Are you a boutique person?

thecornman

thecornman

BREAUX
Juat wondering if you consider yourself a boutique guy or are you satisfied with run of the mill equipment?

Myself I am completily happy with run of the mill stuff! Give me some Dimarzio pickups and I am more then pleased with the sounds I can dial in with them. Never had a Boss or Digitech pedal I could not dial in to get the sounds I am looking for. Tried some boutique pickups and pedals in the past and never got the mojo vibe others always talk about with them. When i can buy three or four of the same product as I would for one it just never seems like I am getting my money's worth. Maybe I am just to simple to please.
 
I see both sides. I currently have a PRS and an Epiphone (if one considers PRS "boutique"). I like them equally well, and more expensive does not make me play any better, so...if I was a pro, I'd probably be more inclined to more boutique-y stuff.
 
I'm not in a financial bracket where I can afford all boutique gear. My Gretsch branded amp was made by Victoria and I love that.

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I can't have nice things. I have some higher-end stuff (Gibson, Gretsch, Rivera) but nothing that that would get me through the door at TGP.
 
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I'm clinging to the lower end of what I guess I'd consider middle-class, and I'm no professional musician, just a motivated amateur who has spent much more on studio time, rehearsal space rent, and CD reproduction (ha, remember that?) than I ever made form the gigs I do. As such, spending any kind of serious coin on gear seems extravagant.

In general I play MIM/MIJ/MIC guitars (love to upgrade though) and Boss or other pedals in the sub $150 range. I've never spent more than 800 or so on an amp. If I ever started to make more from music or got a badass new job I could see spending a little more though.

I do sort of get a perverse pleasure out of gigging with a Squier Affinity bass. :embarrassed:

One exception, however, is I'm really into Seymour Duncan's "Antiquity" and vintage-type pickups, if you consider that "boutique." If I have a guitar I'm gonna use a lot it's real likely it's getting a set from SD.
 
I'd say I'm more vintage than boutique. I prefer the old Fender bassman amps (I have a silverface bassman 70). I absolutely lucked into an 83 Gibson Les Paul Studio (first year I think for studio -- it has binding and a custom shop logo), that I love but that would be poo-pooed among the geararati for being Norlin Era, but other than that my guitars are MIM strat and teles. As far as pedals go, Electro Harmonix is as boutique as I get.
 
I have mixed feeling on the subject of boutique gear.

On one hand, it's just cool that something is made by a small number of people, or just one person, by hand in small numbers. That's artistry. It allows the owner of such equipment to have a increased sense of pride in owning something.

But then there's cost. All boutique items are expensive because of these aspects.

To have a amp that's completely hand wired, a amp design that took someone years in their garage to perfect is great. Is it worth 3K+? Maybe. Could you buy a stock amp from a larger manufacturer that sounds 95% as good for 50% of the cost? Almost definitely. Same thing goes with pickups.

And cost, as mentioned, has alot to do with it. If a boutique maker of whatever copies something exactly, and charges double for it, and you A/B'd the products, you'd probably be leaning toward the boutique item just because it's boutique and expensive.

So...it's cool to a point. There is a market for this stuff, and that's why "boutique" makers have been coming out of the woodwork left and right the past few years.
 
To be clear I am not trying to say one way is right and another one is wrong! I just wanted to hear other peoples perspectives and experiences.
 
I like some boutique stuff (and I own a bunch of what I dig) but I think that a lot of it is kinda silly.
 
I have an amp I made (actually 2), but those are just home built amps, not boutique.

I find most of the mystique of boutique stuff is lost on me.

I played a Carr amp (is that boutique?) once and it was amazing. I would love to own it, but don't play out enough to justify spending 2.5k on an amp.
 
Something that really changed the way I looked at equipment was seeing a somewhat unknown artist named Jack Semple playing live a quite few years back! The dude is beyond good and always has the most amazing tone. Might be some stuff on you tube of him not sure. Anyways as always I went up to the stage to check out what he was using to get the killer sounds he was throwing out. I was shocked to find out all he was using was a Peavey Bandit amp, a Boss multi effects unit and one Hardtail Strat probably from the 70's that he had been playing for years. It made me look at things a little different. Here is a guy who has toured with artists like KD Lang and done extensive studio work for many other artists playing a rig that most would consider a beginners setup and he was just killing it. I saw him again a couple of months ago. He was still using the same rig and still sounded super awesome. Also one very grounded and humble man.
 
I like boutique when the results are right, and I like mass-production when the results are right. They can both be great, so I use a mix of both.
 
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