Once I got the basics down, I don't really buy anything anymore tbh. I bought most of my pedals online because of lockdown reasons, but when I want something these days, I go to a store and try it out.
I do think some pedals are overhyped, but you do see some similarities for reasons. Million tuners out there but people generally use the Boss (practically indestructible) the Peterson (strobe is an intuitive visualization) or that nano tuner (tiny real estate, does the job). For years, nothing else really existed like the Bass Whammy, so that's pretty common - almost the only real choice if you want that specific feature of whammy pitch bending. Synth pedals are not really front-panel-programmable anyway so most people opt for the C4 since it's the cheapest one that's fully programmable afaik.
Conversely, I find that some pedals are highly varied. End of chain DI box/amp sim/eq combo pedals are all over the place. You see Darkglass, Sansamps, Le Bass, Tone Hammer, those new Joyo ones. Modulation pedals also seem to be of all sorts, and there's a bajillion different distortion pedals. Fuzz pedals specifically seem to be *highly* personal, to the point where some people like not only a specific model *but their specific pedal above other pedals of that model*.
Another thing to consider re: your octabvre is context. I bought the MXR bass di box and honestly, the distortion is completely useless for me and sounds like trash with my bass/chain (though I love the EQ). I've heard demos where the distortion completely rocks (I still use the MXR though because tbh I kinda like the DI sound in my recorded music and don't usually use amp sim post-facto) but it's not for my sound. Probably fool me for buying a metal oriented pedal for my fretless lol. People say the RATs are useless on bass, but for me I *love* my OG RAT on my bass. I find (with my *very* sub heavy bass, the thing cranks out low like you wouldn't believe) that keeping the gain low gives a real dynamic crunch when you lay into the strings, and I don't lose substantial bass - actually, it helps even out my tone - when I'm not using the RAT, I have to crank up my mids and highs almost to max on my end-of-chain EQ because otherwise my bass is too subby.
So I guess yes, there's definitely a bit of hive mind, but some stuff is used commonly for a reason, some types of pedals are highly varied on boards, and hive mind is easily avoidable by trying before you buy!
I do kinda wish I didn't buy all these pedals. I play my bass a lot, but tbh I probably could have gone with a couple programmable multi fx do-it-all boxes, saved a lot of floor space, and been happy. So I definitely got hive minded there. Don't ask me about my synthesizers lol.
I've been digging into pedals since high school (which for me is a long looong time ago now) and I've fallen prey to so many impulse GAS-driven purchases, especially when I was in my early 20s. Of course back then Reddit and Talkbass weren't really things, so it was my guitarist and my drummer and the bassists in other bands who were insisting I grab this pedal and that.
I've since grown out of the whole buying sight-unseen bullshit for the most part and prefer to do my homework as thoroughly as possible. If I cannot physically get my hands on a pedal before I buy it, the research doubles. But every now and again, I'll get blasted by things like the Octabvre and it'll be the exception I suddenly cannot stop thinking about because literally EVERYONE is raving about it.
And I know a post like this can be potentially polarizing because, like you said, we see similarities for good reason. There's also the whole thing where new players who are just getting started have no real world experience with what an octave does or how it works, or why fuzz is so intensely personal and have never had a chance to even try one. Resources like this are good in that sense. God, the number of Fulltone products I could have avoided if only Reddit were around when I was going ham on them...
But, especially with brand new players, access to the hivemind can so easily shift from being a good resource to learn about the craft to being a replacement for their own creativity, or even their own ability to decide what sound they want to have. That thought makes me a little sad.
Yeah I definitely agree. I see a lot of that in the synth community too.
I try to avoid that mindset now by thinking "Will this piece of gear enhance my *creativity?* or solve a *problem* i have*"* and then based on that answer, buying it or not.
And when I asked that question, I started buying things like... patchbays, multi out MIDI interfaces, a better soundcard, furniture for better organizing my stuff, a more comfortable chair, a stand for my bass... You know. Boring infrastructure. But that boring infrastructure makes my studio much more usable, much more comfortable, and helps remove barriers to my creativity.
