Episode 29 – Is GAS a Thing?? 4 Tips to Buy the Right Pedal

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0:08 Welcome to the Pedal Collaborative Podcast. We're so glad you're here. 0:21 Hey everybody, and welcome back to the Pedal Collaborative Podcast. I am your host Alan with my snuggle bug Paul. 0:31 How's it going, guys? I'm snuggling bugs, yeah. 0:35 I don't know what that means, but I just, I feel like it's cuddly and you look cuddly. So Paul, I have a question for you. 0:45 I'm jumping right into this because I, you know, ever since we started TPCI have mostly, mostly completely changed my ways and how, how and why I buy pedals minus like actually, what was it last 1:03 last year when I bought, I got the Walrus 385 Mark 2. I needed that for a specific reason. 1:08 But mostly, you know, we're kind of taking on the approach of, of influencers, right? We're just like buying stuff for the channel, but also it it feeds our desire to to try new things. 1:20 Right. Yes. 1:21 Yes, but that's not really how it used to be for me and I'm kind of forgetting how that went. So can we talk about that? 1:28 Can we talk about how to choose pedals? Oh yeah, I love to talk about how to choose pedals. 1:33 And it's actually funny 'cause I know on our last episode we talked a bit about reach out to us if you have questions and we were talking specifically about building presets. 1:43 But I would say probably I'm trying to make sure this is an accurate statement and think if there's anything else in lifetime because we talked about doing this episode and I didn't actually think 1:53 about it fully. But I feel like this is probably the like #1 question I get from other people about guitar pedals. 2:00 Knowing how much I try and love them all is like, like, do I need this Like that question? Which I mean, if you are a guitar pedal person who is listening to this podcast, there's a good 2:12 chance that you've said to yourself, to your friends, something comes out from a company, one of the brands you like and you follow and you think, do I need this? 2:20 And usually the question in your mind, there's a like a filter for all of us that goes, yeah, of course I need this. 2:24 It's a new guitar pedal, but. That's the default. 2:27 Yeah, that's the default mode. I, and I think we've alluded to this before, I think of the two of us historically, and not just the 2:34 two of us, but amongst most of my friends, I'm like, as much as I love playing guitar and playing guitar pedals, I'm really, really conservative about my approach to buying new ones and always have 2:45 been because I know for many, many years we have been the, I'm like the balancing act to you. And you're like, even even since the channel where I'm like, we don't need that. 2:51 We have so many we have to record. We can buy that after we finish these other ones. 2:54 And how many, right? Which is why often times I don't even tell you, I just buy it. 2:58 That's not even true anymore. That's a lie. 2:59 You just lied. You lied to the people, bought the Keely germanium super fat. 3:03 Mod. That's fine. 3:04 So I. Didn't tell you? 3:05 You did tell me about it. You texted me a picture of it and you said I just bought this. 3:08 After I bought it. That's OK. 3:10 That's like the first time in like 3 years that that's happened. So that's. 3:12 Not true, but it's it is. It's the first time it's happened in a while. 3:15 Yes, but I feel like for me, for me personally, my process is twofold. 1 So we have previously much. This is a belabored point. 3:29 If it's black, I'm going to buy it. Yeah. 3:34 But hey, actually, you know what? Since we talked about that in earnest at Halloween, I have actually stepped back into more color in 3:40 my pedal board. Have you? 3:42 Yeah, well, I've got the yeah, I've got, I've got like, I've got some white. I've got. 3:47 Actually, I think it's just black and white as I say this, it's just. Black and white. 3:50 White's a yeah, yeah. I just realized I was like, it's not really that much more color, it's just a couple. 3:55 Of I've bought some black petals though, since Oh yeah, Halloween, I said I don't have any. I bought some. 4:00 Yeah, I have. I got the Stormtrooper White LVL and I have the 10th anniversary Gen. loss on my pedal board again, 4:07 so I've got some white mixed in there. But for me the process is kind of like twofold. 4:15 I think there might be a third parameter here, but it's one. And when a pedal comes out, does this pedal do something unique that I can't do with the other 4:25 pedals I have? Is it a new angle? 