can be sought after again some 30 years later or so, and be called 'vintage'. ;)
 
Yay, I enjoy an intelligent discussion, it's something rarely experienced here.

Kym:
"What I feel is that Soft has grown in numbers exponentially since it first started. As more netizens join, there will be more ads, more questions and posts. It is about probability: if there is more posts, chances of encountering a stupid of unintelligent post will also be higher, no?"

Correct. And this is a problem faced by many, many forums all over the world. There have been solutions implemented, some not so successful, and yet others which have been very successful. Soft tends to rest on it's laurels and hope things turn out ok.

"Personally, you cannot expect everyone on Soft to ask intelligent questions. Soft is an open forum, not exclusively for veteran players only. Some members are less experienced hence they need more guidance and answers. Once in a while, they asked some stupid or rhetoric questions, but should we discourage others to ask questions because of this?"

I never diss "stupid" questions. Understandably, everyone is a beginner once. However, when I mention unintelligence, I am referring to the discussion. Consider the following:

Questioner: "wHat is the best amp?!?!? Help me plsssssssss!!!!"
Nice guy: "Maybe you could state what kind of amp you're looking for? Practice? Budget? What kind of music?"
Retard 1: "Get a Marshall MG15 dude, trust me it's the best amp"
Retard 2: "Hi we have stock of MG15, thanks"
Retard 3: "Get a DS1, my 2 cents"
Nice guy: "Erm, the DS1 is a pedal, why would you recommend that as an amp?"
Retard 2: "Hi we have stock of DS1, thanks"
Retard 3: "It works for me"
Questioner: "Hiii dudes tanks for your helpz, i bot the DS1, how come deres' no sound when i plug my guitar in??????"

Nice guy to himself: "Why do I bother."

Think this is an exaggeration? Look back, it happens a lot more than you might think.


"Anyway, just out of curiosity. Why is it that you claim the way that Soft forum runs dissuades intelligent questions and rewards stupidity and spam?"

Intelligent discussions actually. Soft does not run on moderators. Any society's culture is largely influenced by people who control the power. In a forum, they are the moderators. Be they good or bad moderators, these are the guys who will influence the culture, be in a conducive or lackluster one. However, in the absence of moderation, all we have is chaos. In chaos, it is always the loudest, most obnoxious and the majority that dedicates the culture. Any intelligent post, written after a well thought process taking maybe 15 mins, is quickly covered by 2 pages of posts with insults and banter from people not having even read the posts properly.

Here's an example right from this thread itself (nothing personal eugene):
"To be honest I don't understand much of the TS's rant. I can only gather that he's upset about young guitarists having good gear, and more obviously, young guitarists posting here asking for advise and/or help."

As pointed out by shredcow later on, Eugene has obviously not read the posts thoroughly and decided to post his 2 cents on a completely separate issue. Not that I blame Eugene. This has been the culture of Soft for a while, and any new user will immediately incorporate that attitude into his own posts. The thread starter may have opened 2 subjects in his first post, but quickly corrected in his 2nd post what the main point he is actually bringing up for discussion.

Our dear thread starter now looks at all the posts in his thread. Less than half of them are addressing his point. Should he spend another 15mins typing out a cleanly written post? Or should he just shrug his shoulders and have some kopi.


Maybe I should clarify what I mean by an intelligent discussion. To me, an intelligent discussion is one where every poster, before posting, reads every post before himself thoroughly and takes the words spoken into account. Then posts his views whilst addressing the words spoken before himself.

Most of the threads resemble the "whats the best amp" example I provided earlier. Where the poster asks a question, then everyone throws in his 2 cents. Meanwhile the poster skims through and ignores half the posts and makes his own decision.

The solution? Moderation. This is a giant subject with debates over banning rules, empowerment and such, but moderation is a step forward. However to my observation, James prefers to have no moderators, hoping everyone "just gets along".
 
Should I move this to the Feedback/Suggestion section?

Firstly, I like to thank everyone who gave their piece of mind on this issue. There is no right or wrong cos SOFT is a reflection of the general population. Members come from different background and music preference. Which is cool.

Since some suggested that it is SOFT's responsibility that the site has 'degrade' into what it is today, I will offer my views.

theblueark, we do have moderators helping out in the forum. Most of the time, their work though great, is not easily seen. It is all in the background.

If we compare the running of a website to the work of the LTA in Singapore, SOFT would be somewhat like building roads . The moderators are like traffic lights. SOFTies would be like drivers.

We want to help everyone to enjoy their travel from point A to point B. There will be small cars, motorbikes, lorries and buses. There will be fast driver, nice drivers and even abusive ones.

We are still a relatively small site with little resources. We will get better.

I hope users like theblueark, ShredCow, arctopus and others more experienced users can continue to help out in the forum.
 
sometimes i wonder too jus why most of us spend lots of $ on gears.
with gears amounting to $500+ or even $5k+ -_-

imo, most local musicians we see here usually does not reflect their gear to skill ratio tht well.

but at the end of the day...most of us jus seem to be happier :D and satisfied with the cash spent on gears than using it for lessons to improve ourselves.
strange but true
 
I've been following Soft's development for a while now. It used to be filled with serious people who have experience and are giving valid advice. Gear choices weren't as wide as what we have now but the kind of discussions that we had then, explored the full potential of any piece of gear.

Ideally we want soft to be a place filled with accurate knowledge. We want real world advice from people with real world experience.

What we have now is a string of armchair critics who swears by their gear of choice, swaying the uninformed into buying that piece of gear, but only to realize it doesn’t suit their style, and it ends up being sold on soft classifieds. And here’s the kicker, some of these critics, haven’t even tried the gear they recommended. They read it somewhere. Probably on TGP.

