Collecting, Hoarding, and Minimalism

I was just having a conversation today with a good friend of mine, about whether or not he should sell one of his nice bass heads or not.  He has a two very nice bass heads, but he tends to prefer the sound of one over the other, therefore one gathers dust.  We've actually had this same conversation three times this week, and each time I gave him three different answers.  The first time, my gut reaction told him "Keep it!  You'll regret selling it later!".  The second time I told him, "Sell it, but only if you're using the dough to buy something you really want.".  And just now I told him, "If it has been sitting around, you may as well get rid of it.".  His situation never changed, I'm apparently just bipolar, er... tripolar.

After thinking it over, I've come to the realization that aside from being insane, I am equal parts hoarder, collector, and minimalist.  Doesn't make sense does it?  But it does.  I don't see each of those characteristics in a linear fashion, where one eventually evolves into the next.  I merely see different means to an end goal.

Hoarding

Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top is fabled to have an enormous collection of guitars, numbering (most likely) in the thousands.  Last year I watched a ZZ Top's Premier Guitar Rig Rundown with Billy's Guitar Tech Elwood Francis.  One comment that was made was "We don't change guitars nightly, we change a round of guitars a couple times a year..." Which means getting 7 and 8 brand new guitars from Gibson/Gretsch, and sending the old models to a storage facility.  Then Elwood goes on to say (16:15 in the video) "...just in ZZ Headquarters in Houston, over 12 years ago just in stage guitars, I counted over 450 guitars".  450 guitars... what the hell.  Jeff Tweedy is the same way.  I was the same way.  I use to keep every gadget I ever bought, and was picking up cool pedals on a regular basis.  I had some weird satisfaction knowing that when I returned to my mancave, I'd have 4 different versions of a Proco Rat awaiting me.  They all sounded awesome and slightly different.  Each little stomp or weird guitar carved out a little niche.

Why did I do it?  The ultimate goal was that if I kept this junk, someday I'll need that one sound for a recording/song.  It's not a bad thing, I suppose, and most people who hoard end up making a small studio out of it.  I just ran out of money.  I also was not getting any better at guitar, because I was too busy playing with all my toys.  But I get distracted easily.  Not everyone's like that.  My uncle has over 40 guitars and he gigs way more and writes better songs than I do.

Minimalism

If you're a semi-regular reader of my blog, I probably come off as a minimalist.  Yes to a certain extent, but I've still got plenty of shit at my house, so I wouldn't say that I'm a true minimalist.  However, I can greatly appreciate qualities of minimalism, especially on a gigging guitar rig:

1. More reliable.  Less patch cables.  Less shit to go wrong.
2. Less weight, size, and floor space.  Crap like that matters when you're loading a van, playing small stage, or being 25 years old with the back of a 75 year old brick layer.  
3. More focus on playing.  Less distraction with stomping correct pedals on.  I can't hide behind FX.

There was a certain time where I took minimalism super seriously, and sold everything except maybe 5 stompboxes, 2 guitars, and one amp.  Fucking stupid.  I sold off a bunch of stuff that I actually did enjoy, and ended up buying some of it back at a loss.  I did it to focus more on my playing, which was a success.  I learned how to read sheet music during this time, and I developed a healthy practice routine.  But in the end, I just got bored.  It's like having a paint brush, and only letting yourself use primary colors.  

Collecting

I think there's a nice middle ground between hoarding and minimalism, and I simply call it collecting.  I like what I like.  And I like sounding like me.  I enjoy having my 3 Moogerfoogers and getting crazy fucked up sounds when I record.  But when I play out with my electric rig, I tailor my pedalboard to the set.  It usually ends up being 4 -5 pedals, with maybe one fun one thrown in for me to play with.  I've filled in for a friends on acoustic guitar at churches, and the other guitarist showed up with a massive pedalboard.  I watched him play the same boring U2 licks/volume swells, and he just moved a capo around when the key changed.  I even had to explain to him how to add a 7th to a chord, and trust me, I'm not that theory savvy.  That's just silly.  

