How to get a good recorded sound from a bass guitar the really fast way

I'm going to note up front that this is written from a guitar player's point of view, but it should serve well for bass players also.

If you're a guitar player that records music at home (which most people do), you've found out that using a keyboard for a bass sound doesn't really work that well. You've also found out that detuning your guitar doesn't really work well either.

The quick-and-dirty way to get good recorded bass tone

Do not use an amp. Ever.

This is a total waste of time if the goal is to record the bass quick. Positioning a microphone in front of a bass amp to get just that right bass recording is not a quick process and never has been. Possible, yes, but not easy and not quick. Save yourself a ton of time and plug in direct instead.

Use the tone knob. Always.

It's probably true that the sound you want is to have the pickup(s) volume all the way up and the tone knob all the way down (or almost all the way down).

Guitar players make the classic mistake of turning everything "up to 10" and expect that to work. On a bass, that rarely works. Turn the tone knob down.

Compress. Don't think about it. Just do it.

Unless you have fingers or a pick strike that can get exactly the volume you want 100% of the time, you're going to have notes that are too quiet with others than are too loud. The solution to this is compression. Use this cheap compressor to get that job done.

EQ bass down, midrange up and treble down

With the EQ "flat", the bass will sound awful and overpower everything else. And if using roundwound strings (which you probably will be), every time you move from fret to fret you're going to hear that "schrrrch" noise, and it will be loud in a bad way.

On a 3-band EQ, set bass EQ to 40%, mid EQ to 60% and treble EQ to 40%. You don't have to use those exact numbers, but it generally works out pretty well where the bass will cut through the mix without being overpowering.

Drive it lightly

Overdrive does work on bass if you use it lightly. Ordinarily, a heavy amount of compression should add in just a hint of overdrive. If it doesn't, you can add it in using an overdrive pedal for whatever you have.

The trick however is that it must be overdrive and not distortion. A distortion pedal even on its lowest setting won't work out that well. Light overdrive however will work.

While true you will probably not hear the overdrive in the total mix of the song later, the point to using it is to ensure every single note gets through with even, consistent volume that cuts through the mix properly.

Order of effects?

Overdrive first, compression second, EQ last.

Other bass recording tricks you can use

Pan hard to a side

If you're having a problem with the bass getting buried too much in the mix of your song, pan it hard. As in pan the bass track 100% to the left or 100% to the right.

The bass is one of those instruments where it is absolutely OK to do this.

In fact, if you pan the bass and the rhythm guitar hard to one side, and pan the lead guitar hard to the other side, that kind of mix really works out well.

Do not be afraid to have your bass be a buzzy, "clacky" mess

Fret buzz and fret clack is something you can get away with on a bass guitar and still have it sound good. Best used with overdrive.

Need a 5-string sound but only have a 4-string?

Tune down to B-E-A-D instead of the standard E-A-D-G. Chances are pretty good you'll like B-E-A-D tuning so much that you'll keep the tuning that way all the time.

Which bass works best for the guitar player?

The "Fender bass sound" is the standard, except of course you don't want to spend a grand on a Fender American Standard bass guitar since you're a guitar player.

Squier to the rescue.

There are basically 2 body styles and 3 pickup configurations.

1. Precision Bass

One split-coil pickup (it's split so it acts like a humbucker to eliminate 60-cycle hum but still has single-coil tone), one volume knob, one tone knob; a good workhorse bass guitar. Commonly known as a "P" bass.

2. Jazz Bass

Two straight-coil pickups. I actually like the Jazz over the P. The J-style body is a bit more comfortable (for me, anyway) and you can get more sounds out of it. It's also the same price as the P. The tradeoff is that the straight single-coil pickups can buzz. This bass is commonly known as a "J".

3. P/J bass

Best of both worlds here, mostly. Same price as the above two, has a P pickup in the middle and a J pickup in the rear. I say "mostly" because it's a P-style body and I prefer the J-style, but that's just me. You might really like the P-style body.

