Simplicity vs complexity in pedals

[friendship]

I love having lots of options, but when it comes down to it I end up more often using the stuff that's easiest/quickest to get a great sound out of, which coincidentally or not tends to be the simplest stuff. I used to want every sound in the world, but now I tend to focus on refining particular/peculiar sounds, probably because I'm getting old and boring.

[patrick]

i think there's something special about turning on a pedal with just 2 or 3 knobs and falling in love with the character of it
rather than having endless controls to achieve the sound you're looking for.

[behndy]

5-20 knobs is a pretty wide range, though i feel like a pedal with more than 5 is more than most folks are interested in - in general for most pedals. i know lots of the ILF crew can happily handle up to 10 though. (TWSS)

for live use with my band i don't use many controls at all - set and forget for the most part.
studio use is a different animal, as are other types of music.

thisssssssss BUT. that's why i do love the more complex pedals like the Strymony. get all depthy in there then then have a patch saved per song and the DMC controlly thingy to wrangle multiple boxes with one footswitch and RARRRRR ULTIMATE SET IT AND FORGET IT RARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

[contraterrene]

lately, i looooove 1 knob fuzzes. less is more, and all that. i love stompin em at the right time and making my fingers and guitar make the difference, not superfluous knobs.
that being said, quantity over quality is sometimes good, just for the fun of twisting and stomping on stuff.

[behndy]

YESH LET ME PULL OUT MY TREMOLO FINGER ATTACHMENT AND MY DUCKING DELAY THUMBNAIL.

[behndy]

....... i keed.

sort of.

[kaeth]

I like as many knobs as possible so I can sculpt a nice complex, textural, evolving sound, but once it's there I rarely touch it.

[Andrew]

I really like pedals with larger knobs so I can just kick them with my feet when I'm playing. I love my Memoryman simply for the fact that I can dial in the repeats, time and mod just by pawing at it with my feet.

I like as many knobs as possible so I can sculpt a nice complex, textural, evolving sound, but once it's there I rarely touch it.

This.

[goroth]

I never rely on my guitar knobs or pickups for sounds. In a live situation I can't turn those knobs fast enough or accurately enough to change from one sound to another. So I let pedals do that job.

[Jwar]

It's kind of daunting if a pedal has too many knobs, unless they are properly labeled and explained. The problem I have with more boutique pedals is that the builders do not label the knobs, so you're literally left fiddling with the shit trying to figure it out. Now some include manuals, which is awesome, but if not, it turns into a nightmare. At least for me. I do have a dual Elements, which has a ton of fucking knobs, but at least I can look at other pics for knob labels.

The thing I love about the H9, which has too many options IMO, is that it has lots of presets. Presets save my ass because I don't get that shit other wise. Lol

[theAntihero]

I also like one knob fuzzes, the Donner Party and my Onesie/BazzFuss both dont really need anything more than the one knob

[Mudfuzz]

I like pedals that get me sounds I want be it no knobs or 50, I don't care as long as they sound good… or really really bad

[DarkAxel]

I like as many knobs as possible so I can sculpt a nice complex, textural, evolving sound, but once it's there I rarely touch it.

came in to say this

i also like pedal that are more or less "analog" in their nature of controls. What i see is the sound and all... HOG for example is awesome at this, it has crazy amounts of controls, but it's all pretty navigable

it's not the amount of controls, it's the way how they're implemented

[MrNovember]

I'm kind of on the fence with this whole issue.
I like to think of myself as super simplistic; there are times that I love to run a LP Jr through a Ghost Echo and a Fuck.
But at the same time, I'd love a Mobius and a Timeline for all the knobs and options

[rfurtkamp]

You can always just not use the features of the advanced units and pretend they're simple?

The other way around doesn't quite work so well!