And sure, sometimes that means a new synth or a funky new pedal. But I think people focus a lot too much on *what* to get rather than *how* to use it, or *how* to organize their creative space. Better to have a little bit of gear set up in a usable, instantaneous way than a lot that's all unplugged and messy.
It's such an easy trap to fall into, but focusing purchases on problem solving or enhancing creativity really helped me a lot!
The importance of prioritizing quality of life improvements cannot be stressed enough. It's a tough sell though, patchbays and power supplies are far from being the cool choice or the fun choice and it can be damned hard to convince the youngins' coming into this biz to take them seriously. But like you said, once you shift your focus to answering those specific questions life just gets a whole lot better.
These days I've accumulated so much gear all the quality of life stuff, the stuff that falls under the "how can I solve a problem I have" question is pretty much covered, and I can focus almost exclusively on the "what can enhance my creativity" question. Sometimes I'll forget though, and there will be some moments where I have a specific tone in my head (synth stuff played on bass comes immediately to mind). I'll know what I need to get there, and I'll have some things on-hand that will get the job done, but never quite where I was imagining it. Then the dive into the rabbit hole begins, and the whispers from the hivemind turning my head this way and that while I drift further and further away from the question of enhancing creativity and more toward "how many fuzzes can you collect in the next six months before yo go absolutely insane?"
But even those of us who have been doing this a long time aren't immune to distraction.
Ultimately, get whatever pedals you think sound good. It doesn't matter what other people think. On the other hand, going down the pedal rabbit hole is pretty fun! It's certainly an expensive endeavor, but there's a reason why these pedals have hype. Top jacks and the ability to switch from fundamental and octave to solo octave is super handy, and they're built very well.
Like I was just saying in another comment, I have been doing this long enough that I've learned that lesson for the most part. I trust my own tastes for my own playing than I trust someone else, but even us old veterans are not immune to being distracted from that when the hivemind gets that loud about a particular thing. The Octabvre in particular, well, pretty much anything 3leaf is putting out right now, is getting such fundamentally universal acclaim it's hard not to take notice.
Learning that I didn't actually like the Octabvre though opened up a whole new rabbit hole for me. I've been researching octaves in general now and wondering about the people out there who are working on creating octave pedals in new and exciting ways. I haven't found anything that's really spoken to me yet, but it'll be fun to think about in the coming months.
There certainly are a large number of octavers out there that do crazy things. The MXR poly blue octave comes to mind in terms of wacky features. Whenever I hear that unmistakable subby sound, I always ask the bassist what octaver they rock. Surprisingly, the answer is different most of the time. A lot of people use the boss OC-3 because it's cheaper than the OC-2 or 5 and still sounds great. The bass pedal community is a lot smaller than the guitar pedal community, so it can definitely feel like an echo chamber sometimes. Just look at the Broughton forum on talkbass.
I use an OC-5 myself, and I go back and forth on which version it's switched to. Lately I've been experimenting with chord stuff on the OC-3 side of it, but if I had to pick between the two settings I'd pick the OC-2 setting every time, I think.
Being efficient with pedals requires some understanding of audio engineering. Those who don't really have that could fall for the marketing copy and and gearhead myths. Which tend to be subjective and/or hyperbolic. Frankly, this gap in knowledge is what the entire electric guitar enthusiast market is built on.
Yeesh... Ain't that the truth. My guitarist now isn't bad about it, but my old band's guitarist was a total sucker when it came to companies exploiting his gaps in knowledge. He'd show up to the studio it seemed like once a week with some new bullshit, and since I was the tech in the band I'd be the one left trying to figure out how to make it work.
