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... that've contributed to your musical development?

I am a copycat.

I've been inspired StopReferencing's "3 albums" thread.

Please, give some insight as to why you've chosen what you've chosen. Thank you.


slide (specifically: black porcelain ceramic, shorty, only 2" {TWSS})
Prescription Electronics Experience (my first "boutique" pedal, actually the first pedal I ever bought, my gateway fuzz)
Kay (Old Kraftsman branded) Vanguard K102 (the first guitar that I really loved playing)

So, I love old blues guitarists who play slide, but that's not me. I can't really play that stuff straight, it comes off as inauthentic. I need to make it mine. The Vanguard is a great slide guitar (it's actually a great guitar in general as well). I don't have it specifically set up for slide. So, the action is a compromise between what's best for slide and what's best for fretting. That slide happens to work really well, it's just heavy enough, for the way the action is set. Then, of course, comes the fuzz. I hardly ever play slide clean, almost always with fuzz. And there it is, 3 items of hardware that've helped me play the way I play.

This is a tough one...

DL4: Haven't had one in years, but that introduction to looping and "playing with myself" as a way of practicing and developing techniques and sound has been very important.

heavier strings / thicker picks: I could be more specific, but unnecessary; just allowed my style to be more how I actually play, or wanted to or whatever.

AB-Synth: my first fuzz; just not needing to play to play, if that makes sense.

practice space:
i wouldnt have lasted two weeks without it
alowed for a big loud rig
which makes me wanna play
and get better

heavier strings: cant really explain
just feel right

decent guitar: the right neck
is like a pair of running shoes
and cramps suck
i dont know if i found the" perfect one"
but its better than the last
and i just want to play it more

damn i got a few more

Wolf Computer: not my first fuzz but definitely my most important. Because it is sooooo flexible and depends so much on how you play with it, it taught me to focus on technique and ideas about playing and how to approach playing with other pedals. Whenever I get a new pedal now I see how it behaves at its extremes and that tells me more about it than anything.

The guitar: when I first started out I was a bass player. When I switched to guitar it was a huge shift in my thinking. It forced me to think about music theory and how songs were put together and think critically about music, instead of just enjoying how songs felt. I know bass players don't have to be relegated to that kind of thing, and ideally aren't, but I was new to playing and was used to being dominated by music leaders from my experience in orchestra.

Delay: this effect changed how I thought about effects. Instead of thinking of effects as things that's only "effect" my tone they were things I played WITH. Their ability to play WITH me inspired me, and allowed to express stronger emotion with my playing. The first delay I had that made this obvious to me was a digitally modded mxr analog delay, that thing is SEXY and I think it's still rolling around ILF somewhere.

Dimarzio Tone Zone: when I changed from $15 el cheapo pickups to these it was like a whole new world. All of a sudden I could do artificial harmonics, I had better sustain, better dynamics. My playing really accelerated after that.

Like everyone else - changing to a thicker pick. I thought 0.7 was the shit. Then I found out that it was just shit.

Those two are really clear cut. The third would maybe be strap locks. Allowed me to go way more bat-shit on stage.

Hm, hardware...

Number one is definitely my Guild Acoustic it's "only" a chinese built new one, but it feels so nice and it has taught me a lot about guitar playing. I would not be half the player now if it were not for that guitar. It is just very easy to play, almost like a classical guitar, so I got into fingerpicking stuff and blues on it, basically just playing shit I could not have pulled off on the Epi I had before. Also it just sounds so good that it made me dare to try stuff. Suddenly lots of weird chords sounded interesting, not contorted.

Number two would be my Roost Amplifier. That thing just makes everything sound exactly the way I want. The longer I play it, the more I fall in love with it. I have it around two years now and it still surprises me with it's awesomeness whenever I play it. Sadly it's too big for my apartment so I only play it once a week in rehearsal. It can do both my ideal sounds easily. It can sound like a can of beer caps thrown at your forehead or like a pound of sand that suddenly materializes in your guts. SO GOOD!

Number three will be delay. It is the effect I love the most and the one I found I bond with the most. I just love to dive into washes of repeats or rhythmic patterns I create. It is the one effect I love to play on my own and I love to play in a band. My first delay also had a looping function so that sort of mixes in with the delay. Looping really opened up my playing too. I found out that the weird ideas I had actually fit together, it was just a matter of looping one and playing the other on top. Made me more confident in my musicianship.

First the ric 4001 even though I have not ever owned one. Just the idea of stereo outs has expanded how I play my t-40 modded with stereo.
The great destroyer really expanded how I thought about fuzz and was the first effect I really GASed over.
For the third ill say my M13 because it opened me up to ring mods, pitch shifting and stacking delay on delay on delay on delay
Edit:
Fuck flat wounds should go in here somewhere

Frazz Dazzler
Thick pick & heavy strings
DOD 670 Flanger

BYOC Octave Fuzz, probably the third pedal I bought, first fuzz so it just introduced me to this whole new thing, I've been chasing fuzz pedals ever since.

