About That 'Legendary' Gear Word...

László

Only Human
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Apr 26, 2012
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Today's rant:

One of the emails I get way too many of was an ad for a brand's plugins matching their and others' 'legendary' hardware. Every single piece of recording equipment or software these days is freakin' legendary.

Legendary!

Wooo!!

It's not enough that a piece of equipment has been adopted, used and admired by lots of pros on records. Merely saying that it's acclaimed or extraordinary doesn't go far enough for these ads. No. It has to be 'legendary'.

So are we talking, like, King Arthur legendary? Hercules legendary? Siege of Troy legendary? I mean, those are millennia-lasting legends.

Or are we just talking about gear with a good reputation that lots of the folks in the audio business use as tools?

Attention audio equipment and instrument manufacturers, reviewers and so-called influencers:

Maybe the artists using the gear have become legendary over time. The gear they used didn't create the recordings, it just captured them. There are plenty of alternatives that work just fine. Much of the original stuff has been improved on.

Don't annoy me with the word, 'legendary'. It's silly. It's overused. It's just ad-speak.

A '59 Burst? OK, I'll give you that; a legend has certainly grown around that guitar. And maybe even a '65 Strat, or Jimi's actual amp. Probably a real Dumble qualifies. Certainly some 17th and 18th century instruments of renown do. But...not the copies and reissues. And definitely NOT the plugins! Sorry.

[end of rant]
 
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same people who do the 40 year retrospective scrapbooks for rolling stone magazine? 'the clash: their story and legend!'
 
I was mistaken. When I read that headline " 'Legendary' Gear Word" I thought what you were looking for was "More"

Totally agree with your comments. Then again, I can't understand why GM has ads that tout the fact that you can play "pattycake" while you hurtle along in a three ton self driving bullet.
 
Legendary:

Did it really happen?
Did it/they/he/she actually exist?
Is it true that 6 of the 7 dwarves were not Happy?
Was putting wheels on suitcases harder to figure out than going to the moon?
(This is relevant because many swear the entire moon thing never happened.)

Hint: The suitcases they took with them if indeed they went had no wheels...

Do I qualify as a legendary character?
A number of people have questioned my general behavior over the course of my life so far.

"Is he for real?"
 
Legendary:

Did it really happen?
Did it/they/he/she actually exist?
Is it true that 6 of the 7 dwarves were not Happy?
Was putting wheels on suitcases harder to figure out than going to the moon?
(This is relevant because many swear the entire moon thing never happened.)

Hint: The suitcases they took with them if indeed they went had no wheels...

Do I qualify as a legendary character?
A number of people have questioned my general behavior over the course of my life so far.

"Is he for real?"
I'd say you're legendary, but in a good way. ;)

Hey, not only were there no wheels on suitcases, but remember the suitcase sized life support tanks the astronauts carried that were hooked up to their spacesuits? WTF! No wheels on those, either!

Not only that, but they weren't charged extra for their baggage. I don't know how many billion dollars the trips cost, but as far as the astronauts were concerned, it was a bargain. Just think of the airline miles they racked up!

I figure if the moon thing didn't happen, back in 1969 the Russians would have made a big deal denying it.

And they didn't. No doubt they tracked it and were well aware of what was going on through their surveillance. I only watched it on TV, along with trillions of other alien forms of life who might have been monitoring our transmissions, but the signals are undoubtedly still heading toward them.

Come to think of it, they might be heading toward us from many light years away at this very moment.

So if in, like, 1000 years some alien gets here and claims BS, I figure I'll be too dead to care.
 
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himym-legendary.gif
 
Our use of the extreme edges of language has coarsened our ability to communicate. We "love" something or we "hate" it, without much in between that rather broad range. It's reflected in so many aspects of our lives. In my mind, it's the mentality of the sports super-fan writ large--opinion and passion without actually having any skin in the game. Choosing sides and valuing loyalty/consistency/dedication above evaluation/nuance/impartiality and the ability to be agile in our thinking.

What scares me is that it's not just our ability to communicate that's been coarsened--it's our collective ability to think critically about things. Opinions get packaged up for easy consumption. Questioning those packages has become challenging (distasteful, actually) for some.
 
Our use of the extreme edges of language has coarsened our ability to communicate. We "love" something or we "hate" it, without much in between that rather broad range. It's reflected in so many aspects of our lives. In my mind, it's the mentality of the sports super-fan writ large--opinion and passion without actually having any skin in the game. Choosing sides and valuing loyalty/consistency/dedication above evaluation/nuance/impartiality and the ability to be agile in our thinking.

What scares me is that it's not just our ability to communicate that's been coarsened--it's our collective ability to think critically about things. Opinions get packaged up for easy consumption. Questioning those packages has become challenging (distasteful, actually) for some.
Truth!
 
Couldn't agree more! Everything is legendary! And it's not the only thing that's getting to me now I'm at a certain age... people literally use the word 'literally' to describe everything. Someone used the phrase "I literally died" on the TV the other day. I literally swore loudly and literally switched off the TV...
 
Couldn't agree more! Everything is legendary! And it's not the only thing that's getting to me now I'm at a certain age... people literally use the word 'literally' to describe everything. Someone used the phrase "I literally died" on the TV the other day. I literally swore loudly and literally switched off the TV...
Hahaha! Excellent!

I can't remember when I finally stopped watching TV, it's just too annoying, except for Michigan football, which I'm overly attached to for reasons of pure granfalloonery.

You'd think being in the business of music for media, I'd be all about watching TV.

Ummm...I guess it's best not to tell people I'm the way I am! :eek:
 
The Hype Used To Get A Person's Attention Has Been So Abused That It Causes Me To Step Back And Likely (At Best) Hit Pause If Not Withdraw Altogether. I Am Over All The Hype And Fluff...Just Give Me The Real And Let Me Decide On My Terms And In My Own Way.
 
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