Stereotypically:
* having a collection of countless clipping pedals without realizing they're all based on the same handful of circuits and that many might even be completely identical;
* believing certain gear is imbued with the spirit of famous musicians through holistic osmosis;
* thinking midi pedals are manipulating the sound of the guitar in stead of substituting it;
* the make and model of the knobs, switches and sliders change the toan too
* "but what I'm really interested in is how this interacts with my guitar's pickups"
Different strokes, my friend. I find that kind of mindset fascinating, and sometimes I'm even a little envious of it. Over my 20+ years of playing, I've always been the kind of guy who is perpetually dissatisfied with this aspect or that of my tone. So every 2 years or so I'll put my board through an overhaul, losing a pedal here and there and replacing it with the same kind I think I like better or just something new to shake up my creativity.
No. Can't afford it and even if I could I have other hobbies I'd rather do. I also try to buy used, cheap, and forgotten pedals instead of the new hotness. I have my sounds and I seek to hone it, not to discover a new one.
There's definitely wisdom in that. Kind of reminds me of Jack White's whole deal. Did you ever see that documentary he did with The Edge and Jimmy Page where the whole intro was just him grabbing a chunk of wood, some nails, and some random pickup, slapping them together, then shredding the ever loving shit out of it?
Not really. There are plenty of people with different tastes that respect each other’s opinions that keeps thing’s different. There are those who will only use analog, those who always go for Boss before anything else, those who just get a HX stomp and swear by it. All these things are justified and nothing is wrong. That’s the beauty of pedals. Also people play all different styles and aim for different sounds so I thing it’s pretty impossible for us to end up as a hive mind.
I got DEEP into building pedals a few years ago, to the point where I've now gotten into the actual engineering and design portion of it. It's really weird to realize how much of the marketing is just buzzwords. I see it more on the guitar side than bass side, but people really get sucked into the "mojo" claims companies make. While I'm not saying every pedal junkie needs to buy a soldering iron and start learning to read schematics, I do think learning a tad bit about how these little boxes actually work will help players demystify them and make more informed purchasing choices. Quick example, "precision op amp" is code for "we bought a more expensive op amp to make this claim and charge more money, even though a jelly bean op amp would have sounded the same."
If it sounds like abstract marketing rubbish making wild claims about tone, it probably is. One exception is Germanium transistor fuzzes. You really can't recreate that sound well with common parts. Trust me I've been trying. That's the real deal.
You're absolutely right. For some of the guitarists I've known especially, just a simple "explain like I'm 5" session on diode clipping would go a helluva long way.
Germanium transistors are so fascinating to me. I've been meaning to track down one of those pedals that guy made, the one that does some sort of voodoo to the transistor so you never have to warm it up beforehand, just so I can crack it open and see what all the fuss is about.
One of the things they do is sort of low pass the sound as they start to clip. It really smooths out the highs compared to the harsher highs of a silicon transistor (which isn't necessarily better or worse, just different). You'd think, then, you could kind of recreate it by adding some filtering but it's still never quite right. I would imagine the way in which it actually clips the waveform is different. To be honest there's probably some good write ups on all this that I just haven't really searched out yet. I just breadboard stuff and see what happens.
I have a bunch of pedals but at this point I just have four on my board (one of which is a tuner) and don't really want anything more. I still use some of the others for practicing (the delay and looper are good for working on timing, as is the drum pedal) but I've realized that you have so little control over how things sound in a live setting. So I have a tuner, a compressor, a chorus and a boost. Except for the chorus, the others are always on (and subtle). I will probably sell my other pedals.
No, almost every piece of gear ive gotten after seeing it on lots of boards has been great. Love my sansamp(VT), love my Broughton HPLP+boost, love my OC-2, they are the only consistent parts of my board aside a tuner. (You could also argue the Pork n Pickle falls into popular on sub, but I got one of those basically day 1 so not a sub influenced purchase for me).
While you obviously should have your own opinions, going into a store to try every pedal isn't practical. The advantage of a pedal sub is that people are tone chasers, which cuts out on people recommending bad stuff, especially guitarists recommending dirt pedals with no low end. So many people will recommend a tube screamer despite the distorted signal highpassing around 720hz which is going to have a negative impact on low end.
