… yep, hear that all the time. It’s almost up there with the meme of Jimi with the caption “Jimi plays without true bypass pedals and everyone still manages to enjoy his tone.

Those, amongst others, are the things guaranteed to make us roll our eyes and yawn. We’ve even had someone imply recently that professional guitar players don’t really need fingers.

So, let’s look at this properly. Let’s have a think about the guitar signal, its path, pedals and what is needed and what isn’t. Actually, let’s not. Let’s just remember this.

Guitar pedals are a tool that some people enjoy using. They are not essential. They are not invalid. They are a tool. Put it this way, if you were walking past a stone mason or carpenter working would you shout up to him “What you using that drill for bud, Christopher Wren didn’t need that when he designed and built St Paul’s Cathedral in 1675!” – I doubt you would, I doubt anyone would. Well, I hope no one would because basically, that would be a fraction silly.

We, as always, were having a discussion about this the other day. We’d seen many outrageous comments from certain people online and we were trying to contemplate it properly and we sort of came up with this. Guitar pedals are like a spice rack full of a wide range of spices. You sometimes pick on to make something a little better, you sometimes don’t. We, and I’m guessing others in our industry, feel that we do not expect your entire playing life to revolve around pedals, we just expect that there are times when you feel like the tone you are chasing is not quite right and there may be something out there to help you get it. It’s become more and more obvious over the years that more and more people are using pedals (helped that company’s like ours make pedals that sound really good these days, as previously, not many of them truly did) because they give you better tones, they give you more options. If you have a decent clean amp, spend a few hundred bucks on your favourite pedals and they will be able to transform that amp into any number of other amps. Your Marshall can become a Fender and your Fender can become a Marshall… or a Vox, or a Randall, or… or…. or…. Certainly easiler than having to buy a new amp every time you want to change your gain choices!

So, consider your base tone, the one you love more than anything, a nice juicy perfectly cook steak (apologies to the vegetarians out there, but this is the best way to describe it). Sometimes you want it straight up, nothing fancy, just as it comes. Other times you might want it to have some pepper on it, or pepper sauce… other times you might want the full cumin rub, or even mustard… you can have it any way you like.

Your pedal box IS your spice rack, and let’s face it, would you want to go to dinner repeatedly with a person who cooks in the same bland way every time? Sometimes it would be great, others…. Just boring.

Anyone know how Keef likes his steak?