Selling every pedal you have and restarting - what did you do?

Heartfeltdawn

The last few months I've been getting more and more into electronic music and utilising computers and plugins. My last amp will be going up for sale this weekend and I'm thinking of selling virtually all of my pedals bar a couple made for me by a friend which have a certain attachment to me (USB obviously. Giggle) and my fabulously fucked up RAT2. Selling that would be like putting a mutant child up for adoption because he's got three heads. 

I know the stereotype is that you sell all your pedals, buy some rack system, and then come back to pedals, buying everything you originally sold, but some of you out there must have done this and ended up with a totally new setup that suited you better. 

It's such an odd feeling to be thinking of selling pedals like the Tim which have been around for years. I've had those sales pangs of sadness with guitars but pedals? Strange. 

jonnyburgo

Ive stripped right back to one pedal, a box of rock clone that I built. But then I ain't a Mr Fancypants player.

allicio

Ive done this a few times, I just have these days where I just think fuck it, sell everything and start again. Each time I always think oh I'll just have a few high quality pedals but I always end up with loads.
To be fair though each time ive done it I have ended up with a better board each time

Jeremiah

I've kind of gone in the opposite direction - used to be mainly into electronic music, loved working with synths, plugins, samples etc, but now I'm going more towards a basic stripped down thing with just guitar into one pedal into amp. Unfortunately it meant I never learned to play properly since I could just repeat something until I got one take I liked and then plug that into a sampler or whatever. So now, I'm having to learn how to play whole songs in one take without mucking up...

Alnico

I did exactly this a month or so ago.

I traded the whole lot in including my Vox AC4 amp and got basically a straight swap for a brand new Blues Junior III. That gave me a basic and very natural sound to start from and then i bought a Zoom G3 for £110 which is all kinds of awesome and aside from my tuner is all i need. I will be adding a separate Wah pedal (Weeping Demon) to make the patches a little less cluttered and make the wah function easier to access but i will also use an expression pedal with the G3 so i could just use the Wah's it has onboard.

I love my sound and set up now, far more than when i had 10 or more pedals.

Even when i have the wah pedal, i only need 2 patch cables and a Wall wart power supply easily handles everything as i'm only powering 3 units.

shaunm

In the last three months I have 

- sold off my full pedal board

- got a new guitar to use as my main guitar which is totally a different sound (new strat instead of a semi)

- used a floor multi effects

- decided I actually like pedals more so I've bought a full pedal board of pedals I have never had (other than wah's)

- done the usual try and trade system with the new pedals. 

I'm actually really happy with the set up I've got now, it's got a different sound to it but I can still do what I'd have done before. It also has improved my playing I feel as I've had to improve aspects of my playing as the new set up is a touch cleaner so it does not hide mistakes as well. 

tone1

I sold my line 6 m13 and have gone to a few pedals and valve amp and I'm much happier now I'm not plugging stuff into a laptop.
I still love guitar into amp with amp's reverb.

Hootsmon

dressmaking

Heartfeltdawn

hootsmon said:

dressmaking

A Scotsman in a dress... you might be onto something there. 

joeyowen

shaunm said:

instead of a semi

haha, semi

Iamnobody

I sold all my pedals and bought a T-Rex Soul Mate. It does everything I need at the moment.

I'm happy as a pig in shit...

I've kept a Wah and bought a line 6 M5 just incase but haven't felt the need to use them yet for the straightforward tunes we are currently playing.

sweepy

I sold all my pedals, 2 big pedalboards full a couple of years ago  and bought a Mac Pro and Mackie Control  Digidesign 003r Rack etc , best thing I ever did tbh

stickyfiddle

I have about 6 pedals I wouldnt sell, either because they're too rare (Valvesporker), or have little relatively low monetary value versus musical value because I built them with specific mods (carefully tweaked Rat and Muff clones, BYOC wah), or a couple simply because I love them and I've had them for donkeys (Rat, Hotcake)

Pretty much everything else is replaceable and saleable, and especially digital stuff, to the point I'm going to have a big sale next time I fly anywhere near the UK. I have more off the pedalboard than on at the mo.

digitalscream

A few years ago I sold all of them and went with the Eleven Rack (my first of three), but it turned out to be too much hassle and I went back to pedals. In fact...I've done exactly the same dance a few times in an attempt to find the perfect rig for me, because I'm no good at tapdancing.

I've now found what I believe to be the ideal balance - hence selling my Flashback and Alter Ego. I've got a G-Major in the loop and a MIDI controller on the front row of my board, which controls the G-Major and my amp's channel switching. Then I've got a tuner, phaser and boost on the second row of my board which go in front of the amp. Almost all of my changes before then were switching delays on/off (and between the two) and channel switches on the amp, so this has reduced just about all of them down to a single stomp. There's one song where I have to alternate the boost and phaser, but that's not the end of the world because there's enough time for the transition to do them on consecutive beats instead of simultaneously.

Teetonetal

Consider if you will be recording guitar at all, in which case at least dt keep a od/boost and a wah. It's funny really i got back into both guitar and fx pedals because of finding out about reaper and sgear...

Having been through a couple of fire sales in my time, just think really carefully about what you want to get rid of. It can become a very expensive merry go round.