4:28 Is it a completely unique idea like a pedal that I mentioned not liking last episode, but was a unique pedal was like the Chase Bliss Lossy? 4:36 Yeah, totally something that like I didn't have in my guitar pedal effects. Now mind you, there is a good Hertz preset called Lossy that doesn't have all the same features, 4:45 which I do have. But it was one of those things where I was like, OK, this is a pedal. 4:50 I there's nothing else I have that does it so that the checks box #1 box #2 and it's really simple. Is will I actually use this to make music ever? 5:01 Now that is something different. As you mentioned, since we started the channel. 5:04 There are times when I'm like, I might not use this in my personal, but I do want to review it or match it up against something we have. 5:09 Or maybe I want to give give it a first sound so people can hear how we would use it and then make a preset for the LVX Because I know it's cool, but that's really it for me is like, is it unique? 5:21 Do I not have anything that can do it? And then the second thing is, will it actually work for my music? 5:27 Because there are a lot of guitar pedals that I've bought because they were cool, they're trendy, because they fit the first perimeter. 5:35 It was unique. And when I sit down with it, I'm like, I'm simply never. 5:41 Never going to use. It going to use this the a great example of this that I have returned literally within the same 5:46 week. Firstly I got a messed up one and then secondly I was like I'm actually going to you can keep it. 5:51 Was the Earthquaker devices data corrupter. Oh yeah, yeah. 5:55 I literally owned this pedal for exactly 3 days and returned it because it was like in the store. I was like sick oh this is cool. 6:03 There's weird stuff. And then like in practice of like in my mind I was like, this is going to like make me become more 6:10 like Tom Morello. And I just think I have to accept the fact that I don't play like Tom Morello. 6:17 I appreciate and love his guitar playing and the weird crazy stuff he does that doesn't even sound like an instrument anymore. 6:21 You look like Tom Morello. I kind of do sometimes I'll take this as a compliment, but but that that I think for me is the 6:31 biggest factor. And the the there, I guess there's a third because it's not just does it do something unique? 6:38 Does it fit with my music? The third is like, is it going to be something that's going to sit on a shelf for no reason? 6:46 That's one I know a mutual friend of ours like has way, way, way, way, way, way too many pedals for the what they want to play. 6:55 You know what I'm talking about. I do. 6:58 And it's constantly always wanting to buy more pedals that they don't play. And I, I, I struggle with that because I'm just like, hey, man, if you like have the same three you 7:08 go to like you don't need another one. Yeah, like that's that. 7:13 That is actually something I've said quite a bit since we started the channel actually is The more pedals I try, the more I realize how little I need to actually make the music I write, which is like 7:27 kind of a nice realization. Thank you, pedo Collaborative. 7:30 You're welcome. Pat yourself on the back there, Paul. 7:34 Yeah. Well, it's just like, oh wow, I really only need like 5 or 6 pedals on my board for like the music I 7:40 actually write and play and record that, you know, and they flip in and out. There's different use cases. 7:46 We've talked about that with like different styles, synthesizers versus guitars. But I, you know, for me it always comes back to those three things like does it do something unique? 0:00 I don't have. 7:56 Does it fit the music I play? And is it going to be something I actually reach for or is it going to end up sitting on a shelf? 8:02 Yeah, obviously some of that last one is a little bit nebulous until you actually plugged it in, where I used my lossy example again, where I was like pretty convinced the lossy was going to become 8:11 something was core to my sound. And I was like, I just don't need this at all. 8:17 So that's that's my three. What for you? 8:19 Is there any difference for you? Well, I'm thinking back, so I'm thinking back to the time when, like the the days of your when I 8:25 played live at, you know, in the church context and was well, it wasn't just church. I was playing live with like. 8:30 You tried live with a band too? Yeah. 8:31 And was playing out a bit. I there, there's two elements that I will add to that construct. 