I had a chance to record my son’s band, Lungs They Burn this weekend. Same deal as last time I talked about recording ; a low budget, cheap guitar deal all the way.

But what I wanted to talk about today was an interaction that took place between the guitar player, singer/songwriter Sean and myself. He gets this whirring, twirly type of sound that I’ve always sought after. In fact, I’ve bought pedals trying to attain that sort of sound.

But half way through the session, Sean wasn’t happy with his sound. When that happens, there is no smoothing over it. Particularly if it involves recording where the sound will live on long after the moment.

I’m pretty sure the sound that I like and the sound that Sean dislikes is the sound of tubes going bad. Both Sean and I play Fender tube amps. These are neither cheap amps nor expensive amps. But the thing they have in common with all tube amps is that the tubes degrade over time and as they degrade, the sound changes.

How this all relates to cheap guitars is that beauty of sound is in the ear of the beholder. Sean switched to my Fender amp and was immediately happier with the sound. To my ear, I preferred the sound of Sean’s amp.

Its not a right or wrong sort of situation. Its a matter of personal choice. The same goes for playing a cheap guitar. If it sounds the way you want, if it plays the way you want it to play, then what difference does it make how much you paid for it?

In fact for me, it sometimes works in the opposite direction: If I’m playing an expensive guitar, I feel pressured to sound “great.” But if I’m playing a cheap guitar I feel as though nobody expects much of anything out of me.

So Sean will be getting his amp retubed sometime soon I’m guessing. And I’ll wait for my tubes to degrade to the point where they sound like Sean’s old ones. One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.

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I had a great time this weekend helping our youngest daughter, Abi with a recording project. Plenty of cheap guitars and other cheap musical gear and cheap recording equipment in action. Not only did I get to play engineer, but I even got to contribute a bass line. My oldest son, Isaac, pitched in by contributing the djembe line. Almost like old times when we had a family band called “The Screaming Gringos.”

First off, Abi laid down the acoustic guitar track on my Alvarez AJ60SC. Not an expensive guitar to begin with but purchased used from a pawn shop thank you very much. Her vocals came next which of course are definitely not cheap, but rare, priceless, and one of a kind. (Insert proud father here.) Then it was my turn laying down the bass track on my eBay purchased Yamaha rbx270 fretless bass. To be fair, this bass came with upgraded Bartolini pickups that I suspect make a world of difference from the stock ones. Furthermore, I ran it through my brand new Genz Benz Shuttle 6.0 as a preamp. Definitely not cheap and new enough on the market that it would be hard to find used. Not that I didn’t try! I did pick it up over eBay at a reduced price from a dealer who was liquidating inventory. (There is a lot of that going on with the economy and all. Its something to watch for.) Next was a tambourine track played by Abi on an LP tambourine that I actually bought brand new albeit 20-40 years ago. The next morning Isaac dragged himself out of bed in time to lay down a djembe track on an old, cast aside djembe he still keeps around our house. (Another proud father alert.)

All this was recorded on an old Yamaha AWG16 workstation that I picked up off eBay. Mics were an MXL V63M large diaphragm condensor off eBay and an EV/Blue Cardinal condensor bought off craigslist. For monitoring we had a couple pair of Sony Pro MDR-7506 headphones (Both bought new from Guitar Center) and an old Yamaha amp/preamp that were bought so long ago that I’ve forgotten the source. Finally old AR bookshelf speakers picked up from a pawn shop for $20 served as monitor speakers.

The point here is that this recording was done pretty darn inexpensively. Yet the result will soon appear on a nationally produced compilation album of acoustic/bluegrass/blues music. (I’ll let you know here when it becomes available.) You can still get a lot of satisfaction and great music out of bargain basement equipment and of course, cheap guitars.