The other day, I had a plumber come to the house to replace several worn-out fixtures and replace some corroded pipes that were close to busting. Matt, the plumber, and his helper Cody replaced two bath and shower assemblies, and kitchen and bathroom faucets. Cody even had to crawl under the house to cut the pipes and do the valve replacement on the guest bathroom tub. They did all this work in about 3 hours time.
Then this morning, I was reading an article in Wine Spectator written by a chef who was recounting a previous article he had written about making filled candy bars. What he said he failed to mention in the original article, which also happened to be the crux of his new article, was that it was important to have the right tools for the job. He stated that the right tools make the job so much easier.
That got me thinking about the recent plumbing work done in my home. My wife asked me if I could change the stuff out and I said yes I could, but my argument for hiring a plumber was two-fold: 1) Plumbers are experts at what they do, so they’ll be able to do the installs without having to read the instructions which I always have to have beside me and; 2) They have the right tools to make the job fast. I normally have to improvise a bit with the tools I have. I can accomplish most jobs for sure – though I have to admit that I just won’t do toilets other than changing an old float or chain – but my set of tools are for much more generic work.
That thought process got me thinking about all the gear I have, especially the 50+ (I think I’m probably being a little conservative in this number) pedals I have. There are some pedals I use all the time: They’re just part of my sound. But depending on the gig, I add others. For instance, my standard overdrive is an EHX Soul Food. But if I’m playing out with a band doing classic and country rock songs, I will invariably add two more overdrives to my board: A Paul Cochrane Timmy and an Ibanez TS-808 Tube Screamer. I will use either the Soul Food or the Timmy as base overdrives, then use the Tube Screamer to get a bit more upper-midrange bite.
I will also use a different amp than my normal BOSS Katana 50. While I love that amp for most venues, if I’m doing a mixed set of music, I will use something a bit more versatile; namely, my DV Mark Little 40 with its incredibly responsive EQ that will allow me to get either Fender or Marshall sounds.
The point to this is that at least for gear, I have a fairly big tool box. Admittedly, I originally built this tool box in search of my sound. But now that I’ve found my sound, I have this wonderful set of tools that can color my sound in different ways.
I think many gear sluts come to this point eventually. They figure out that they sound like themselves and then they use different gear to affect their sound as opposed to discover it. Changing out pedals and amps or even guitars could also be likened to choosing the right outfit. For instance, for a black tie event, you need to wear a tuxedo. Period. For a more casual event, a tuxedo would be completely out of place.
The same goes for gear. If you’re playing classic rock, you don’t bring gear that’s optimized for thrash or hard core metal. You’d sound funny no matter your virtuosity.
So don’t feel bad if you’ve amassed a ton of gear and don’t use it all at once. Just think about your tool box. Sooner or later, you’ll need one of those pieces that’s currently collecting dust in your garage. 🙂
ROCK ON!
Guitar Gear 
I really enjoyed this article. It does make me reflect on my own gear collection and FX choices. It has also brought to mind two thoughts.
Firstly, as a working guitarist, it’s important that aside from having ‘my tone’ I’m able to colour it anyway I need to for the gig at hand, so whilst I have FX that I don’t use all that often, I simply would be at a tonal loss if I didn’t have them when I needed them, so I can’t feel too guilty about how little I use them.
Secondly, I feel that a lot of time is spent on going through different FXs and not a lot of time is spent on sitting with different amps. You can have a pretty sparse pedalboard, say a Compressor, an OD, a Chorus and a Delay pedal for arguments sake, a run those same pedals through a few different models from Marshall, Fender, Peavey and Vox, just as examples, and probably get pretty close to any usable tone you’d need in most situations. I do feel there is something to be said for a simple, sparse but well chosen FX chain, a 2×12 or 4×12 and a few different heads. I know it’s impractical to change heads mid gig (for most of us without a dedicated tech at the ready) but you could take one head that gives great country tone to that gig, another one that gives great metal tone to another gig and so on.
If you’re willing to go down the digital modelling route then obviously you can, in your own way, switch amps entirely mid gig without any hassle. You could even switch to a different amp purely for a solo mid song, so there is always a way, so to speak.
As I said, great article and I’m so glad to have found your website, I look forward to reading your other articles.
Cheers,
David.
David, glad you discovered the site! I actually let it sit for a few years after I found my sound because I wasn’t buying all that much gear, and didn’t really have much to say as well. But that break has helped me get material.
As far as amps are concerned, you couldn’t be more right. Once I found my sound, I actually reduced the number of my pedals significantly. Sometimes, I only have mod effects and rely entirely on my amp to give me distortion. And now that I have a BOSS Katana 50, it’s mainly a clean platform for me, so I’ve been relying a bit more on pedals – especially my drive pedals. Thank goodness I never got rid of my pedals. Like you, I have them there for the flexibility of having a sound when I need it. I have a great Vibe pedal that I don’t use all that often. But there have been a few times over the last couple of years that vibe was the ONLY sound that works.
In any case, welcome!
Thanks for your reply and the welcome GoofyDawg.
I was the same, for me I fooled around with loads of different pedals and multi effect units that in the end I did a Paul Kossoff and went guitar direct into amp for a few years which was pretty liberating while I thought about whether or not effects were serving me or just costing me money I didn’t need to spend.
Thankfully, I never sold or traded in, so after gigging for a few years with no pedals *gasp* (which does give you a new appreciation of just what the volume and tone knobs can do when they really are the only things you can use) when I came back to using effect units and pedals, I was building on a more solid foundation of how I really sounded as a player as I’d developed more feel and control over bending and different vibrato styles.
But I totally agree with you on the one pedal sometimes being all you need. For me, it’s the Boss SD-1 (with no mods) just does what I need and responds to my playing style really well, that’d be my desert island pedal (although, I’d try to bend the rules to be stranded with one of my multi effects units haha).
I’m yet to play the BOSS Katana series, but I absolutely love BOSS’ gear, what’s it like if you don’t mind my asking?
Rock on!
The Katana totally changed my mind about digital modeling amps. I was just about to pull the trigger on a Roland JC-22 or JC-40 when I ran across the Katana. I was really looking for just a clean platform. But the models BOSS has developed for its different gain settings are just incredible. I don’t think they were designed to sound like a Marshall or a Fender or whatever, despite the fact that the highest gain setting is called “Brown Sound.” These settings are voiced fairly uniquely. On top of that, the EQ section is very responsive, so you can dial in your tone very easily.
But most importantly, I wanted to make sure that it could take pedals, whether I played it clean or dirty. And if I set it to just the edge of breakup, I wanted it to be able to take my overdrive pedals. It did and did it incredibly well. So well, in fact, that the dynamics are eerily tube-like.
So yeah… I dig it. 🙂
And… what’s not to like for just $219? 🙂
Really happy to hear the Katana is working so well for you, I’m going to have to try one of those out for sure now 🙂
I had a similar experience with digital modelling, first it was with a Line6 effects unit a few years ago which really impressed me and was a big hit with a function band I did some stand in work with and then most recently I picked up a BOSS GT-1 a few months ago and then a few days ago picked up an FS-6 to expand what it could do and boom mind, absolutely love the built in amp modelling and have run it direct to a PA and you know what, it sounds amazing. I still own my fair share or amps still though haha.