The balancing act of streamlining & versatility in your rig

[Invisible Man]

Boom and bust cycle is normal. Had two giant boards, many tiny boards. Expansion and contraction are the rhythm of the universe!

Now I think about having broad 'categories' of things. Scribbled a list yesterday:
Fuzz
Filter
Looper
Delay
Reverb
Pitch
Rhythm
Tuner

I get my primary colors in order, then do weird stuff with them. I do love idiosyncratic stuff like the Particle, but, like saffron, it's pretty immediately recognizable when you encounter it. Not a bad thing, but it definitely affects the longevity of gear for me. My fuzz factory has been around for ages. Ecause it is streamlined AND versatile...

[rustywire]

@psyvamp
Yeah I hear ya re: CT5. A pedal like that suddenly becomes the most useful/inspirational from out of nowhere. I still have my v1 Goodbye24 from 2013. Haven't used it in many months but it's something I don't want to part with because I never see them come up for sale. Also a pedal like that is typically the most fun kind of wildcard to dig out & re-explore.

See also:

honestly though the longer the particle has stuck around the more stuff it's been able to do, or.. me able to do with IT. I think there's merit in holding on to weird shit for a time until you learn it better.

[psychic vampire.]

so I wanted the particle last summer, read posts on here and watched the knobs demo and pre-ordered the Count To 5 instead. Then the order took a minute, wound up getting a good deal on the Particle, nabbed it, and fell in love. ct5 arrived, and it does beautiful, wondrous things, for real, but i prefer the timebender to mode 1, and the Particle just sort of became my favorite child. My weird industrial/dub techno thing uses the particle on tape loops and it is amazing. I use it on all sorts of instruments for everything from PS-2 pitch shifting feedback, to weird and weirder chorusing, to heavier-than-eternity repeating bass drops, to the intended uses.

I feel everything vidret says about the particle. I haven't even hooked up expression yet and i am doing great things. Definitely i need to give the Ct5 more time, but there's also definitely the silly boom/bust impulse in me that is like "too much money, too much money."

But if we discount a tuner and my amp's footswitch, i could easily hit the 4-5 pedal mark. Maybe less. Could drop the dirts entirely for shoegaze, hit Flanger, Particle, Timebender and be happy.

[voerking]

@voerking
What kinda music?

my band plays spazzy math rock. i also do out-jazz/electro-acoustic improv stuff on occasion.

[ognoy]

My pedalboard is now set up to do the sounds I need for my main band, which began playing live again this week(after spending the last 6 months finishing our new album and getting our new manager/record label/booking label in order).

I have 13 pedals(including aux-switch for Pitchfactor, tuner and off-board volume pedal) on it right now.

The most important ones are tuner, Pitchfactor, two overdrives, RM-1n and a custom delay/trem pedal.
But I also got a Pharaoh, an octave up fuzz, Moog Ring Mod and a simple delay set to slapback on the board to spice things up. I might swap the slapback-delay for a phaser, because I noticed these last gigs that I didn't really use it much. I also got 2 Boss loopers for triggering loops/noises/soundscapes, but they are not on the board and go into a D.I, not the amp.

So I could upsize and add my Boomerang III and more weird pedals, OR I could downsize and remove all the "spicy" pedals.
But I like this "middle ground" I have now.

Will probably buy more pedals when I can afford it, but I think my touring board will stay this way for a while.

When playing in ad-hoc free improv bands/projects I don't really have a board. I just bring a couple of pedals and work with what I got.
I like doing it that way, but I also think it is great to have my big board set up properly.

[infamousalien]

I think I had 14-15 pedals at my peak. Which was about two years after I started lurking here haha. Most just sat and collected dust though. Felt bad since they should be played.

[rfurtkamp]

Ever since I accepted that with my physical disability and overall non-health I would never be playing outside my residence again, I figure screw it, if I want it and it fits, why not?

Absolute staples to sound like me: Space Echo (I use both a real one and the Boss digital, the preamp and crunchy echo if hit hard are essential baselines), Fender Blender, my Test Pattern from Hell (which after learning how to use it, absolutely destroys my original to a point where I'm considering having a second made and ditching the OG), Basic Audio Lucky Number (for rock-esque distortion), and in the rack, I need a Lexicon Vortex, a Boss GL-100 (the preamp that is the heart of both the rig itself and the para EQ that gets me where I need to be), and at least one Digi RDS LFO delay.

The rest, I'm on the fence about a couple. I need one fuzz that's not a Blender or a Scrambler minimum, some sort of boost to round out the lot that's not particularly clean and definitely not transparent (usually use the Bee Baa for that, as much as I love the fuzz half), and feed the lot into a Jazz Chorus of one stripe or another and a 6L6 BF-esque Fender amp with oldschool spring verb and a JBL/Emi speaker.