If you are absolutely unsure which bass to get, get a P/J whether it's made by Squier or not. Why? Because it covers all the tones you'd want out of a bass. Both pickups on gives you a modern sound, J pickup alone gives you 70's honk, P pickup alone gives you 60's big/bold fullness, and with experimentation with the knobs, you can get basically any sound you want out of it.

I own a P/J bass currently, but at some point I may get a Jazz Bass even though I know the pickups buzz. The J-style body is just really comfortable, and since I'm used to single-coil pickups that buzz and how to eliminate that kind of interference noise, I could deal with the J's buzzy straight-coil singles without a problem.

BONUS 4. SX Ursa 1

The only reason to get this bass is that it's ridiculously cheap, but at the same time made well. SX is a Rondo brand that compared to other like-priced brands actually delivers an instrument that's fairly good. The Ursa 1 unless specified otherwise is a full-size 34-inch scale proper P-style bass.

Note: Ursas usually sell quick because the price is so good for what you get, so if you see one from the link above, get it, otherwise it may be days to weeks before the link shows any in stock again. You can try the SX Ursa 2 if the model 1 doesn't show any in stock, and you might get lucky and find one.

Fender Yngwie Malmsteen strings... worst idea ever?

No, this is not a joke. Fender really did release a set of "signature" Yngwie Malmsteen electric guitar strings.

Is this one of the dumbest things they've ever done?

Let's talk about that.

I'm on YouTube, and I thought I'd go visit Fender's channel since I hadn't been there in a while; I found this video for Fender Yngwie Malmsteen guitar strings, released 14 May 2014, which at the time I write this is 42 days ago, so it's not old.

The video has ratings and comments disabled (which is not the first time Fender has done that with a Malmsteen video on their YouTube channel), and that immediately said to me, "Uh-oh.. this can't be good."

My instinct was right.

Fender, as far as I'm aware, is the first company to have artist signature guitars such as the Eric Clapton Stratocaster. Arguably, that model is the best artist signature guitar they make because it's one of the few that actually improves upon the instrument with features that a lot of players like. Another would be the Eric Johnson Stratocaster, also a true player's guitar. As for the rest of the signature guitars.. eh.. not-so much.

However, this is the first time I've seen Fender totally jump the shark when it comes to artist signature stuff. But maybe that's on purpose. I'll talk more about that in a moment.

Okay, so... the video shows a signature guitar that's been around for a while. But now it can be "accessorized" with signature overdrive pedal, signature strings, signature guitar cable (groan..), signature headstock tuner (double groan...), ugly strap and case with ugly lining.

Now you know, you know the marketing and PR people at Fender were up to something with this. What, exactly? Keep reading.

If you play guitar and play heavy metal at all, you've heard of Yngwie Malmsteen. And you figure out pretty quickly that the internet hates Yngwie Malmsteen. There are many guitar players who absolutely hate that guy. They hate his playing, his attitude, all of it. And when I say they hate the guy, they really hate the guy.

But as much as people hate the guy, fender his artist signature Stratocaster guitar is a good seller. If it weren't, Fender wouldn't still be making it.

I think what Fender is doing here is testing the limits to see how cheap they can go with "signature" before players stop buying. With a Malmsteen product line, Fender has almost nothing to lose because the internet already hates the guy to begin with. Only the most dedicated of fans would even consider buying stuff with his name on it.

If signature Malmsteen strings (which are basically nothing but Super Bullets in a weird gauge set and a black package), cables, bags, headstock tuners and the other kitschy stuff actually sell... well, that just opens up a whole new way for Fender to make money.

Anything classified as an "accessory" is something Fender doesn't have to make. They can simply license use of their logo, have someone else make the whatever-it-is, sell the product, Fender collects the checks and laughs all the way to the bank.

A whole bunch of "signature accessory" crapola may sprout up soon. Fender could work deals with every artist that currently has a signature guitar and "make" everything from strings to signature toilet paper. Wipe your backside with Yngwie's signature toilet paper? Hey, why not. Feel the power of Yngwie's shredding straight up your ass.

