Check out NAM for home recording, the touch and feel is really nice when setup properly.

 

If you can play, you can make any pedal sound ok, if you can't every pedal will sound shite. Simple. The best pedal I own (probably) is a Boss CE1, the worst some no name delay thing. Both sound as good as I play through them.

 

This is not really like that. Oversimplification. I did experience the opposite. I was struggling to play with certain pedals, and was enjoying playing with pedals that suited the best for my needs. Just think about a compressor working with factory presets on attack/release not suitable for the tempo of what you play.

 

But now you can get the plugin version of BigSky from the museum next door… for nothing… you might stick to the hardware but there’s another option available too

 

https://zoomcorp.com/de/de/multieffekte/acoustic/A1-FOUR-A1X-FOUR/

 

I totally quote you. That’s a perfect description of our world.

 

Reading the coments here I feel quite old school.
I'll better not tell you the amount of pedals I have, I guess it would be worse telling the money I spend on these.

To defend myself: I am collecting for more than 25 years now and I guess it's under 50 pedals overall. That's about two pedals a year on average. It's not that I feel guilty about it, but when I have to justify (mostly against voices in my own head), I tell myself: you have no car, not even a driver's license and you don't spend money on fuel (...and don't pollute the world with so much exhaust fumes and totally unmusical noise).

I can understand every player who uses multi fx nowadays... personally I never felt the need for it, I'd rather buy pedal no. 51, I guess. My back is okay though, making regular farmer's walks with a guitar case in one and my pedalboard in the other hand is a good workout.

I love pedals for tone and inspiration and for countless combination possibilities. Every pedal sounds (at least slightly) different. There is a reason why there are countless tubescreamers and clones around, they would not be around if there were no people buying them. I like to view the topic in a larger frame. There are so many variables in your chain (playing-hands -> guitar -> pedals -> amp -> (maybe mic) -> room) and pedals (as any other gear) interacts with those variables. Buying very very budget pedals might increase the chance to degrade this chain with power supply noise, unfortunately, but this also depends.

Pedals give me a specific feeling, which can be different to plugins or recalling presets on multi fx units. It's haptics, optics, nostalgia ... I don't make music for money, I make music for feelings first, so this matters to me.

I'm totally biased here for personal reasons. I'm not sure if I got the topic right, anyways.

 

Sounds like a Frank Marino syndrome, he had a monster pedal board back in the day...
But I think I can relate to that world, everything is hand felt and concrete... Real?

 

Haha, yeah okay, my pedalboard I'm using is "only" 10 pedals. The other 40 pedals are in the studio or at home, some of them barely used but kept for occasions or whatever reason. But why not? Even the bookshelf of my 6-year-old daughter take up more space than all my pedals altogether. The whole collection looks like a joke compared to only one of the hundred of thousands of regular cars people are stuffing up the city around me.

I'm not into Frank Marino, I'd call the syndrome I "suffer" from the classic GAS. But is it really suffering? I bought those things to make music and I barely regret any decision of getting something along the way, even the things barely used until now. It is the other way around, I am really thankful I have the possibility to use the things. Yes they are tools, but is it really that worse having a big box of tools for your number one passion?

 

im 100% true bypass, so Boss is no dice
do have a laney

 

I would only hardware buy drive pedals as they are the most difficult to model.