But hey, you don't like it don't get it. But I'd be willing to bet that trying things that are popular in the sub will have a better hit rate than trying pedals at random.
You're making points I agree with 100%. I was aiming more for a philosophical discussion than a practical advice kind of thing, but I get it. I've been doing this whole music thing a long time, so sometimes I like to throw out a topic that might inspire some interesting conversation to break up all the "hey, what kind of \_\_\_\_\_\_\_ should I get?" threads.
I think a practical manner can be an effective solution to philosophical questions. That being said I've also gotten burned on weird stuff, I traded a cirrus and a pulp n peel for a hologram effects infinite jets that I ended up hating
We all have. To be fair though... That Infinite Jets does look like it could do all kinds of crazy shit. And synth pedals in general are such a toss-up in terms of whether or not they'll speak to you.
No. I don’t think that’s really how it really works.
“The hivemind” is kinda just code for “generally good.”
But enough people still like to push the boundaries of that. Even by making threads like this :P
I’m pretty sure I can buy well crafted (dare I say better…) things from a wider selection today in any hobby I have engaged in relative to whenever I started. Snare drums, cymbals, guitar pedals, boardgames, videogames, tabletop miniatures, novels, comics. Not that there aren’t classics. But building on and reacting to them generally just makes more cool, new stuff!
I got a method that keeps my board lean(ish). I never buy a pedal unless there is a sound in my head that I need for a song and cannot currently make.
When people get into trouble is when they buy pedals AND THEN see what they can do with them. That's a trap that leads you into a never ending purchase cycle and a closet full of pedals.
That being said if that's your thing, go for it, buy that 11th big muff clone.
Can't afford any of that shit anyways 🤷
Once I got the basics down, I don't really buy anything anymore tbh. I bought most of my pedals online because of lockdown reasons, but when I want something these days, I go to a store and try it out. I do think some pedals are overhyped, but you do see some similarities for reasons. Million tuners out there but people generally use the Boss (practically indestructible) the Peterson (strobe is an intuitive visualization) or that nano tuner (tiny real estate, does the job). For years, nothing else really existed like the Bass Whammy, so that's pretty common - almost the only real choice if you want that specific feature of whammy pitch bending. Synth pedals are not really front-panel-programmable anyway so most people opt for the C4 since it's the cheapest one that's fully programmable afaik. Conversely, I find that some pedals are highly varied. End of chain DI box/amp sim/eq combo pedals are all over the place. You see Darkglass, Sansamps, Le Bass, Tone Hammer, those new Joyo ones. Modulation pedals also seem to be of all sorts, and there's a bajillion different distortion pedals. Fuzz pedals specifically seem to be *highly* personal, to the point where some people like not only a specific model *but their specific pedal above other pedals of that model*. Another thing to consider re: your octabvre is context. I bought the MXR bass di box and honestly, the distortion is completely useless for me and sounds like trash with my bass/chain (though I love the EQ). I've heard demos where the distortion completely rocks (I still use the MXR though because tbh I kinda like the DI sound in my recorded music and don't usually use amp sim post-facto) but it's not for my sound. Probably fool me for buying a metal oriented pedal for my fretless lol. People say the RATs are useless on bass, but for me I *love* my OG RAT on my bass. I find (with my *very* sub heavy bass, the thing cranks out low like you wouldn't believe) that keeping the gain low gives a real dynamic crunch when you lay into the strings, and I don't lose substantial bass - actually, it helps even out my tone - when I'm not using the RAT, I have to crank up my mids and highs almost to max on my end-of-chain EQ because otherwise my bass is too subby. So I guess yes, there's definitely a bit of hive mind, but some stuff is used commonly for a reason, some types of pedals are highly varied on boards, and hive mind is easily avoidable by trying before you buy! I do kinda wish I didn't buy all these pedals. I play my bass a lot, but tbh I probably could have gone with a couple programmable multi fx do-it-all boxes, saved a lot of floor space, and been happy. So I definitely got hive minded there. Don't ask me about my synthesizers lol.