On a final note, the dumbest thing Fender "makes" right now is foam ear plugs, and you only get 8 of them. I can get 50 of them for just slightly more. And yes, THEY ARE THE EXACT SAME THING, just without the Fender branding.

Guitar gear made in China is not junk anymore

In the guitar world, Americans think that anything made in China is junk.

Not true.

Let's rewind the clock back to the early 1990s for a moment.

I remember, quite clearly, when guitar guys thought anything made in Korea was junk. Nobody would touch that stuff and considered it all garbage. But now? Korean made guitars are now considered high-end stuff.

So what changed? Two things. Build processes and attitudes, in that order.

Korean-made electric guitars used to be junk. Guitar players complained like crazy that nothing made in Korea was any good. Korea listened, improved their manufacturing processes, and now make many of the best guitars in the world.

When players started noticing that Korea was delivering some genuinely good, high-end stuff, players over time validated that yes, Korea does make damned fine guitars.

China at this point has turned the corner and now produces some seriously good, high-end stuff for both guitars and guitar gear as well.

The Hotone Skyline Series Wally Looper, a pedal I just bought, is made in China. It's probably true that every single component of that pedal was made exclusively in that country. Does that make the pedal junk? Not in the slightest. The Wally Looper looks high-end, feels high-end and performs high-end, yet keeps the price down because China knows how to streamline manufacturing processes.

Did you know every Fender "Modern Player" series guitar and several other models are made in China? It's true. And they're very well-made guitars. The Starcaster guitar is one of them.

If the fact those guitars made in China prevents you from trying one, you're an idiot that's missing out on an otherwise great guitar.

China build processes have progressed to the point where what they make is good

In the end, it's all about the build processes. Since around 2012, China has consistently delivered genuinely good, quality guitars and guitar gear.

Now this is not to say that China doesn't still make cheap stuff, because of course they do. But when you pay a little extra, such as for the Starcaster guitar above, what you get will be a seriously good instrument...

...and the same can be said for China-made guitar pedals, mixer boards, microphones, amplifiers and so on.

It's guitar player attitudes that haven't changed just yet, because it takes time for that to happen. With Korean-made stuff, it took players about 10 years to come around before they finally realized Korea makes good stuff. With China, not enough time has passed to convince the guitar player masses that China makes good stuff - even though it's well known that they do.

My advice? Try a China-made Fender branded guitar. If you like it, buy it now while it's still cheap, because the only thing keeping the cost down is where it's made and not how it's made.

How to stop hoarding guitars and guitar gear

I said in a recent post that I was going to write more about this, so here it is.

Compulsive hoarding as of the release of the DSM-5 in 2013 is a defined mental disorder. Humans have gotten to the point where the acquisition of stuff has become so bad and so destructive that we had to qualify it as a mental illness to try and figure out a way to stop it.

Since there is no magic pill to take to stop compulsive hoarding, the only way to tackle the problem is with good ol' willpower. That, and telling guitar hoarders in very blunt fashion that they are hoarding and need to stop it.

How many projects?

A common guitar hoarder thing is one who has a lot of guitars either in pieces or that are outright broken. He will label these guitars as "projects" to be completed later. But they never get completed.

Mr. Guitar Hoarder will spot some guitar on Craigslist or at a flea market, his eyes will light up and he'll say to himself, "I can fix that!" That's the moment of satisfaction that he craves, so he will flash cash and buy the thing. Of course, the guitar will never get fixed. It'll just go in the "work area", tossed in a corner and promptly forgotten.

Boxes and boxes of electronics junk

Knobs, pickups that don't work, pickups that are so cheap that nobody would ever want them, bad potentiometers, a massive tangle of wires (all bad), a massive tangle of cables (also all bad), and so on.

The guitar hoarder has several boxes of electronics junk, and in true hoarder style, truly does not know what's in each box. And if you ask him what's in the box, he will get VERY ANGRY at you for daring to ask, and blurt back "I KNOW WHAT'S IN THERE." No, I don't think so, pal. You haven't a clue what's in there.

