Re: Gear Dweebs

[Matthias Grob <matthias@grob.org>]

>  >i think the real problem with "gearism" is when
>>creativity is replaced with the process of acquisition
>>or when creativity is postponed while waiting to
>>"complete" a setup.
>
>
>I'm all in favor of people who buy every bit of new gear, even if they 
>never
>make any music.  They subsidize the rest of us.  If musical equipment
>manufacturers were dependent only on sales to working musicians, the 
>market
>would be much, much, much smaller.
>
>Travis Hartnett

True.
But there is another side: Through popularization, tools that do not 
really serve for a working musician may override serious products on 
the market. Suddenly shops are full of guitars out of overpainted 
irregular woods and sell and more expensive instruments have no space 
and serious enterprises die. Maybe more even so on the synth market 
where cheap instruments with bad sounding converters killed 
enterprises like Fairlight, Sequencial Cirquits and Oberheim (the 
original one).

MIDI is another example: Sequencial Cirquits defined the connector to 
be either a XLR or the DIN we have now. Working musicians probably 
would love to pay a few bucks more for a solid XLR, but it did not 
make it.

It does not really help me that there are guitars for under 300 US$. 
I use the same one guitar for 12 years and can use it another long 
time, and since its fundamental to me I dont mind so much how much it 
costs. I spend much more in car and rent anyway.
The same goes for a Lexicon Reverb ;-)

I may be totally wrong.


          ---> http://Matthias.Grob.org