8:40 And, and, and one it's I was a single pedal board person, so I had to have room on my pedal board. No, So I yeah, no, I don't use a pedal board. 8:51 I don't anyway because I don't play it live. That makes sense. 8:57 That's why, but back when I, when I did, you know, it would be what can fit in my paddle board And yeah, my paddle board would like, I wouldn't like APT junior to up to APT1 or whatever. 9:05 Like I, I, I could grow that and I'll get to the second part, but the first part was like, does it have, do I remove my paddle board? 9:11 And if it, if I don't have my pedal board, what do I have to take off my pedal board to fit something else on? 9:18 And what am I sacrificing? What am I losing? 9:23 The other side of it is, and this is kind of actually Paul, this is analogous to last week's episode when we talked about building a A preset on the LVX and how you have sometimes if you want more gain 9:35 on the dynamics module, you have to actually lower the level so that you're not increasing level at the same time, right? 9:41 Yep. The same kind of concept in my mind with will it fill my pedal board is how much does it cost? 9:48 Do I have the money and whatever I need to get rid of on my pedal board, will that cover the cost of the new thing? 9:54 Because, you know, back then, you know, we weren't making the millions that we're making now as content creators. 9:59 So it's like, I don't, Paul, I know that you used to do church too, but I don't know if you do know this, but church pays like shit. 10:08 They don't pay people very well. And even though I was like full time, I was making nothing. 10:13 So I had no money. I had no money for stuff. 10:15 I had to like, you know, beg, borrow and steal. And that is what honed our highly refined trade ability to trade for pedals that we wanted. 10:24 That's where they came from. That's exactly where it came from. 10:27 But no, it would be like, oh, oh man. So for me it was, it was all those things that you kind of mentioned, but can I fit it on my board? 10:36 And how much is it going to actually cost me to can I afford it, you know? Those are really good, good points. 10:43 The the fitting on the board is actually, I think of those two, the one that I always struggled with the most because there have been times in my life. 10:49 You come from like you come from the 1% like you. Money's never been an issue for you. 10:56 Ridiculous. For me, it was always a factor of the the pedal. 11:01 Well, the money. The money and pedal board were twofold because I actually literally would intentionally nerf myself, 11:06 which, you know, back in the day where I actually at one point in time traded down into a smaller pedal train so that I couldn't buy any more pedals. 11:13 Like it was like an intentional, like I need to save money for like other things in my life. So I'm going to trade down into a pedal train junior. 11:21 So there's no, there's like a limited amount of things I can fit. Now, mind you, I still found ways to fit things there. 11:26 Sometimes they get creatively placed. I'd put like a buffer underneath my pedal board, like things like that. 11:33 They would stay hidden. I I actually thought recently this is totally tangential but related to that, remember when I had 11:39 that the always on barbershop from Fairfield? That would have been a godsend in those days. 11:45 It would have. Yeah, it would have been a godsend. 11:47 It would have been like, wow, look, I can set this drive exactly how I want it to be as my always on drive and put it under my pedal board because I'm still. 11:53 On it, I think Cusack was like the first one that I saw doing those sorts of things when they came out, like with their screamer that didn't turn on or off. 12:00 Like it was a no switch. Yeah, yeah. 12:02 So those, those were, those were things I, it's funny you brought that up because I haven't thought about that in a while because I, my pedal board is pretty set for like writing and playing and it 12:13 changes here and there. But for the most part, a lot of what I do for what we're doing and also for like film stuff is like 12:18 pedals. I just pull out and line up on my deck. 12:20 So I'm not really using a pedal board every day. So I don't think as much about the pedal board real estate as I once did. 12:27 But that was a really big factor. And there was, there was a relationship somewhere on a graph. 