Extreme clutter

When the guitars and electronics junk starts piling up enough, they get layered with dust, and after a while, bugs will nest inside those "project" guitars and/or their guitar cases, should they have them.

If you just said to yourself, "Eww! GROSS!", you're right, it is. And it does happen. Hoarders don't care about the guitars. All they care about is the acquisition of stuff.

In really bad scenarios, even the tools start getting layers of dust on them, because they're never used.

Standard excuses guitar hoarders say

• "This is worth something." No, it isn't.
• "I was just working on this the other day." No, you weren't. Moving one crappy guitar out of the way to make room for another crappy guitar doesn't count as actual work.
• "I was saving this for someone else." Oh, yeah? Who? And for what purpose? And why would you take so long to fix up that thing for that 'someone else'? I guess you must really not care about that 'someone else' that much to make them wait so long, huh?
• "I'm planning on selling this." Yeah, and you've been 'planning' for months (or even years) now. You're a liar.

Sound familiar? If you know a guitar hoarder, it probably does.

How to clear the hoard

This is basically a 5-step process.

Step 1. Dump the electronics junk and the junk parts.

Any electronic you have that is broken or non-functional gets tossed. ALL of it. All the busted-up wires, cables, pickups, pots, tuners, etc. It all goes.

When doing this, DO NOT stop to check every little frickin' thing. That's a hoarder tactic to slow the process down so nothing ever gets thrown out. Just empty those stupid boxes of those stupid broken parts and THROW. THEM. OUT. They are not worth anything to anyone and do nothing but take up space. Get rid of all of it.

Step 2. Put all your junk guitar woods together and sell as a pile.

It's probably true all your bodies and necks are from no-name crap brands. Put all that together and sell your hoard to another hoarder. I'm not kidding. Yes, I am saying to capitalize on someone else's hoarding disorder.

DO NOT overprice the pile. Price it real cheap, post to Craigslist and say first come, first serve. Some idiot will buy it. Sell it all, and enjoy the cash - but don't spend it on more guitar crap.

Step 3. Sell all functional guitars you don't use.

If you have 10 guitars and they all work, sell every single one you don't use. And yeah, that may mean you end up with nothing but 1 guitar left. Do it.

Step 4. Sell all broken amplifiers and cabinets for parts, and sell cheap.

Craigslist again here. Rip out all the amps and sell as electronics parts. Both guitar guys and maybe even some ham radio guys would be interested in this. Don't even bother cleaning it up. Just put them all in a pile and sell. Sell cheap and get rid of them.

Step 5. Sell all working amplifiers.

Craigslist once again here. Amps and cabinets are a pain to ship, so don't bother with that. Just sell local and sell cheap.

Got friends to help? Let them sell off the hoard for you.

It may be too emotionally distressing to sell all this stuff yourself. If that's the case and you've got friends to help, this is the process:

1. Pick out 1 or 2 guitars you want to keep.
2. Pick out 1 and just 1 amp you want to keep.
3. Pick out working cables and minimal effects (KEEP IT SMALL) you want to keep.
4. Get your friends over, point to the room where your hoard is and say "Just clear it out. I don't care how. Throw out anything that doesn't work. Sell anything that can be sold. Just do it."

On step 4 in particular, don't be there. If your friends are trustworthy (and they should be if they're people you call friends), just let them clear out the whole thing and don't even worry about the money made from it. If you make even so much as 50 bucks, consider yourself lucky because up until this point you've been spending money and going in a negative fiscal direction.

When I say "don't be there", I literally mean don't be there. Don't even be at the house. Find somewhere to go for the afternoon that's not there.

I guarantee you will feel a tremendous sense of relief when you see that emptied room after you come back.

You totally want to put yourself in that danger zone where you know the stuff is going to be cleared and there's not a damned thing you can do about it. Otherwise, that pile of crap will never get out of your house.