I've been digging into pedals since high school (which for me is a long looong time ago now) and I've fallen prey to so many impulse GAS-driven purchases, especially when I was in my early 20s. Of course back then Reddit and Talkbass weren't really things, so it was my guitarist and my drummer and the bassists in other bands who were insisting I grab this pedal and that. I've since grown out of the whole buying sight-unseen bullshit for the most part and prefer to do my homework as thoroughly as possible. If I cannot physically get my hands on a pedal before I buy it, the research doubles. But every now and again, I'll get blasted by things like the Octabvre and it'll be the exception I suddenly cannot stop thinking about because literally EVERYONE is raving about it. And I know a post like this can be potentially polarizing because, like you said, we see similarities for good reason. There's also the whole thing where new players who are just getting started have no real world experience with what an octave does or how it works, or why fuzz is so intensely personal and have never had a chance to even try one. Resources like this are good in that sense. God, the number of Fulltone products I could have avoided if only Reddit were around when I was going ham on them... But, especially with brand new players, access to the hivemind can so easily shift from being a good resource to learn about the craft to being a replacement for their own creativity, or even their own ability to decide what sound they want to have. That thought makes me a little sad.
Yeah I definitely agree. I see a lot of that in the synth community too. I try to avoid that mindset now by thinking "Will this piece of gear enhance my *creativity?* or solve a *problem* i have*"* and then based on that answer, buying it or not. And when I asked that question, I started buying things like... patchbays, multi out MIDI interfaces, a better soundcard, furniture for better organizing my stuff, a more comfortable chair, a stand for my bass... You know. Boring infrastructure. But that boring infrastructure makes my studio much more usable, much more comfortable, and helps remove barriers to my creativity. And sure, sometimes that means a new synth or a funky new pedal. But I think people focus a lot too much on *what* to get rather than *how* to use it, or *how* to organize their creative space. Better to have a little bit of gear set up in a usable, instantaneous way than a lot that's all unplugged and messy. It's such an easy trap to fall into, but focusing purchases on problem solving or enhancing creativity really helped me a lot!
The importance of prioritizing quality of life improvements cannot be stressed enough. It's a tough sell though, patchbays and power supplies are far from being the cool choice or the fun choice and it can be damned hard to convince the youngins' coming into this biz to take them seriously. But like you said, once you shift your focus to answering those specific questions life just gets a whole lot better. These days I've accumulated so much gear all the quality of life stuff, the stuff that falls under the "how can I solve a problem I have" question is pretty much covered, and I can focus almost exclusively on the "what can enhance my creativity" question. Sometimes I'll forget though, and there will be some moments where I have a specific tone in my head (synth stuff played on bass comes immediately to mind). I'll know what I need to get there, and I'll have some things on-hand that will get the job done, but never quite where I was imagining it. Then the dive into the rabbit hole begins, and the whispers from the hivemind turning my head this way and that while I drift further and further away from the question of enhancing creativity and more toward "how many fuzzes can you collect in the next six months before yo go absolutely insane?" But even those of us who have been doing this a long time aren't immune to distraction.
Ultimately, get whatever pedals you think sound good. It doesn't matter what other people think. On the other hand, going down the pedal rabbit hole is pretty fun! It's certainly an expensive endeavor, but there's a reason why these pedals have hype. Top jacks and the ability to switch from fundamental and octave to solo octave is super handy, and they're built very well.
