Over the years of reading discussions here and elsewhere of musos and the quest for the vintage synth, the marquee guitar, the boutique tube preamb, etc, I've been struck by two contradictory thoughts:
1) 90% of it is bollocks. If you're talking about the unique sound of a type of electric guitar, for example a Les Paul of a tele, most people play with so much FX that all of that is lost in the purple haze, so to speak, of distortion, reverb, etc. Likewise with laments for manufactures to re-issue gear like the roland TB-303 (to cite a topic being hotly debated in another thread): I listen to (and play) lots of electronica and am pretty familiar w/t gear involved, and if somebody can tell me that they can tell a real 303 from a clone (even a vst like rebirth) once it's been put through heavy distortion and other FX - as it almost always is - I'd be willing to wager they're mistaken. I'd love SoS to do a blind listening on this one, the way Downbeat used to (still does?) with musicians listening to unidentified records and giving their opinions. As I said, I think the fetish over most equipment is just disguised gear-lust. (One area of exception: if you play a/o record acousitically. Classical music, for example, is where the instruments and the recording equipment really do show their virtues and flaws).
2) that said, I believe people are sincere in their beliefs that, for example, an ARP Odyssey v2 (white face) is *way* better than an ARP Odyssey v2 (brown face) because the filter was slightly different. Ditto with buying a $3000 Fender Custom shop strat or a 192KHz A/D converter.
In medicine there is a well-known phenomenon called the placebo effect, which occurs when a patient is given a harmless pill but nonetheless gets better because they *think* it's real medicine. And this leads me to my question: is there a placebo effect on how people play (or record, I suppose) because they believe the gear is "top-drawer" (not to say top Drawmer
? Do they play better once the gear they're using is better than the gear they were using before?Speaking personally, I'd say the answer is no. Some of my best work is stuff I did nearly 22 years ago when I had 5% of the equipment I do now. Don't get me wrong: I've enjoyed the purchase of everything I've bought in the subsequent years, but I know little of it has made me a better composer or player. To the extent that I've advanced, it's because of lots and lots (and lots) of hours playing and experimenting and scrutinizing critically what comes out, etc.
But does the placebo effect exist for you? Has your playing improved when you've gotten that piece of gear you've lusted for and finally acquired? If so, why do you think it's happened?
Cheers,
d
