I asked myself this question this morning while having my morning cup. I was ruminating on various ways to make my signal chain a cleaner. It’s pretty clean as it is, and I pride myself on having little to no electronic noise when my rig is at rest. But I still want it dead quiet. I don’t know if it’s entirely possible, but I knew there were things that I could do. So I started coming up with a punch list of things including getting high-quality cables with good shielding; replacing any non-true-bypass pedals on my board that often cause noise; things like that.
Then I stopped and asked myself, “Where am I at with my tone? Am I reasonably satisfied with it? Is there any specific thing that really needs addressing?” And the answer to those questions was no. I looked at my list and decided they were nice-to-have’s but not really addressing and particular problem or “hole” in my tone. Truth be told, as of late, I’ve been using pedals A LOT less as of late. While I may kick in an overdrive pedal occasionally, and usually have my reverb on, I’ve been doing without pedals. In fact, for the past couple of gigs I’ve played, I haven’t used pedals at all, except for a tuner!
I guess this is the dark side of being a gear slut; it’s really a borderline addiction; an urge akin to an itch you can’t scratch, a unicorn that can’t be caught. Like the cursed pirates in the Pirates of the Carribean, the desire for gear is a lust that is never slaked, or at least easily slaked. At times it gets to the point of not even having a reason for getting the gear – I just have to have it! 🙂
I was actually surprised by my moment of lucidity, and actually relieved that I pulled myself back from the brink of investing yet another few hundred dollars into gear. I also realized that as far as my rig is concerned, I’ve sort of reached a point where the law of diminishing returns is starting to kick in. Yeah, it would be nice to have high-end, expensive cables (I still may do that just for my pedal board), but at this point, it doesn’t really buy me much – even my pedal cables. And while I believe I would get an improvement in my tone, I think the improvement would be more subtle than anything else.
So here’s some food for thought: The next time you want to buy some gear, ask yourself if you’re already satisfied with your tone. Be honest. You may be surprised to find that you are.
Guitar Gear 
I think that is says a lot about your playing ability if you can play live without any effects. There have been and are many great players that prefer to plug straight into a tube amp.
Avoid browsing around on Craigslist and Ebay also helps reduce “GAS”. I have purchased many pieces of gear, just because they were good deals.
Good point 56LP!
Also, from where I stand, new gear doesn’t make you play better. I’ve been playing guitar for over 5 years, which is maybe not that much. Everytime I find myself searching for gear, the main stopper for me is remembering that there are so much technique’s I can still improve on. For me it’s about getting good, and then to be able to let go of the technique’s in order to find my own tune. At that point, I most definitely will toy around with different gear and tunes.
Odin, your comment shows very good insight on your part. Practicing and learning is far better time spent than searching for gear to get the “ultimate tone”.
But wait until you’ve got some money to spend… 🙂
I’ve been playing for almost 40 years; mostly acoustic, so I didn’t really start accumulating electric gear until about seven years ago. But I knew where I wanted to be both technique-wise and gear-wise.
Technique always needs improvement. I’m going to take some more lessons starting in a couple of weeks. But gear? I’m in a place right now where I really want to keep it simple. What happens as a result of that is that it really exposes my weaknesses – and believe me, despite what 56LP says, I think I still have a lot – but the cool thing is that playing without pedals has really pushed my technique; especially with vibrato and sustaining notes as long as possible.
But also, let’s be real. I’m not buying gear right now because I’ve pretty much tapped out all of my disposable income. I’m taking delivery of a custom guitar today, and that’ll pretty much do it for my GAS for now.