I was just wondering if anyone else has ever looked at the receipts for their gear purchases and been somewhat horrified ( Yes, you pedal guys - I am looking at you!) I know I was, and that's just from January and I am STILL not done...

This year was for me, somewhat of a complete studio upgrade. (House payment worth probably) I have no problem spending money on new gear, but each "thing" needs to "earn it's keep" if it wants to live with me, and as well it has to be "long-term useful" haha

Anybody find that board constructing, pedal tweaking, button mashing, and dial turning actually detracts from playing time? Me, I kind of create a tone and then just keep using it...

Anyways, thoughts?

well,
I'm still pretty new to it all (I was tlking to gene about my restart...like so many I think I had to go through the process of letting go what a stick isn't)

but I've certainly had that with guitar...I come from a classic[al] guit background which had some interesting effects

I could actually get older pitch-to-glitch synths to track....somewhat

"regular" guitar effects were never voiced for what I wanted and I played with more polyphony (many phony notes!!!) which created challenges requiring quite a bit of attention.

It seems like I either liked fairly heavily treated sounds or fairly natural ones.

and yes, it often seemed to get in the way...I seem to remember many times when internally I would think "OK, now I've got some real work to do, turn all that shit off...I need some room to play this thing"
In that sense, It reminds me of what Greg Howard relates about not wanting to be a "stick operator"


then again there were times when I certain sound would lead to a new avenue


treatments can be a little like candy, they are staggering when they hit your taste buds...but too much and they start getting cloying and then you start feeling sick.
yet...they do taste good

I love em, I hate em

I m a pedal junkie. And beingCanadian hurts more due to dollar exchange plus taxes and duty I plan on tweaking and playing with tones on my Mod Duo which I’ve had for a while. Still haven’t really played with it yet. Bought an SP2 waiting for it to arrive and hoping I’ll like it Also waiting for a second midi expander for my k mix so hear is expensive. If I use it it’s worth it. Also bought a melodics subscriptionwith hopes it will help with hand independence. Which I think it is so far. The Stick thing is expensive. It doesn’t have to be but I’m always looking for that next cool sound to trigger the next new song or tune. Variety of sound helps me create I hate doing the same thing twice

I will say one thing I like about having effects around : putting on some "big sounds"(on whatever instrument) and giving a guest who doesn't play 3 guide notes to start from and just leave them to making their sounds.

It's nice to have a variety of things kicking around, that's for sure! I have a lot of stuff but I am trying to condense it down to what I actually need and use regularly. I plan to buy more stuff too, but only after the culling is complete... hahaha

I hear ya there.
it's funny, scuba divers go through that too
carrying extra stuff, then streamlining, etc


inhale, exhale, inhale -- big small big

There is a freedom to minimizing things sometimes.

"I was tlking to gene about my restart...like so many I think I had to go through the process of letting go what a stick isn't"

Dude, I spent the last 4 years doing this! haha Figuring out what a Stick "isn't" could be a long and arduous process!

It definitely gets in the way. Stickists are a crafty bunch and many of them love the details. I'm reminded that it's a Stick, not a Schtick.

Currently, I'm trying to reduce the size of the board, but finding that I'm filling up the smaller boards with smaller stuff. WTH!

It gets in the way. It constantly gets in the way. I've let my work on Invention 8 fall behind, I'll hear it from Vic and Claire soon enough. Not to mention the work I want to do in Ableton or Reaper, all of that is just going to wait!

I like that..and I'm stealing it

If I'm honest with myself, I tend to do better without a bunch of stuff.

but I tend to identify with Navin R Johnson on it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2X3vVMdh-s

well, OK but amplification is needed. It's an electrophone after all...so some good amplification is reasonable

well a preamp.I mean I have to feed the amp a high quality signal without loading the pickups...so that's not extra stuff.It's just like a transmission to get the power to the wheels. It's part of the system. So that's fine

oh...and EQ. OK, well I'm just tailoring the frequency response. After all, most things aren't voiced for stick.

Compression? well, of course, but I'm not running it as an effect or anything. I'm just evening out levels. That's more like signal conditioning that's not an effect.

Oh, and reverb. Hey, it's a naturally occurring phenomenon. Now we can't all play in ideal acoustic environments in this day and age so really it's not an "effect" as such. So I'll just get a little reverb.

Oh the chorus and echo? that's just to give a little animation to help the listener get a full experience. Tht's not for me oh no,if it were just for me I would just put the headstock against the wall and listen that way. I do it for the audience...I'm a giver

The synth unit? well, I am playing solo so it adds an accompanying layer. Besides, I used paypal. Paypal isn't real money and the wife won't see it in th monthly statements so it doesn't, technically, exist anyway

Yes!! Evidence audio pedal board cables for my monster board project!
Yikes did I really spend that on just cables! But man I love how it came out!

Latest purchase.. 2 Active DI's because I wanted to hear the cabinet simulator.
Yep I think I'll keep them! Yes Impulse buy! OMG.

Final version of my Big Board: (note, Rowin Trellicopter sounds awesome!)