There's a lot more I'd like. I would be immensely sad without my guitar synth, but it's not a daily "I play guitar synth exclusively" driver. It does substitute for most keys stuff I want to do though.

I'm also looking for pure and ugly texture. But that's gained with far more than the baseline.

Honestly, I could be happy most of the time with the heart of my old touring rig (Space Echo/RE-301 Chorus Echo), a Bassman (or other 6L6 Fender Bf-type amp), a HM-2 or something stupid high gain, and the Digi RDS LFO delay.

[Eivind August]

Well, I posted this in the other thread as well, but yeah, oscillating fuzz > choppy glitchy weirdness > delay.

Tried loads of other stuff, but always end up with these three elements. Way of the samurai. Specific sounds over flexibility, though most of my pedals have a good range. I know what I want to sound like, versatility is not really needed. I like having a couple of flavours of each at hand, though.

Pedals are tools, but I do prefer certain brands, mainly because few pedals are truly unique and it makes sense for me to buy the versions made by people I respect.

[psychic vampire.]

I do know that there's little reason to part with many of my pedals; they aren't worth that much, and it's better to have some odds and ends around for recording shit alone. The Tape+ and Gomorrah will stay with me forever because what they do, while not very commonly necessary for me, are so interesting and unique among my collection as to just be worth holding around.

I would maybe consider getting weird delays like the eccodrone or whatever, but i honestly feel, at this point, like timebender+particle+cheapo rack gear is good enough, and maybe i should just bother finally getting an 8 step program/broadcast to feed into their expression jacks.

Excited to see what the B/S/T looks like this week, though.

[GardenoftheDead]

Guitar -> Interface -> Logic

The world is my oyster.

[rustywire]

@voerking
I totally knew that and remember watching an in-store you linked while thinking "someone in this band likes Polvo"
also

@ognoy
Sounds like you're fairly balanced in multiple setups. That's great, I wanna get there, too.

@infamousalien
I hit peak pedals around the time I registered. Maybe a month afterward, and began narrowing down my selection to cornerstones/favs/wildcards. No real regrets, just a heavy heart for some heavy pedals [like every analog delay I've sold]

@rfurtkamp
One of your BILF votes came from me. Wont win any beauty pageants but the thought you've put into your rig is glaring. I'm a big fan of creatively working around limitations as I have a few (minor ones, all things considered) of my own, and frequently indulge myself, basking in the satisfaction from effective problem solving. Practical solutions give me a contact buzz, esp when they do double-duty.

@psychicvampire
I think the pricy or more aptly described *best* gear (subjectively speaking) is ideally suited for writing/recording in the studio, where you can appreciate nuance and immortalize that moment in tracking. Some boxes are def better at bottling lightning than others...and require an intimate setting to reveal themselves as stage volume & studio volume can be miles apart.

[rfurtkamp]

Thanks. I'm not in it to win beauty pageants (40-something disfigured cripples won't, let alone their boards designed to run around having half a foot on the best of days!), and I'm needing to run soundscapes and options that most folks won't ever even have to consider.

No need to leave room for a singer in my world.

[Hobbes96]

I force myself to keep a relatively small rig, with a board about the size of a PTJR. I definitely still feel like I could do with less. I might just sell all of it to buy an MF Delay, some Muff variant, and a boost. I honestly don't know how a lot of you manage with more than 7 pedals. I would get super distracted

[rfurtkamp]

It's not about being distracted, it's about knowing the tools (and when to just let go and see where they take you).

Arguing for an arbitrary limit would be like yelling at Dali for having more than a few shades of paint available!

[rustywire]

Yeah 'looks' are of little consequence for something that mostly lives on the floor and/or in dark places, getting stepped on. I did enjoy being able to arrange my small BILF entry with more emphasis on visual appeal (presently my best job at that IMO) but with a *permanent* board my primary concerns are
'where in my signal chain am I going to get the best results with this effect' as many...even most of my pedals have their sweet spot & sound overly noisy everywhere else. This is symbiotic with the secondary concern, 'is the accessibility, usability practical once I find the preferred signal chain and wire things up with purpose?'
I try to put in the thinking ahead of time, so I don't have to remember much when I'm in the moment and want to transition on the fly.

Hobbes96 just hit the nail on the head about distraction, at least for me with the way my brain works. I currently have 12 diff boxes in my setup which combined a guitar & bass board into 1. Within this setup, 3 effects are always-on, often times 4...even 5 if you count a fuzz which varies. Leaves room to focus on wah or manual phasing.

That said, I've been 'mirin the aesthetic of switch/button/fader/knobby electronic interfaces since I was in preschool... when dad built me a "switch board" of antique light switches, just to flick on and off, manipulate dimmer pots and p'tend. I know he still has it stored somewhere, looking forward to rediscovering it at some point. Love this stuff.
It's no accident my most posted in thread is SHOW US YOUR PEDALBOARD