Guitar Gear

…At least for regular gigging.

I’m an old guy now, so I do maybe 60-75 gigs a year, if that. But in my heyday, I was busy, with up to 250 gigs a year. I did my regular, weekly church gig. Played two to three nights a week at a restaurant, had several weekend gigs with the different bands I played with, and did lots of weddings and funerals. It was awesome.

And at the time, I was a gear freak! Though I was gigging a lot, I was still searching for my sound, so I went through a lot of gear, especially pedals. I started this blog as a diary of all the stuff I’d pick up, and if you’ve read this blog for a while, you’d be familiar with my journey.

And this journey has included many boutique pedals. For the ones I’ve connected with, I’ve loved them. But here’s what I found with boutique pedals. Most of them couldn’t withstand the rigors of gigging or could only be used in specific configurations. Take for instance, one of my favorite overdrive pedals by the Geek Driver by the Original Geek. That pedal, based on the ColorSound Overdriver popularized by Jeff Beck was a wonderful pedal. The sound it produced was incredible with my Les Paul and Plexi-style amps. BUT, it lasted a total of two months before it completely crapped out. Since Geek lived close to me, I was able to get it repaired, but after it failed a second time, I gave up on it as Geek had moved out of the area.

Another pedal that blew me away was the ToneCandy Spring Fever spring reverb pedal. When I reviewed it, I hadn’t purchased it, but I eventually did buy it because I loved its sound. But I could only use it under certain circumstances because the fuckin’ thing made so much noise, and I returned it after only a few gigs.

The point to all this is that though boutique pedals are great, I’ve found they’re best for light use and under circumstances like recording where I’m after a specific sound that I can’t get with mainstream, high-production pedals. But for regular gigging, I now only trust mainstream pedals. They may not have the most unique sound, but they’re reliable; so much so that I don’t ever have to worry about them failing in the middle of a gig. As such, my board has Wampler and BOSS pedals, with a Pigtronix Booster. My lone “boutique” pedal is an original hand-wired Mad Professor Deep Blue Delay that has withstood the test of time. But I switch that with a BOSS DM-2W Waza Craft delay, depending on the type of gig I’m doing.

I’m not alone in this thinking. The great John 5 has a pedal board filled with BOSS pedals and a lone Tube Screamer. Other guys I know use a mix of mainstream pedals from BOSS to EHX to TC Electronics.

And now that I’ve found my sound, I’m a lot less compelled to get more gear, let alone boutique pedals. Sure, I still play around with them when I go to a shop, but even with my limited gigging schedule, the high-production pedals I use are just fine for me.

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Any graphic EQ will have a dramatic effect on your tone. I chose the GE-7 because I trust BOSS quality. Though I don’t gig nearly as much as I used to, a lot of my equipment choices over the years have been driven by durability. I know BOSS pedals will stand the test of time and the rigors of gigging.

As to the subject at hand, I’ve now had the pedal for several weeks and have gigged with it a bunch of times. As I said in my original review of the pedal, I don’t know why I hadn’t had one in my chain until now! As Phil McKnight said in a conversation with Tim Pierce on YouTube, “A graphic EQ fixes problems.” Truer words could not have been spoken!

Though it certainly can be used as a clean boost because of the Level slider, the GE-7’s core competency is boosting or cutting frequency ranges. With the last gig with my old farts classic rock band, I played my Squier CV Tele, plugging into my ToneMaster Deluxe. When I had everything set up with the GE-7 completely neutral, I noticed a bit of sharpness in the midrange. After fiddling a bit, I realized that it was in the 1.0k region, so I cut that frequency a couple of dB. My tone also felt a little flat after that, so I boosted the 100 and 200 ranges and upped the 3.0k and 6.4k a little to get a more scooped tone. Holy shit! It was the best I’ve heard it sound – ever!

Then when I engaged my OD pedal which provided a little midrange boost, my tone was balanced. And it struck me that I didn’t make major changes on the GE-7, but it fixed all sorts of issues in my tone; issues that I frankly just lived with until now.

Since that gig, I’ve been testing the GE-7 with several of my other amps in combination with my CV Tele, Les Paul R8, Taylor T5z, and even my Gibson J45. Later today, I’m going to test it with my Godin Artisan ST V. This is a guitar that I love but has been a bit problematic tonally for me since I got it. It’s a very bright-sounding guitar, and I’ve never been able to dial in its tone just using EQ knobs on my amp. I’m banking on the GE-7 to fix it!

A little update… I started writing this post a while ago and since then I’ve gigged with my Godin Artisan ST. The GE-7 saved my ass with that guitar which has been difficult to dial in with any of my equipment. With that guitar, playing it is like butter, but the pickups have been weird. It’s too bright in the upper midrange and too boomy in the low range. I was able to cut out the problem areas and got a smooth and creamy sound that was just bright enough to cut through the mix. It’s going to be great to be using that guitar in my regular rotation! LIke I said, game-changer!

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