How many sounds does a person need? Just the right one for what you are doing.
I've been on both sides of the 'how much stuff does one need' divide. I know this from long working experience in recording sessions:
The more stuff one has, the more difficult it is, and the more time is wasted, trying to find the right sound, instead of just getting on with it and prioritizing the music.
I also know that the 'right one for what you are doing' is whatever you have around that floats your boat that day, and if that's one or two things, it's always enough.
You probably know that over the past 33 years I've done a sh!t ton of soundtracks for Fortune 500 TV ads, broadcast documentaries, and film stuff. Lots of years I was asked to do music for international auto shows. My music has been part of a ride at Epcot Center of all things! I've been part of several Emmy-winning projects, as well as industry awards you no doubt haven't heard about. I've had the privilege of working with some of the finest session players in the world. While I play on my own tracks, there are times I bring in great players to work with, too.
I've always told my session players, just bring your favorite guitar and favorite amp, and we'll make it work. I hire them to sound like themselves, after all! No one's ever said they needed more than one of each. In fact, they expressed relief when I said that.
There have been many years I've worked with one guitar and one amp. In my Two-Rock days, 2003-2014, I had only one amp in the studio - whatever flavor of TR I was playing at the time. I did everything with it. The Artist II was my only electric guitar (other than a 12 String Rick, explained below) from 1992-1998; A Mira was my only electric for a year after it came out; my 30th Anniversary CU24 was my only electric for a year. The Artist V was my only electric for a year or more.
I've never owned more than one acoustic guitar at a time. Ever.
And there have also been years I've had a wider range of choices.
The choices have never meant that the creative work got any easier, or any better. One year I counted up my amps and I had 8 of the damn things. That was WAY too much for me; paralysis by analysis. I've never had more than a handful of electric guitars, though.
Sometimes it was just a tiny bit more fun to screw around with the gear, I'll grant you that. And yes, one can be inspired in different ways by different sounds. But no serious musician on this planet needs hundreds, or thousands, of amp sounds to be inspired to make music, and certainly not to record music. If you need more than one, you find a few and get on with it.
My experience has taught me that deeper experience with a smaller number of instruments and amps is a better choice for really good players doing original music, than a whole bunch of stuff where only the surface gets a shallow scratch.
I've only once had a client ask me to use a different guitar - the guy wanted a 12 string Rick on a track. This was in 1995. Every so often someone will ask for a little more, or a little less, gain from my amp sound.
Of course, I'm in the business of writing original music. No one has it in their heads that I don't sound like the guy on the record, because I'm the guy on the record. My choices shape that sound, and not someone else's.
Perhaps my perspective is different, but I've devoted most of my adult life to creating music, and this is what I've learned. Do you know more? Maybe. But I've made an awful lot of recordings since 1989, and have been well paid to do it. YMMV.
Edit: I'd like to make one more probably unwanted observation:
For some reason that I consider ludicrous, musicians want to be pigeonholed, guided by statistical metrics instead of artistic sense, and for that reason tend to sound alike.
What serious artist wants to sound like the same homogenized Michael Britt sound pack that everyone else uses? What serious artist doesn't want to carve out a chunk of sonic territory for themselves, and achieve a signature sound? What the hell is the point of the flavor of the month?
I'd rather listen to a Larry Carlton (just an example, don't get bent out of shape, insert name of favorite artist here) with his unique tone, than some person trying to cop that tone and mimic him.
There's an online service that bands and artists can use to determine what other bands they sound like. I understand why they do it, but I think it's a bad idea to invite the comparison, because most musicians don't really stack up very well against their purported stylistic sound/style marker, and would probably be better off promoting their uniqueness.
It's amusing that we live in a world where people can't even take a dump without their freaking smart phones in their hands to be entertained for ten seconds on TikTok, so I get folks' impatience with doing one thing well, but it ain't good for the world, and it certainly ain't good for artistic achievement.