So I've got a nice little collection.  I play all my gear, all the time.  I don't really keep niche items around anymore.  If I can't swap it out and dial in a bunch of cool sounds to generate ideas, it usually doesn't last very long at my house.  I call it my 6 month rule.  If I haven't used it for 6 months, it gets moved to the chopping/trading block.  I'd much rather sell that stuff off and have a few extra dollars in savings.  Then when a guitar/amp/mic/whatever shows up for a great deal I can afford it.  I can think of at least 2-3 dream guitars that have slipped through my fingers, because I didn't have the cash and I couldn't sell my extra crap off in time.  Also to help curb my insatiable hunger for buying guitars, I've established a rule with myself where I can only buy one guitar a year.  A year is a long time.  It makes me really think about what I really want to get.  If I get a guitar, and I find myself wanting something different even more, then I probably didn't want the other guitar in the first place.  That Guild S-100 I kept promising pictures of is a good example.  It had a cool vibe and was a fun restoration project, but it held me back from getting a Rickenbacker I have been drooling over for years.  Now I have the Ric, and I'm much more satisfied.

YMMV.

-  Stonewall

Finally, a Stonewall Pedalboard Rundown

Hello all!

Rather than write another smug blog post today, I thought I'd post my most recent pedalboard photo, with a little explanation of my rig as of now.  Like many silly people, I used to tote around a much larger board than needed, complete with a multi FX spaceship for wiggly underwater sounds.  But I've learned, the more crap you bring with you the more things can go wrong.  I will leave those topics for future posts, I digress.  Feel free to chime in with any recommendations,tips, or lessons learned!

I made it a point about a year ago to buy a PT Jr. with the intention of never going larger than the space the Jr. would allow.  This way, I had to truly decide if I was actually using something or not, and if it was really worth bringing to a gig.  95% of the time my signal chain is solely Tuner>Octafuzz>RC Booster>DM3.  The Octafuzz may get swapped for my Tall Font Russian (Green Muff clone) if I'm feeling a little more "muffy" on a given day, but it is a rare occurrence.  I've been through a number of pedals throughout my musical career, so I used to have quite a habit of constantly swapping things out.  The reason why these four pedals have stuck is because they sound good no matter which axe I'm playing.  It may sound obvious or silly, but if you haven't figured it out, some pedals sound like total crap with guitar X, but sounds spectacular with guitar Y.  Being a minimalist, I don't want to have to tote 3 extra overdrive pedals around because each one only sounds good with one guitars.  I will now provide you with a quick synopsis of how I use them in my rig, in the order of the signal flow.  I play a Tele, Gibson 339, Jaguar, Baritone Tele, and a Guild S-100.  I run everything through an Orange Rockerverb 50, using both channels.  EQ fairly flat with a slight mid boost.  Clean is clean.  Dirty channel is a little past the point of breakup.  Sometimes (but rarely) I run in stereo with an AC30, set to a similar sound to the Dirty Orange channel.  Volume knob to clean up.

Tuner:  I have no brand preference on this.  As long as it works, and doesn't suck my signal dry it works for me.  I much prefer a tuner that has a "Strobe" feature, which is a more accurate way to tune.  The "Poly" function on this tuner is nice, but I don't use it often.  However, I've been in a situation where I know I'm out of tune, have four seconds to figure out which string is unruly, and fix it before a lead phrase comes up.  I will say that using the "Poly" function as your sole tuning method is not a good idea.  Even though I've had everything "in tune", it clearly wasn't the case.

Moog Murf:  I can't really even describe in words what this pedal does.  Long story short, each of those sliders is a different filter and you can select 12 different patterns for the filters.  By flipping the LFO switch, you can reverse the pattern that you have selected.  I use this as my "modulation" on my board.  I can get a cool choppy tremolo, phasery/vibey swirly sounds, and arpeggiator-esque sounds (minus pitch modulation).  To be honest, it doesn't really do any of those in a "traditional sense" and that's why I love it.  It has a "Drive" knob so you can add some analog distortion to the sounds to make them even weirder.  I have no quarrel with bending over and changing the settings on a pedal, so I don't need a modulation spaceship with presets.  There really aren't any good videos that do this pedal justice out right now.  I hope to maybe make one someday (but it'll never happen).  This is the best one, which actually wasn't released very long ago by Moog themselves.  Just wait for the Murf segment to hear it.  I do also have a Moog Ring Mod that I love dearly and sometimes that will replace the Murf on the board.  The Moog pedals have built in buffers so I have it at the beginning of my board, and the DM3's buffer at the end of the board.