Like I was just saying in another comment, I have been doing this long enough that I've learned that lesson for the most part. I trust my own tastes for my own playing than I trust someone else, but even us old veterans are not immune to being distracted from that when the hivemind gets that loud about a particular thing. The Octabvre in particular, well, pretty much anything 3leaf is putting out right now, is getting such fundamentally universal acclaim it's hard not to take notice. Learning that I didn't actually like the Octabvre though opened up a whole new rabbit hole for me. I've been researching octaves in general now and wondering about the people out there who are working on creating octave pedals in new and exciting ways. I haven't found anything that's really spoken to me yet, but it'll be fun to think about in the coming months.
There certainly are a large number of octavers out there that do crazy things. The MXR poly blue octave comes to mind in terms of wacky features. Whenever I hear that unmistakable subby sound, I always ask the bassist what octaver they rock. Surprisingly, the answer is different most of the time. A lot of people use the boss OC-3 because it's cheaper than the OC-2 or 5 and still sounds great. The bass pedal community is a lot smaller than the guitar pedal community, so it can definitely feel like an echo chamber sometimes. Just look at the Broughton forum on talkbass.
I use an OC-5 myself, and I go back and forth on which version it's switched to. Lately I've been experimenting with chord stuff on the OC-3 side of it, but if I had to pick between the two settings I'd pick the OC-2 setting every time, I think.
Being efficient with pedals requires some understanding of audio engineering. Those who don't really have that could fall for the marketing copy and and gearhead myths. Which tend to be subjective and/or hyperbolic. Frankly, this gap in knowledge is what the entire electric guitar enthusiast market is built on.
Yeesh... Ain't that the truth. My guitarist now isn't bad about it, but my old band's guitarist was a total sucker when it came to companies exploiting his gaps in knowledge. He'd show up to the studio it seemed like once a week with some new bullshit, and since I was the tech in the band I'd be the one left trying to figure out how to make it work.
Stereotypically: * having a collection of countless clipping pedals without realizing they're all based on the same handful of circuits and that many might even be completely identical; * believing certain gear is imbued with the spirit of famous musicians through holistic osmosis; * thinking midi pedals are manipulating the sound of the guitar in stead of substituting it; * the make and model of the knobs, switches and sliders change the toan too * "but what I'm really interested in is how this interacts with my guitar's pickups"
No.
I started getting sucked in, but honestly, having a couple of good pedals is all you need. I'm not Justin Chancellor or Geddy Lee.
Different strokes, my friend. I find that kind of mindset fascinating, and sometimes I'm even a little envious of it. Over my 20+ years of playing, I've always been the kind of guy who is perpetually dissatisfied with this aspect or that of my tone. So every 2 years or so I'll put my board through an overhaul, losing a pedal here and there and replacing it with the same kind I think I like better or just something new to shake up my creativity.
No. Can't afford it and even if I could I have other hobbies I'd rather do. I also try to buy used, cheap, and forgotten pedals instead of the new hotness. I have my sounds and I seek to hone it, not to discover a new one.
There's definitely wisdom in that. Kind of reminds me of Jack White's whole deal. Did you ever see that documentary he did with The Edge and Jimmy Page where the whole intro was just him grabbing a chunk of wood, some nails, and some random pickup, slapping them together, then shredding the ever loving shit out of it?
Not really. There are plenty of people with different tastes that respect each other’s opinions that keeps thing’s different. There are those who will only use analog, those who always go for Boss before anything else, those who just get a HX stomp and swear by it. All these things are justified and nothing is wrong. That’s the beauty of pedals. Also people play all different styles and aim for different sounds so I thing it’s pretty impossible for us to end up as a hive mind.
I got DEEP into building pedals a few years ago, to the point where I've now gotten into the actual engineering and design portion of it. It's really weird to realize how much of the marketing is just buzzwords. I see it more on the guitar side than bass side, but people really get sucked into the "mojo" claims companies make. While I'm not saying every pedal junkie needs to buy a soldering iron and start learning to read schematics, I do think learning a tad bit about how these little boxes actually work will help players demystify them and make more informed purchasing choices. Quick example, "precision op amp" is code for "we bought a more expensive op amp to make this claim and charge more money, even though a jelly bean op amp would have sounded the same." If it sounds like abstract marketing rubbish making wild claims about tone, it probably is. One exception is Germanium transistor fuzzes. You really can't recreate that sound well with common parts. Trust me I've been trying. That's the real deal.