The next step: Start thinking smaller with your guitars and guitar gear

Right, so the hoard is now gone. Good for you. Now it's time to rethink how you do guitars and guitar gear.

With guitars, thinking smaller is easy. Just find a guitar you like, stick with it and don't buy more.

With effects, going smaller means using multi-effects units. Instead of having a bulky collection of pedals, use in-amp effects or a single external multi-effect unit like the Korg Pandora Stomp, DigiTech RP255 or like unit. And yes, I know, multi-effect units don't look "cool". Who cares? The point is to get something that has as many effects in it as possible so you don't have to spread that out into a bunch of noisy separate pedals.

With amps, there is a lot of joy to be had in smaller units. Have you see the Bugera BC15? I don't like tubes, but that one is small, tidy and looks great. And cheap! Or for something small that packs punch and has effects built-in, it's really tough to beat the Fender Mustang I. If on the other hand you need something with some real balls to it that can belt out some loudness, Fender Mustang III.

Yes, it is OK to have a practice amp and a gigging amp, obviously. But don't go beyond that or you'll end up with a hoard again.

Basically, the point I'm making here is to get the most for your money, instead of just constantly hoarding more and more guitars and gear.

Remember, a hoard ultimately wastes money just by existing. You wasted money on buying all that crap, and it's whacking you again by taking up space and might even be causing a safety hazard in your own home.

Clear out the hoard first, go small, and try to buy stuff that you can really, you know, use.

Consider switching your hoard out for a properly-made studio

This is the last bit of advice I'll give to end this one.

If you've got a room full of guitar crap, and that room is large enough to where you could get some recording gear in there, converting that to a usable studio is actually not a bad idea.

I personally think building a recording studio in a house is a waste of time. However, given the choice between a guitar hoard and a studio, the studio is obviously the better choice because it's actually usable. With the space gained from removing the hoard, it's probably true a whole band could fit in there even with the recording equipment present.

Even if it's just you and your friends doing for-fun recordings, that's still a whole lot better than a dirty, useless guitar gear hoard.

Who are the WORST music gear hoarders?

I'm a minimalist by nature when it comes to music gear because I don't like clutter. Whenever I can do what I want musically using itty-bitty hardware, I'll do it. It's part of the reason I bought my Casio SA-46. Yes, that's a kid's keyboard. But it operates on AA batteries, can be picked up with one hand easily and stored easily. And it sounds cool. You can't get lightweight convenience like that with a Roland Juno-60 (which I did own at one point).

Aside from the keyboard thing, certain types of musicians hoard more than others. Let's find out who are the worst.

Are drummers hoarders?

No.

An acoustic drum set even in its smallest usable form (which is more often than not a 5-piece kit) takes up a good amount of space, so it's not like you can go small with this stuff. And I've never known any drummer to hoard drums, because the longer drums sit, the more unplayable they become because of things like wood shrink. In addition, piecing together kits from different sets almost never sounds right and just looks stupid even when the pieces from kits are the same color. Drummers just don't mix-and-match pieces like that, or at least not the ones I've known.

I think the only thing I've ever known drummers to somewhat hoard are cymbals. Every drummer I've ever known always has a ratty old crash cymbal or two that really should have been thrown out a long time ago, but keeps them "just in case". And of course a drummer always has a few china cymbals that don't get used. Why? Because china cymbals are cheap, barely take up space and are easy to acquire even if they barely or never get used. But even then, I don't see drummers hoarding those too often either.

I've never known a drummer hoarder; they seem to be the most practical as far as musicians are concerned. When drums and/or drum hardware wears out, the drummer will sell them off or throw them out, then replace what gets used regularly; that's not hoarding.

Are bass players hoarders?

Somewhat.

The bass player who is into vintage gear is almost guaranteed to be a hoarder simply for the fact that old bass gear is ridiculously bulky.

When you go back to 1970's gear and start getting into vintage Sunn and Ampeg amplifiers, they're jokingly called "refrigerator" amps because they literally are the size of refrigerators. Bass guys who collect these things have to hoard because the gear takes up so much damned space.

