ive tested alex's guitars and amps and compared them to an ibanez i had that had bare knuckle pickups installed. frequency wise, i thought my ibanez could cut it but the main difference is that psychological difference where a guitar actually inspires you to play better, and in result, sound better. yes, my bkp loaded ibanez sounded great but felt like a toy compared to a custom shop jackson, a suhr, the and the baker (i forgot to try the gil yaron. ugh).
as for recordings, i can conclude that it would be impossible to capture what i FELT on a recording. and i say that as someone who does recordings for a living. notes felt "stickier" on alex's guitars and almost felt like i was connected to the sound that was coming out of his amps. i literally felt like i was a way better player than i was.
we talked about how buying more expensive guitars is only a way of NARROWING the margin of error between getting a good sounding and FEELING guitar and a lemon/toy-like/plasticky guitar.
pull the "alex cant play his expensive guitars" card all you want. in the end theyre his guitars and they give him the satisfaction of actually playing them no matter what his skill level. for sure most of you can outplay him. and keep telling yourselves that you could for whatever ego-based reasons you have but ill tell you this, that speaks more about yourselves than anyone.
when i tried the baker and the suhr, i still sound like myself, but i felt like i was being my BEST self with those instruments. i felt like i was looking into a mirror that made me look good compared to a broken or dirty mirror. i was admiring the tone i could coax out of the instrument. i didnt consider the tone as part of the instrument itself because i felt like i still sounded like myself. i think im waxing poetic right now, but that only shows how indescribable it is to actually try and feel a great guitar. truly inspiring.
along the way alex asked me: which amp/guitar did you like best? you would expect me to say "ALL OF THEM" but i was surprised to found that i found my own favorites and not-so-favorites among his gear. i spent more time on the jackson chris broderick custom shop than the suhr and baker. i enjoyed my tone more on the diezel than the soldano (he told me mico/phoenix_rising preferred the soldano)
i dont think its alex's intent to invalidate all of our "tone experiences". his articulation in writing on these forums differs from how he is in real life and in our conversations, i did not feel judged at all. in the end i just gained more things to consider when choosing a guitar. and i think thats his point in making these posts. we all tend to rationalize and sometimes delude ourselves into thinking we sound good.
how many times have you been told to adjust your eq by a bandmate? we hear ourselves differently. we hear the tones of our idols filtered through recordings and listening devices. i mean, if you listen to music on ipod earphones, i dont think that would be an accurate picture of how things sound in real life. some people end up thinking that tones on ipod earphones are what things should sound like in reality and they end up tweaking their tone to be as thin and piercing as the things they use to listen to music. some people with cheap speakers with subs, tweak their tone to be overly boomy or bloated and conflict with the bass guitar. how we understand tone is based on what we consider good tone and what we use to hear good tone. alex has a good point in saying that these experts he consults with have had FIRST HAND experience with great sounding gear. there is no substitute. no soundclips, videos, youtube demos can replace that magical feeling of walking into a store, trying out as many guitars as you can and serendipitously "meeting" a great instrument.
