Do you have a plan when you're buying gear?

Ravelleman

Like where you'd like to be five years from now. You know, like Stalin?

When you buy guitars or musical gear in general, do you generally have an idea of what you're planning on buying and what kind of collection you want to have at the end the process? Or do you see things that you like and buy them on a more ad-hoc basis?

In general I think I have an established plan that I more or less adhere to when making gear decisions. When I was younger I identified a number of guitars that I would potentially like to own in the future, time and money permitting. I hoped to cover a number of classic bases - Strat, Tele, Gretsch Annie, Epiphone Casino- and move on from there. Now that I've achieved 3 out of the 4 on my list (G&L Legacy, G&L ASAT, Annie), there are certain guitars that still interest me, although perhaps to a slightly lesser extent than those on the list.

I really want to own an Elitist Casino but I find myself lusting for one of those Charvel Pro Mods. Sometimes I feel that it would be an easier option than the Casino - more freely available and cheaper, for example - but then I think of the plan I made when I was 17 or 18 and I tell myself that ultimately it's not what I really want.

But then my collection has reached a point where I feel that buying a second amp - my current amp is an ENGL Thunder - and some more effects could also bring out a lot of possibilites as well. For the price of that Epi, I could potentially get a Charvel and a new amp.

These are things that I'll have to consider over the next few months.

In the meantime, what do you guys do? Do you buy according to some kind of plan? Do you buy on whims? Or do you buy and sell quickly to try lots of gear?

Ravelleman

I should add that when I buy guitars, I normally buy to hang on to them. I'm not really into trading gear with others, which is why I like to have a long term plan of action!

Squidgy Black

To be honest, I just buy whatever I want at the time that I have cash (which is very rarely). My tastes and wants change so quickly, I think having a 'plan' would be too restrictive. For me, trading and selling gear is great, that way I get to try many different types of guitars, different styles, see what works for me really. I'd love to have a huge collection and stuff, but I just can't afford to have more than one or two guitars and a decent amp or two.

CianRyan

I don't have so much of a plan as I list of things I'd hope to own, then once I've owned them all, I can settle on the few things I want to keep.

At the moment I'm very happy, although, owning the Supersonic has made me wan't an original Bassman. This has only been made worse by playing through the one in Some Neck.
I don't have the room or money right now though.

At some stage, I'd like to own an archtop of some description, maybe an LP Custom and probably a Twin Reverb too, a Vibrolux would be nice but they seem rare as hell.
A few more Strats, they're all so different, a Tele and some kind of Airline.

I've years and years left so I don't think that's unreasonable.

MilanPan!c

Def have a plan, but also def get sidetracked when new options become available.

Plus, when I started working on this new project two years ago, I had no REAL idea what the material would require two years later... So I find my plan has only fully crystalised in the last six months.

Of course now that I have a Strymon Timeline I'm remaking my pedalboard around it...

I would say that once I settled on an amp that made the rest a lot more clear and my plan easier to create. Before I was happy with my amp, well my plan was less easier to keep in focus.

Malice

I don't really have a plan. GAS has accounted for my last three guitar purchases so I guess it comes down to seeing something I like, being able to justify buying it (that's the easy part) and also being able to afford it at the time.

bad2dabone

MilanPan!c wrote: »

Def have a plan, but also def get sidetracked when new options become available.

this!

Being sidetracked has accounted for my last 2 guitars, and i'm now financially far away from my Suhr! I should just avoid guitar websites altogether....

Miklos

Never really had a plan as such, just know what I like I guess.
I knew I wanted a Gretsch 6120, and so I got one.
I knew I wanted a vintage Fender amp, so I got one.
I knew I wanted a Tele, so I got one.
Everything else is secondary, chance buys, mostly very cheap.

rcaz

I get stuff to facilitate sounds I want to get... Like I'd dream up some cool sound that I might like, maybe prototype it with a synthesiser or something, and then if I really think it'd be worthwhile I'll figure out what stuff I need to make it work. At the moment I'm still working on properly integrating my laptop into my guitar's signal chain, I still need to get a Boss LS-2 but then I should be sorted.