When it comes to bass guitars, yeah you may find a bass player with 5 or more basses. However, it's usually true each bass serves a specific purpose. One is a 4-string, the next a 5-string, the next is another 4-string with piccolo strings on it (those are +1 octave bass strings by the way), and so on. Rarely have I seen a bass player with exact carbon copies of the same guitar; there is a reason for each bass the player owns.

Where bass players are guilty of hoarding is with electronics more than anything else. It's small stuff, but a lot of small stuff. Boxes of pickups, wires, potentiometers, tuners, and well less than half the stuff in those boxes of crap actually work.

For example, a bass player will yank out a set of bad pots, yet keep them. That bad pot set can never be fixed and the set is total junk, but they get tossed in the parts box because he just can't bear to throw those crappy pots out. Why? I don't know, but he has a really hard time doing it. Later on, that parts box gets totally filled up with electronics crap, and then starts a new box of crap. That guy just needs to sit down, go through that whole box, save the less-than-1% of stuff that actually works and then toss the rest in the trash.

There is something else that bass players hoard. Strings. They do this a lot. Bass strings last a really long time (30-year-old sets are known to exist and still be usable), but the hoarding happens when a bass player saves strings he doesn't even like. Yeah, those saved strings are usable, but the guy would hate to use them if he had to. All those hoarded strings need to be tossed.

Considering the fact a Roto 66 stainless set is 20 bucks, and Roto 77 flats just under $31 for a set of those, I mean, seriously.. c'mon. There's no reason to hoard old strings when new Rotos are so cheap.

Are guitar players hoarders?

Yes.

Guitar players hoard everything. Those who are really bad will keep sets of strings that rusted over a year ago or more for no reason other than to have them, have ridiculous amounts of guitar picks all over the place they never use, hang on to audio cables that don't work, hang on to guitar pedals that don't work (nor will ever be fixed), own several guitars where several of them don't work (and again, will never be fixed), own several amps that don't work (and yet again, will never be fixed), and so on, and so on.

Guitar players are, by far, the ones who claim to be "collectors" more than any other type of musician when in reality they just have a big pile of crap.

It is really easy... too easy... to get a guitar hoard going. One day you have just 2 guitars, and the next thing you know, you have 7. Instead of 1 amp, you now have 4, with 2 that don't work. Instead of 2 pedals, now you have 9.

Guitar hoarding isn't just guitars themselves. Like bass guitar gear hoarding, a lot of it is also amplification and electronics.

Are synth players hoarders?

Synth players are the the worst of the worst when it comes to gear hoarding. If you thought guitar players were bad, ha! The synth player will prove otherwise.

Nobody hoards gear like a synth player, and there's several reasons why this is true.

The belief that a synth alone is enough to get "that sound"

Synth players drink the same Kool-Aid guitar players do when it comes to trying to achieve a certain sound.

Example of synth player's mentality: "If I get that same Oberheim OB-Xa that Eddie Van Halen used, I'll totally be able to get the exact same Jump sound he got."

No, you won't, and I'll tell you exactly why.

Never does it enter the synth player's mind for a second that Eddie sometimes fed a synth through a guitar amplifier (so he could play it along live with the band). Never does a synth player consider the synth might have been fed through effect pedals like the BOSS DD-7 and/or BOSS RV-5 (both modern pedals, but either can easily achieve vintage-style sounds). Never does the synth player "think live". All he or she knows is crisp, clear studio sound, when in fact that's that's the totally wrong way to get the Van Halen synth sound.

In other words, a ton of synth players never think beyond the synth, so to speak. They believe that synth and synth alone is all that's ever needed. No, it isn't.

The end result of the synth-and-synth-alone mentality is that players start buying many synthesizers, all of which take up a ton of space, all of which will never get "that sound" because their brains stop after the end of a 1/4-inch cable goes into a mixer.