12:32 I'm not sure which direction of money I have to pedal board real estate and being that's legitimately why I at one point I had like a pedal train 2, at one point a real big guy and I 12:42 swapped it for a junior 'cause I was like I don't have the money to keep this habit up and I just need to find my sound and have a small pedal board. 12:49 I think at this point where you know you saying that the Pedal Train 2 is huge, all of our listeners that use Pedal Train Grande's are like laughing at you. 12:58 I mean, so I don't even know what size I use now, but it's how we. Have the Fender. 13:05 Yeah, I think it's smaller. Is it, is it smaller than the pedal? 13:09 It's. More than A2. 13:10 Yeah, like I still don't use a huge pedal board because I I for me, it's like my formula. I have like two big, two big boxes. 13:18 So OK, here's one more vector. This is not, no one else should take this advice. 13:22 This is just my neurotic behavior, OK. But I do also sort of think about like what it looks like aesthetically, which going back to our 13:30 tone. No, I OK, hold on. 13:32 I don't think that that is advice that not everybody should listen to. I think a lot of players aesthetics is a big part of it and so I think. 13:39 Well, for those of you who haven't since Alan, actually, I'm actually thinking this through and I think you're going to have to do this at some point. 13:45 I don't think you've ever posted on our channel a pedal board picture. I have because I have a wired pedal board usually I hate the way you are. 13:54 You're a pedal board. I'll just tell everyone, yeah, I hate it. 13:57 Sometimes they're not even fully straight in. The cables aren't tight. 14:00 It stresses me out. And it's, it's been a long running joke to the point of your partner actually asking me if there was 14:07 is there anything I can buy him that will help him organize his pedal board? And me saying no, he just needs to do it like he has all the he has all the tools to do it. 14:16 I hate No, There's no, no, because I change it all the time. I don't. 14:19 Yeah. I do too, but I will sit. 14:22 I will sit and rewire. It's like a, it's like a ritual for me. 14:26 I put on headphones, either listen to music or a podcast and I spend like a good 45 minutes rewiring and tightening things and cable tying and it's a whole thing. 14:36 But as long as I get. Access the switches. 14:38 I don't care what what sort of rat rats is happening. I know that's why I you're going to have to I think you need to post a picture the next time you do 14:45 wire a board up just so everyone can hear it but or find an old one and post it with this episode. But what I was saying though with that is I do think about like I don't like to have more than two 14:58 big boxes on my board at any given time. OK. 15:02 That's like an official. Like clearly not a current House of worship player. 15:06 Because I feel like once I go over that, it becomes like one, it's like I need a MIDI Switcher. Then if I have over that I need a MIDI Switcher, which I don't like to play with a MIDI Switcher 15:15 because I like to be pretty simple with like I know what I'm clicking and how it works. And then two, it just visually looks like a nightmare to me. 15:25 And I like don't like having like like there, there have been times where I've had like a timeline, a Big Sky and a stomp on a board and I instantly I'm like something needs to go. 15:34 I need to have a simpler reverb or I need to figure out something else. It just can't work. 15:38 I don't I and I actually don't even for at home playing my universal audio dream, which is not a big box, but it's an amp SIM that actually lives on my desk and not on my pedal board because I don't 15:51 want it to be on my pedal board taking up real estate and looking like it's it's it's not something I have to like click very often. 15:58 I sometimes we use like the second snapshot for like odd boost but it's like I can hit that with my hand real quick if I need to. 16:07 So, so OK, going back then to before we were like just ranting about things. Another thing is like I thought. 16:14 That's what we were. Doing. 16:15 That's all. Actually, that's all this podcast is ranting, man, I can't wait to get Addison on and we're going to 16:24 do an episode about things we hate about pedals. And I mean, he's just going to, he always apologizes to me after we talk because he's like, I'm 16:32 sorry, I was on my soapbox so. Is this the guy that has the issue with like, the slight delay in switching on the LVX? 16:37 Yeah, yeah, I can't wait to meet him. He seems like we'll get along. 