Luckily most of the stuff I've been interested in over the last year or two doesn't really depend on getting new guitars and amps :pac:

I love buying and selling gear, you can get some deadly deals, and then you can get to a stage where you don't need to spend more money sometimes - everything you want new can be covered by older gear that you've moved on from. I used the money from selling tremolo pedal to buy an envelope filter once, felt like I'd reached a stage of pedal Zen

Paolo_M

I'd like to think I have plan.
In reality I see something I want and then create a plan to justify it.

Demeyes

I don't have a plan really. I browse a good few forums and websites regularly and there's usually a few pieces of gear I'd like to get at a time. Often I don't have the money so I only get stuff the odd time. I buy a lot of used gear too so when I do have a bit of cash I end up getting something slightly different then I might have thought based on a good deal on a 2nd hand piece of gear. To be honest, I have plenty of guitars and maybe 3 gig-able guitar rigs so I don't necessarily need any more guitar stuff, though I have got a few in mind for my next purchase! I need a bass rig at the moment more than anything really.

Ravelleman

This thread is kind of funny now given that the day after starting it, I made something of an impulse purchase, although it did fit into my plan.

Anyhow, I was just looking at a couple of things online when I saw a Gibson Robby Krieger SG marked down 40% from the original price. SGs have always been on my list but never quite as high as a Strat/Legacy or Tele/ASAT.

I´d been trying a lot of SGs in Waltons in the summer but found the Standard a little plain and the ´61 RI a little expensive. Normally when I buy guitars, €900 is around my max. price since that´s what I can get a new G&L for and they´re my benchmark.

I was talking with one of the guys working there and I said that I´d love to be able to try the 50th Anniversary Pete Townshend SG Special and the Robby Krieger SG. As chance would have it, he said that they´d actually ordered both of those models.

I went back a few weeks later and I tried the PT SG Special first but it didn´t really wow me. Nice guitar, a great purchase for someone, but not for me. Then I tried the Krieger SG. I´m a big Robby Krieger fan and this was definitely the nicest SG of all the ones that I´d tried in the previous months.

It has the slim-tapered neck of the ´61 RI and its ´57 Classic pickups, the pickguard of the Standard - just like Krieger´s ´68 Standard - a push/pull phase pot instead of one of the tone controls, a Robby Krieger-designed backplate and a Lyre-style vibrola.

I loved it but the price of €1645 really put me off. I mean, that´s two G&Ls! So I left it behind, promising myself that I ever got the chance to buy on at a reasonable price I´d do it. It seemed very unlikely.

After Christmas I checked out the sale and saw it was still there and this time down 20% in price but that wasn´t enough to make me move. I looked longingly from afar.

Then last week, while looking at Casinos, I noticed the Krieger SG on their website for €1039.20. For €39.21 more than the price of a new Standard, this seemed like a mega-deal. So I pounced. I didn´t have the doubt that I would normally have about buying a Gibson online, since I played this very guitar in the shop a few months before.

So now it´s waiting for me in my sister´s house as I look forward to the day that I´m back in Dublin, so I can have a tender moment with it and my G&L ASAT.

I´m such a whore but at least I can pretend to be Robby Krieger. And given that the G&L didn´t arrive in time for Christmas - in fact it was delivered two days after I went back to work in Spain - I feel that this makes up for that!

cade

Well at this point I'm sure I'm set in the guitars I'll buy in the future. Besides my Squier strat that I bought in my teens to learn on I've tried a bunch of different guitars either in friends places or in music shops before finding a make that I was really comfortable playing, so I won't be deviating from that. It's the same story really with my amp, tried a bunch and got what I loved and haven't been unhappy since.

Pedal wise I'm more of an experimenter so I've no real plan to speak of. I might find a pedal that I like the sound of but then I'll generally check out a few other pedals aimed at the same effect. I'll buy the one that pleases me the most and see how it fits in with my current set up when mixing different effects together. This could then lead me to discovering some sounds that I might like to delve into a bit more by adding another effect on top of, if I don't have it then that'll be my next purchase.

It's just a case of knowing where to stop really. Generally before you reach something akin to the didgeridoo scene in Dewey Cox