The belief that bulk = cool

Synth players absolutely love big, bulky gear. And whether they choose to admit it or not, it is a reason why so many of them go after the behemoth-size synths of the 70s and 80s. It is the look they want, because they feel walking into a room and seeing a sea of plastic piano keys is just The Best Thing Ever. Some will even turn all those synths on and dim the lights so they can see all the LEDs and display panels light up, almost like a city night scene.

You how how some guitar players like the look of 3 side-by-side full stack Marshall amps? Synth players do the same thing, except all their keyboards are spread out and takes up more than triple the space.

"Gee. All that stuff must take a million wires to get that sound routed..."

You don't even know the half of it.

Not only does it take a crazy amount of audio cables to route all those synths to a master mixer - which in itself has to be huge to support all those channels - but then the synth nerd gets two really, really bad ideas.

Bad idea #1: "I should make these synths 'talk' to each other..."

Bad idea #2: "I should get into drum machines!"

...and out come the MIDI cables. Insanely. Long. MIDI. Cables. Now there are even more wires involved, combined with the fact no drum machine, a.k.a. rhythm composer, has a standardized shape. Custom platforms and/or additional desks must be built to accommodate that crap.

Oh, and on top of that, with the vintage thing you're adding in the problem of old, floppy diskette drives where the media is expensive and the drives don't work most of the time.

But wait, there are two more bad ideas.

Bad idea #3: "To get that 'true' recorded sound, I should get a reel-to-reel deck..."
Bad idea #4: "I should put a dedicated PC in here too..."

More crap. More wires. More space needed.

If you've ever seen a synth nerd's "recording room", it is typical that every last square inch of usable space has been taken up by bulky equipment. That room, which could ordinarily fit 6 people in it easily, now can only fit 2. Barely 2.

Now I will admit, when you walk into a synth nerd's recording room, it looks damned impressive, almost as if you're looking at the cockpit of a space ship. When you sit in the captain's chair, you're surrounded by buttons, knobs, sliders and really cool-looking displays with rows upon rows of blinky lights. Don't even think about trying to figure out how anything works, because only the synth nerd knows that, given they built it from scratch.

At the same time however, you can't help but feel bad for the synth nerd. They have this room, filled with a mountain of electronics they spent a ton of money on that ultimately serves no practical purpose.

Does that mountain of crap make songwriting any easier? No. Does the crap mountain make recording go along faster? No, and in fact slows it down significantly. Does the crap mountain inspire the player to write more? No, because they're a victim of their own complicated environment they created.

In the end, the synth nerd's recording room is only there to look cool because to them, it just feels good walking into that room and seeing that mountain of hardware. That's their little sanctuary. They escape from life into that electronic cocoon of theirs that they built whenever they can.

Yes, I know, I make it sound creepy. That's because it is.

If the synth nerd had any sense at all, he or she would sell off all that junk (most of it really is junk even when in perfect working order), buy a Casio XW-P1 and have just that, a few effect pedals, a laptop, a mixer and nothing else. And if the Casio's keys don't feel that great, get a Novation Launchkey and call it a day.

A lot of synths really are total crap

That Oberheim OB-Xa I mentioned above? Yeah, that thing. A lot of those arrived in the showroom broken. Yes, they got delivered brand new back in the day in busted condition where stuff didn't work right out of the box.

Does it still happen where synths arrive new that are broken? Yes. Why? Because things get jostled around in shipment and those tiny electronics inside synths don't handle shipping very well and pretty much never did. It is totally possible to spend $10,000 on a brand new workstation synth and have it arrive where half or more of it does not work at all due to internal crap that got busted up in shipment.

In addition, all synths have electronics problems because absolutely none of them age well. Everything that can go wrong will go wrong on a synth, even if it never sees a stage and is cared for meticulously.

ANYWAY...

Yes, the synth player is the worst hoarder of all musicians that exist. I know of no other that can fill a room faster with crap they don't need.

How does one cure music gear hoarding?

That will be a separate article. I've talked about it before but didn't specifically mention exactly how to cure gear hoarding ills. Watch for it.