Pedals, Pedals Everywhere - Wednesday, March 26, 2025

Novelizations of things that wouldn’t make good novels

Hey now!

Pedalmania

I’ve been raving about the incredible experience of recording with Kris. I could go on and on about it, but I’m not sure how interesting that is for you, dear reader. Ultimately, it meant a lot to me that Kyle was so enthusiastic about my songs, and I was blown away by Kris’s ability to help me realize what I wanted to do while also pushing me out of my comfort zone—a real feat of finesse! He was able to get me to try stuff without triggering me to double down on my arbitrary choices—as is my wont! I’ll probably put the songs we did out soon for premium subscribers. The rest of you will have to wait for the next album.

This week, I want to share about my pedal board. For those who don’t know, most guitar players run their guitar through a series of effects that change the sound before it hits the amp. People refer to the collection of effects as a “board” because they’re often mounted, sometimes to a literal board, for convenience. These effects are usually housed in little metal boxes, and you activate them with your feet (hence why they are called pedals) while you’re playing. Pedals can be a total rabbit hole, and with pedals costing anywhere between $20 and a few hundred dollars, they can also become a black hole of expense. People get so into them because in addition to your guitar and amp, pedals are a crucial tool in sculpting one’s sound—or tone—and guitar guys are obsessed with that, for better or worse.

After running around for a while with literally a dozen pedals on my board, I just pared down, and it feels really good.

If you’re counting, this is 7 pedals, which is still kind of a lot. It makes me feel better that a) the big green one, the Duplicator, is for my voice, not my guitar, and b) I’m running my guitar to three separate amps, which justifies more pedals in my mind. This makes for a lot of gear to haul around, but since the live band is a 2-piece (me and Matt on drums) even 3 amps and 7 pedals is less trouble than another human being and all their gear, drama, and logistics.

Over on the other side of the paywall, I’ll share a video and more text where I run the rig.

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