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.