AlexGlassLungs wrote:
2) Your analog/digital pedal mash-ups- Something I see a lot of is the flaunting of analog or analog signal path pedals. I for one am a huge fan of these types of pedals and quality builds. For slight background on me, I was a straight signal path kinda guitar player with no pedals for a long time and always wanted a great tone from my amp and still do. I’ve always been huge on my amps and Guitar pickups so adding pedals I needed ones that conserved my tone... so for me I won’t put digital pedals on my board. I play with hand wound pickups into anpoint to point I guitar head. I have pedals with PCB and obv you need to but none of them are digital, I don’t want my analog signal path being effected. I understand for a lot of you noise makers that this isn’t really an issue for you but my question isn’t really for you guys. My question is for the people spending a ton of money on their gear, who have spent thousands of dollars on your Guitar Amps pushing digital pedals into them. Why? Why would you put so much into your direct signal and distort it with digital effects? Again this isn’t me calling you out, it’s me simply asking your reasoning behind this. Also to add onto this, besides digital pedals I see a lot of “lesser quality brands” on pedalboards with really amazing pedals on them. Besides the function of what it’s doing, can you not hear the lesser quality of the product, say EHX for example... ok go!
This is literally the only one I can speak on because I don't play guitar, I play bass.
So, I have a bass that was around 6k new (I bought it used for 1700) and another bass that was around 5k new (bought it for 2300) a Mesa Bass Prodigy (it was 1500 new) and a pair of Mesa Powerhouse cabs (cannot remember the pricing but I got a killer deal).
That's a ton of money on gear. I also have a full board and even when I play without any effects, I don't notice much of a difference in the tone or degradation of the tone. At least not on my instruments. I feel like not all instruments are made equal. I will probably never be a non active bass player but I have noticed a much larger difference in passives versus actives. My pre-amp seems to be able to push the signal much better through all those buffers.
I'm obviously not a purist, but I can understand it to a certain extent. Modern digital processing is way better than it ever has been however, so I don't think this is a concern. In fact, there are now digital effects that have true or buffered bypass. So they are trying to appease the tone purist in that sense. Personally I think true bypass is stupid in most respects on pedals though. I prefer it to have a buffer to bring down the noise floor. I run my board with a mixture of digital and analog on purpose. I have zero feedback when I am not playing. When I use all analog pedals, there's always some kind of buzz or hum in the background. That shit drives me fucking crazy.
I guess, for me the question isn't why. It's why not? Sure I have a nice bass, and amp. I'm not ruining it's integrity by using other things to compliment it's natural built in tones. That's the way I look at it at least. You mileage may vary.