My Laney VC15. I'd been playing for a few years using a marshall mg/whatever starter amps my friends had when I got this at 17, and suddenly I had an amp that sounded GOOD! Fucking changed everything because I could enjoy the sound I was making, not just the notes. First gear I got that made me think about my tone.

Heavy strings & picks. I'd always used light strings and fairly light picks, but then I got my jag, decided it needed heavy strings, and got some heavy picks to go with that, and everything sounds better.

90s MIJ Ibanez Atk - It was my first decent bass and I played at least 200 shows with it. As I improved as a player, I started to really like chordal patterns on bass, upper register stuff, droning open strings and then switching back to conventional playing. If I'd had a bass with a different tone a the time, I'd be a completely different player to what I am now.

Fulltone Bassdrive MOSFET - I'd tried cheap dirt pedals a few times and had generally prefered to just play harder when I wanted grind in my tone. The Fulltone sort of started the lightbulb off for me on how dirt could be used to make dynamic stuff sound great.

Old Peavey 4x12 cab - I went through a slap bass phase, I went through a metal phase, I dug primus for a while and that sort of stuff but my main hero was always Billy Gould from Faith No More. I was broke but spotted an ancient Peavey cab that must have weighed 100kgs. If Peavey was good enough for Billy, it was good enough for me. I loved that cab. It had a giant sweet spot and I discovered I could strum a bass tuned DADG and the Peavey would hold up and add overdrive in all of the right places. It was probably a combination of things but I've never found a 4x10 that comes close to the awesomeness of cabs using 12s. I currently use a Glockenklang 2x12 cab. 12s are my tone.

Turntables. I bought a cheap Numark Battle Pack thinking I was going to be a scratch dj. The eureka moment clicked when I just wanted to let the records play. The audio bug bit when I first heard how much life my favorite recordings suddenly had...as I grew up when the consensus knowledge was CDs had *the best sound* and I, too subscribed to that school of thought. Challenged just about everything I thought I knew about music.

Tube amps. About 6 months after getting the turntables and hunting for records I was given a salvaged Fisher integrated amp/receiver, and within weeks, came the Oliver bass amp I use to this day...from a childhood friend, to who I am eternally grateful. I had just begin to pick up a bass after borrowing another high school buddy's 4 string Yamaha. The records, CDs, tapes and even mp3s with the Fisher...and the bass with the Oliver; were the same gamechanging revelation that came with the turntables and vinyl. The huge sound...the life...I was hooked.

Ibanez AD9. Echoing what others have said, it was my first delay and showed me how effects could be instruments in themselves. Playing along with repeats is a fun and effective exercise in rhythm and timing. Dat swing. Anyone who plays bass should own at least 1 delay.

Ultex 2.0 picks- I used jazz III's for ages cos I like the tone and precision but I used to drop picks all the time and wear them down to nothing really quickly. Started using the 2.0's and it instantly just made playing so much more fluid and trouble-free, amazing how huge a difference something like a pick can make

Thin necks- I started out on squier/fender guitars and stayed away from ibanez/ESP etc just thinking that's what shred guitarists use, went to buy a new guitar thinking I'd get a jazzmaster/mustang/SG and walked out with a prestige RGA with a wizard neck, by far the most comfortable guitar I've ever played, still get offset GAS every now and then but I just can't see anything else being even remotely as playable

Tube amps- completely changed the way I approach dynamics in my playing, I rarely use dirt pedals now in favour of just playing harder/louder to get a more aggressive tone

What's it with the strings? I have always played a heavy gauge so I could not tell a difference, but what happened when you dudes started putting heavier strings on your guitars? I tarted with a heavy gauge, because I wanted to be a hard-ass.

Marshall JTM30 - My first better than decent amp, also my first amp to have a tube power section. Up until then, I had always had solid state amps with shitty distortion channels. The distortion channel on this amp is just as shitty, but I'll never forget the day I left it on the clean channel and just cranked the hell out of it. That saggy overdriven sound blew my fucking mind.

EHX NYC Big Muff (early 2000s) - My very first effect pedal, I bought it because I loved Ben Folds Five and Robert Sledge, and wanted to sound like him. It began my fuzz journey (and fx in general), and I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for it.

Rickenbacker 4001 - I only bought this thing about 6 months ago, and it has completely rearranged my musical direction and tastes. It used to be that I found the sound of bass without any fx to be really damned boring. This was the first bass that I ever played that sounded so mean and badass without any effects at all. It's made me realize that you can sound awesome without any fx, which I know is anathema around here. But it's made me question a lot of gear choices recently.

Dunlop jazz picks III .. everything else feels odd to me although I would like to try out those ultex 2.0 picks

Line 6 DL4, I've had mine for well over 5 years and I am in love with the looper for practicing and for playing live

Any guitar I've used honestly... right now I've been only playing my italia mondial sportster but suffice it to say I end up forming a silly emotional bond with the instrument.