This, I feel, is the source of the "trend". We are a "majority rules" type of society. We tend to follow majority. And majority in this case is not the well-informed veterans, but misinformed armchair critics and busybodies. Even our so-called desire for individuality is governed by the majority’s cliché definition of individuality. We have lots of great talent in Singapore. But only a few have the imagination and courage to truly be different. But one thing stays true. We all dream. However, only a select few dare to go off the beaten track and make it a reality.

People buy gear for lots of reasons. Personally, if someone wants to have 20 guitars and 100 pedals, but can't hold a power chord to save his life, let it be. It’s their money. But it’s just plain ridiculous when these same people are going around the forums, parading their gear and telling everyone it’s the best gear on the planet. Should we take them seriously? Sad but true, some of the softies do, only to realize that that’s not the case.

A lot of things have changed. We have to try to have that little faith that maybe the really experienced and knowledgeable softies can’t be bothered to speak up because there’s just too many armchair critics out there who’s gonna say something stupid, or worse, flame them. It’s a discussion, people. And everyone is entitled to his or her opinions. If Soft is an accurate representation of the general music community in Singapore, then all I have to say is this. WE ARE SO SCREWED.

So to all the noobs reading this, do your homework. As the right questions, which simply means, include the details of your current problem. Don't ask for opinions. Ask for facts. Instead of asking, "which is better? A crunchbox or a ds-1", tell people the genre of music you’re playing, your budget, and your current playing proficiency and then ask, which pedal do people think would be most suited for you and WHY. But before you even do that, search on soft, at least, if there's any such question already asked.

And let's be honest. We all have a limited budget. No one here in soft have a "sky's the limit" budget. Those that do wouldn't even ask for opinions. They'll just buy it. And sell it if they don’t like it.

So to answer the thread-starter’s question. We’ve got people with a lack of experience who dish out their “professional” advice to unsuspecting people who expects to be spoon-fed and willing say AAAHHH and swallow whatever is fed to them. Some of whom have a huge lust to announce to the world, “I have the best gear in the world!!!!… and you don’t”. And the generic sound, in my opinion, stems from a lack of imagination and courage. But that said, not every song requires the use of a ring modulator or some funky effects.

The gear does not make the man. The skills do not make the music.

Ladies and gentlemen, start flaming.
 
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This series of posts is interesting

As Singaporeans, many have been trained to follow the status quo, or the norm
it seems. Few dare to buck the trend. Many want to be accepted by society in general blah blah blah. Hence the herd mentality. So that one can own gear that is cool and people will go
wow cool gear etc.

Hence youll see an overwhelming majority of Gibsons, Fenders ibanezes etc. For boutique brands of guitars woe to those bringing them in as u won't know how long the trend will run for. Then getting stuck with equipment thats really tough to sell and expensive.

For real players thats gd, cos firstly it creates a viable market of a large range of goods cos more people are buying stuff. Then when everyone has become tired of a particular gear thats become uncool, u can easily snap one up for a bargain.

One example would be the ibanez sz 320, 520 series. Its a gd guitar to start with. Not cheap to begin with, quite a few were sold. Then in the recent months quite a few put up for sale in the classifieds. At really gd prices i must say

Gd for the real musos or those just starting out to end up with a gd bargain id say.
 
hahaha... i kena zapped again... but i was asking for it... donch fren you Soft cos you no put my name! :P

anyways, from what i see its good to post this annually.

cos everyday we have people coming here thinking that this is a bloody internet call center, where can buy this? got what colour options? how much?

I used to be affected and ran a series of nonsense thread about Klein and Warrior guitars and what not but what the hell? You point out to a lazy waiting to be spoonfed noob(noobs are AYE OKAY, LAZY noobs are not) and they learn, in a second 10 other lazy noobs appear. It'll never end no matter how much stickies and how much effort is being put in to reiterate that Google is where you should head to before doing any life changing decisions in life... or not.

as for the fashion trends in gear, it'll always be around and evolving. remember those days where Zoom9000 used to be THE multieffect? or Boss Metalzone was THE distortion? or when you talk about delays its Boss DD3 or DETH? or the period where only Analogue delays using BBD chips are considered serious delays? or Brass nuts? or Earvana nuts? or Kinmans being THE noiseless single coils? Callaham bridges? mint green pickguards and knobs?

SRSLY. KTHXBAI.
 
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hehe, and iam a sad loser who thinks in another couple mths time everything will be 3/4 forgotten and like resetting mileage, we will be half way thru back to square one
icon10.gif


Lets spend the amount of time if this thread continue to go on, to each write a piece of music, record and post it up, in memory of this thread.

even thou if the situation dont changed, at least we have spent some time to do something useful while the thread continued its journey
 
Actually I have to agree we get lazy noobs here, to be honest I get quite pissed with them sometimes. But after all, this forum caters to Singapore musicians, so we can expect diversity. So yeah, what we can do is encourage them to get off their lazy bums and to do their own research as well, and learn how to get gear that fits them, not what their guitar idols use.

:mrgreen::mrgreen:
 
woahhh, sounds real!

Lets rock guitar solo, djeng djung djeng djung, chuggah chuggah, deee deee dellll dooooo twidddlllleee doooo deeeeeweeeeeeee oooooooooooo weeeeeeeeeee *dive bomb*

Piakkkkkkk! *string snapped, hit own mawth*
 
bro shred, bro...bro......., i i...i knew that....

Thats why iam trying to help you overcome the whole thing and stand proud again, doing un-snap-pable dive bomb, no matter how low you play with the twang bar!

if you wanna extra twang bar, i let you dive me, play my twang bar, i go low to high, you from high to low and we can overcome this together!

How, suei boh, for you only!
 
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