X-rated Bob wrote:
What about the artists whose earning power is a little less than U2s? Who player smaller venues, who have smaller budgets?
And personal gear is already getting smaller and lighter to reflect that (look at bass amps these days!). Guitarists have moved to smaller amps and are content to let the PA do all the heavy lifting. The better venues these days have backline as well as PA (particularly overseas). Players are going back to using one or two flexible guitars (particularly the pros) and amp modelling pedals are commonplace on pedalboards. Players also have multiple pedalboards, including smaller "travelling" boards.
Or session players?
Different scenario entirely. A variety of guitars, amps and effects is
always superior to a "one-size-fits-all" solution. Studios will usually have all the gear a player will need on hand. Producers give pre-production riders to the studio and if the studio doesn't have the gear themselves, they hire it for the session. That's the way it's been for decades and there are companies specialising in hiring out top quality, well maintained gear to studios in big industry towns like LA and Nashville.
Tedesco was not a normal session player because he played just about every instrument with strings on it, but I'm sure if he were around in the current climate, he would be making sure what he was going to be called on to play at a session beforehand.
I think there's a market for this kind of instrument.
I still don't. It's been proven time and again that guitarists don't want guitars with effects built in. They would rather have a modular system like pedals, where they can pick and mix to populate a small board for a specific show or a powerful multieffect where they can program the same. Far easier to upgrade a multi effect every year than your guitar (regardless of how Gibson would love to get players into a regular upgrade cycle). And don't get me started on inane tech like "robot" tuning...
