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Saturday, June 3, 2017

How not to be a Stompbox Addict Part 1/3



Hello everyone and welcome to this week's article! 
Today we are publishing a new article done by our collaborator Edoardo del Principe, and it is a humoristic take on the issue of the "stompbox addiction".
I hope you like it!
Most of guitarists suffer a serious illness called “stompbox addiction” which causes tons of dollars wasted in boutique pedals with nice finishes and 40 knobs. Even the poorest guitarist with this addiction has at least 10 Behringer pedals just to have a big pedalboard. I have mercy for them and I don’t want new guitarists to fall into this sick world, therefore this is the guide to not fall into “pedals addiction”!
The first and more important step is “prevention”. To do that you need to understand who you are.
A young teenage guitarist which is studying guitar: your eyes are full of hope and you are already dreaming to play as Steve Vai but your tone sucks and your 15watt combo can’t help you. Your solution is a basic multi effect as the Boss ME25. It has a preamp section which is useful to play without any amp, just using the output “phones” and connecting your multieffect to your headphones you can practice for hours without being stricken by your mom’s slipper. The Boss ME25 has everything you need and connecting it to your pc and downloading specific softwares you can find literally hundres of patches to sounds like AC/DC, Metallica, Deep Purple etc with FEW CLICKS. Boss Tone Central is the software to control your presets and patches and it can give you a really good tone with no effort.
If you are not into all these stuff and you just want to practice maybe with your acustic guitar my best advice is the Boss RC 3. It’s a looper and is really useful to learn to play over a drum track, creating loops, learning solos etc. The Boss RC 3 is a really good machine for every beginner guitaist and you’ll improve just using it. I promise.
Someone called me to play in a band, I’ve got just the Boss Metal Zone: Stay calm and don’t panic. I know you don’t want to fight against feedbacks so before doing everything and going into pedal addiction you must know what you really need. Are you being called to play in Thrash Metal band or in a Folk Rock band? After this you maybe don’t know if you need a Flanger or a Fuzz, so, my advice is to buy a sort of “live pedalboard” as the Boss ME70, Line6 Pod Hd 500 or other similar stuff. You have full control about the pedal chain and full control about every pedal in the chain: you’ll be able to craft your own sound in detail. You can use it with an amp head just putting off the preamp section and you’re ready to play every music genre.
If you are in one of these two categories following my advices you can being immune to the “pedals addiction” because in you early years of activity you tried every freakin’ type of pedal in the world so you thirst of pedals is satifistied (for now).

I’m practicing with my band but I want a better tone: Pedals are not the solution to your problem. On Youtube you can find thousands of video about how to improve your sound without spending a dime Pedals are the last part of a long process of sound crafting which starts at the beginning with the choice of your instrument and your amplification. If you have saved money in your instruments and amplification to put them into peadals you are following the wrong path. In order to have the perfect tone in your mind you need first of all a good instrument and give it voice with an amplification, this is the core of your sound. Pedals are the icing on top of the a cake. You need the right pedals, but if your cake is made almost entirely of icing, your cake will sucks. 


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