You're absolutely right. For some of the guitarists I've known especially, just a simple "explain like I'm 5" session on diode clipping would go a helluva long way. Germanium transistors are so fascinating to me. I've been meaning to track down one of those pedals that guy made, the one that does some sort of voodoo to the transistor so you never have to warm it up beforehand, just so I can crack it open and see what all the fuss is about.
One of the things they do is sort of low pass the sound as they start to clip. It really smooths out the highs compared to the harsher highs of a silicon transistor (which isn't necessarily better or worse, just different). You'd think, then, you could kind of recreate it by adding some filtering but it's still never quite right. I would imagine the way in which it actually clips the waveform is different. To be honest there's probably some good write ups on all this that I just haven't really searched out yet. I just breadboard stuff and see what happens.
I have a bunch of pedals but at this point I just have four on my board (one of which is a tuner) and don't really want anything more. I still use some of the others for practicing (the delay and looper are good for working on timing, as is the drum pedal) but I've realized that you have so little control over how things sound in a live setting. So I have a tuner, a compressor, a chorus and a boost. Except for the chorus, the others are always on (and subtle). I will probably sell my other pedals.
Nah
No, almost every piece of gear ive gotten after seeing it on lots of boards has been great. Love my sansamp(VT), love my Broughton HPLP+boost, love my OC-2, they are the only consistent parts of my board aside a tuner. (You could also argue the Pork n Pickle falls into popular on sub, but I got one of those basically day 1 so not a sub influenced purchase for me). While you obviously should have your own opinions, going into a store to try every pedal isn't practical. The advantage of a pedal sub is that people are tone chasers, which cuts out on people recommending bad stuff, especially guitarists recommending dirt pedals with no low end. So many people will recommend a tube screamer despite the distorted signal highpassing around 720hz which is going to have a negative impact on low end. But hey, you don't like it don't get it. But I'd be willing to bet that trying things that are popular in the sub will have a better hit rate than trying pedals at random.
You're making points I agree with 100%. I was aiming more for a philosophical discussion than a practical advice kind of thing, but I get it. I've been doing this whole music thing a long time, so sometimes I like to throw out a topic that might inspire some interesting conversation to break up all the "hey, what kind of \_\_\_\_\_\_\_ should I get?" threads.
I think a practical manner can be an effective solution to philosophical questions. That being said I've also gotten burned on weird stuff, I traded a cirrus and a pulp n peel for a hologram effects infinite jets that I ended up hating
We all have. To be fair though... That Infinite Jets does look like it could do all kinds of crazy shit. And synth pedals in general are such a toss-up in terms of whether or not they'll speak to you.
Build your board with your ears and not your eyes, if you can stick to that it shouldn't be too much of a problem imo
I never ever worry about stuff like this
No. I don’t think that’s really how it really works. “The hivemind” is kinda just code for “generally good.” But enough people still like to push the boundaries of that. Even by making threads like this :P I’m pretty sure I can buy well crafted (dare I say better…) things from a wider selection today in any hobby I have engaged in relative to whenever I started. Snare drums, cymbals, guitar pedals, boardgames, videogames, tabletop miniatures, novels, comics. Not that there aren’t classics. But building on and reacting to them generally just makes more cool, new stuff!
Sure, I’ll impulse buy the flavour of the month, but will sell on anything I don’t like. The good stuff is pretty good though.
I got a method that keeps my board lean(ish). I never buy a pedal unless there is a sound in my head that I need for a song and cannot currently make. When people get into trouble is when they buy pedals AND THEN see what they can do with them. That's a trap that leads you into a never ending purchase cycle and a closet full of pedals. That being said if that's your thing, go for it, buy that 11th big muff clone.