Keeping it simple...

VJIves

I'm a pedal monster but ever since I got my Victory amp I regularly find myself turning the FX loop off and just playing. It's made me appreciate the wealth of different sounds I can get just through different blends of pick ups and volume.

...obviously pedals are still the best things ever, the more the better, and you'd have to pry the Count To Five from my cold, dead hands.

hotpickups

VJIves said:

I'm a pedal monster but ever since I got my Victory amp I regularly find myself turning the FX loop off and just playing. It's made me appreciate the wealth of different sounds I can get just through different blends of pick ups and volume.

...obviously pedals are still the best things ever, the more the better, and you'd have to pry the Count To Five from my cold, dead hands.

Precisely this for me too. I do like a few pedals but you can't beat the sound of a naturally overdriving amp

DulcetJones

I've been on both ends of this, and complicated it further by being a DIY builder.  At one point I was taking a distortion, phase shifter, flanger, delay and volume pedal on stage, along with a channel switch for the amp.  I've also tinkered with a ring modulator and a compressor.  I don't know how many distortion units i've bought or built.  Currently I use a volume pedal and one stomp box I made that has a clean volume boost, a distortion unit and a channel switch.  One amp channel is set with reverb and a touch of chorus, the other I keep experimenting with, tremolo, delay, octave divider, whatever I feel like that day.  I sometimes go to open jams and see other players show up with what looks like a suit case, they pop the lid to expose 10 or more pedals.  It looks like fun but not for me anymore.

Roland

hotpickups said:

.. does everyone go through a phase of trying various pedals ongoingly and then always going back to basics like guitar - amp - guitar volume knob? ... Sometimes I just feel I want to get rid of all the unnecessary stuff and bring it back to basics. 

For me simplicity has always been about minimising distraction when playing. So, for a performance viewpoint, I don't want too many options. I also don't want too many possible points of failure, which normally means batteries and patch cables. My answer has always been multi-effects.

A benefit of having it all in one box is that I don't need to buy and sell pedals. If I want to try a different wah sound then it's a simple configuration. For example, I have always run a Cry Baby, which works well for cleanish sounds. Last week I introduced a Coloursound for overdrive. Cost: zero. Time: 2 minutes, most of which was deciding between linear and log30 response curves.

Before I started with multiFX I had two pedals: wah and TS-9. At the outset it was useful to configure the multiFX to simulate the pedal. Soon after that I started to adjust the simulation, which was a lot quicker and cheaper than using a soldering iron, or buying more pedals. Over the years I've added five pedal emulations: chorus, tremolo, and reverb have general uses. Flanger and Detune are each used on one specific song.

Alnico said:

Just because there's a lot on tap doesn't mean I use it all, it's just there for if and when I want it and often each effect I do use is subtle ... I don't understand the often heard phrase "Option paralysis". To me it's just "Don't need anything else, it's all here if I want it".

I agree. Having all this stuff at your disposal doesn't mean that you have to use it all the time. Apart from a low level of small room reverb none of the "pedals" is permanently on. I normally use one guitar, and a couple of amp sounds and, when playing, use volume, tone and pickup controls more than I do the pedals.

ICBM

This is one reason I've gone back to using a Boss ME-50 - simplicity.

One unit, two cables, one power supply. (Which it doesn't even need, it can run on batteries if I want.)

No programming, it can behave like three pedals and a wah/volume, all with simple knob controls. (Or six, if you include the 'tone modify', compressor and reverb.)

It can go into either an amp or a PA, or even both at the same time, without fiddling with settings.

It's not dependent on any particular amp sound or volume - as long as I can get a full clean tone it will work fine.

It requires no thought or preparation to use really - plug it in, set it how you want, go.

viz

Volume is tone

timmysoft

I've always been a pretty simple player, me and fx don't really gel so my board is tiny.

ive struggled to find the right amp, but I think I'm firmly in the Mesa camp.

mattismetal

I've been trying to assemble a pedalboard, I've been looking at switchers, midi loops, all sorts.
Tonight, I went straight in the front of the clean channel of my Laney AOR with an MI Audio crunch box for all the gain and using the amps reverb. I set all the nobs at noon and used the tone control on the crunch box for eq. Sounded great.
If I had the super crunch box or any other pedal with umpteen nobs, I'd have spent half the evening farting about with them rather than playing and I doubt very much if it would have sounded any better. For me, the simpler things are, the more I play which can only be a good thing.

JonHosker

My pedal journey ended when...
I bought a Helix Lt.
Cured my endless pedal search.
Cash saved in the long run.
Happy boy!

simonk

JonHosker said:

My pedal journey ended when...
I bought a Helix Lt.
Cured my endless pedal search.
Cash saved in the long run.
Happy boy!

I thought you were selling it...