Micro POG:  Here's another weird pedal.  I actually use it quite a bit, and it tracks quite well.  The POG stuff is discussed quite a bit so I won't get into much detail.  I primarily use it for a Bass Octave, Octave up-esque sound, and B3 organ when combined with the Murf.  I never run the octave settings past 1 or 2 o' clock because it can start sounding a bit cheesy.  I used to have both a HOG and a POG2, but I settled on the Micro POG for my needs.  The HOG was just way too weird.  The POG2 was nice, but it was way too large, and I was really only using it for stuff the Micro POG could cover.  It's a good way to catch someone's attention with a lick.  It's also not like a Whammy or even the HOG where you write a song around a lick you made with this pedal.  You can actually turn it on and it sounds cool just over some playing.  I like to play Leo Nocentelli (The Meters) riffs with this.

Ghost Echo:  I own an EHX Cathedral that I was using fairly regularly.  But since it's such a large pedal and it can suck some signal, I've been starting to experiment with this Eartquaker reverb.  I normally put a reverb at the end of my chain, but this unit doesn't have much headroom so I have to put it before my boosts.  I don't use much reverb, but I don't like walking over to the amp to turn it up or down.  It's pretty extreme, so I keep the settings low.  Like it's name implies it has some slapback qualities if you dial it in right.  You could probably use it as a really short delay if you wanted.  I have been enjoying it, so it'll stay (for now).

Octafuzz:  I actually rarely use the "Octa" setting on the toggle switch.  The "Fuzz" is just nasty.  Mike Fuller could seriously just make the "Fuzz" side of this pedal and I would buy it.  It sounds HUGE into the clean channel of my Orange.  You can also get this really fantastic gated sound into the dirty channel.  I love this fuzz because it sounds epic whether I'm using single coils or humbuckers.  It's the first fuzz I found that works well with both types of pickups without farting out with the other.  Can't say enough good things.

RC Booster:  I've gotten further and further away from overdrives and much more into clean boosts.  I love the sound of my amp, so why the hell would I want it to sound like something else?  The RC is the first real "transparent" boost I've fallen in love with.  I'm sorry Paul C., the Timmy sounds pretty good, but just isn't "transparent" compared to this.  My Klon now sits on the shelf collecting dust since I've gotten this.  It seems to fatten things up in all the right places without adding a Mid-hump that most do.  It does add some slight Treble frequencies, but that's what the Shelf EQ is for!  The Shelf is probably my favorite feature about this boost.  My Gibson can be a bit boomy, so I like to roll back the Bass and give it a touch of Treble.  With my Tele, I roll off some of the harsh Treble, and some of the boominess of the neck pickup by rolling the Bass back a hair.  I can't say enough great things about this.  I've even considered getting a second.  

DM3:  Like many of you, I love delays.  But this IS my favorite delay.  Hands down, no questions asked.  I own the Moog delay, DL4, DMM and I've owned/tried dozens more and this is it for me.  I had tried a DM2 before and always wanted one, but I was really skeptical of the shorter delay time.  After a good friend let me try his I had to get one.  Like with my PT Jr., being limited really allows me to get creative with my delays (long delays are overrated anyways).  The slapback is superb.  You can also do some pretty insane indie-rocker stuff with it.  I won't say anymore, I love this thing.


Well there it is.  There are a handful of runner ups, but those four aren't going anywhere in the foreseeable future.  I power everything with a mounted PP2+.  I use some nice Fender patch cables I got for a good price too.  I try not to get hung up on the small stuff like cables.  Please don't misjudge, other pedals are great.  This is just what has worked best for me.

- Stonewall