16:40 Oh, you'll love him anyway. So there, there would also be times like where I, I would, when I was playing, if there was a sound 16:49 that I knew I was missing, you know, and whether because oftentimes too, like a lot of times in House of worship stuff, you, you're trying to emulate what the recordings are doing. 17:00 So if it's like I just need, I mean, I, I need X kind of delay and I couldn't get that from like a timeline then. 17:08 If you can get it from a timeline, you were doing something wrong. It's an opinion I have, but anyhow. 17:12 Wow. OK. 17:18 Thanks for listening everybody. It's been a good. 17:21 Week. You know that the lever has been a good run. 17:29 This is our last official. I know where you're getting at. 17:36 Continue. Sorry. 17:36 I just had to make the statement. It was a it was a fun goof moment. 17:39 I was like, I can do this, I'm doing this, I'm doing this. Yeah, I mean, it would be like if now I now I feel like I don't want to talk about delays, but no, 17:49 if if it was a delay that I couldn't get out of the timeline or I wanted to get a double delay, like a secondary delay to feed into the timeline because the dual, the dual mod didn't like, didn't do 18:03 what I wanted. OK, that's a very much that's that is a thing you should do. 18:07 You need a second one. You need a second one. 18:08 I'll give you that one. You need more control of your second delay. 18:10 You can't do it that way. Right. 18:12 So it would be a matter of like, OK, what what do I, what, what can I get to make that sound? You know, which I had referenced earlier me buying the Walrus 385. 18:22 It was because I had a small pedal board that was back. That was like the last time that I was doing anything live with my electric and I wanted a second 18:31 channel, like a second channel amp type thing and I was going through an amp SIM. So the Walrus 385 fit the bill because it kind of gave me what I wanted. 18:41 It kind of gave me that. That second channel, The second. 18:43 Channel. Yep, so. 18:46 Now that's a good one. It's funny, actually. 18:48 It's something I this is, maybe I'll save this for one of our episodes with like one of the Hillsong guys or something. 18:53 But I actually looked back at pedal boards of mine in the past. I was in, I was in a Google Photos whole looking for something entirely different the other day. 19:03 And then I found myself deep diving and I've came across a few pedal boards. So for me, House of worship time trained to emulate a lot of sounds. 19:12 Yeah, I noticed that there's a trend line for me. So I like a timeline was on my board for like most of that time, which could do, as I cheekily just 19:19 said, it could do like basically anything you needed it to. If you were really struggling with another sound, it would be something like a dual delay sound 19:24 where you need like. And for me I always have like a Boss DD series right next to it for like boom boom and sync it with 19:31 my Altoids. Tap tempo, remember? 19:34 The tap tempo Altoids tin I had, yeah. So that like that was always there for me. 19:40 And I had like a reverb that I often would not use live because it would wash out the PA system, which we talked about with James. 19:46 So it'd be like mainly delay was part of the sound. I actually had like four or five overdrives on my pedal board most of the time back then because 19:55 they did a lot of that tone shaping that could cover more ground in ways that like. If you had a really big workstation to light the timeline and you had like a reverb that could give 20:04 you like a touch here and there, that was like most of my boards actually were like a ton of OverDrive stages for like and they were mix and match of like, oh, if I'm doing this clon style, 20:14 it's going with this Blues breaker. This Tube Screamer is going with this pedal up here. 20:20 And I didn't realize how much OverDrive I used. Like honestly went through a lot of those for that season. 20:29 And I still do. I don't, I, I don't, I feel like I, I in my head, I'm like I had, I've had a ton of delay pedals, 20:35 but it's like no OverDrive. OverDrive is the one that like, I was always seeking to match tones that way because it's like, 20:42 well, it's a big part of the tone. It's over an urban. 20:44 Tone that goes into everything else. So anyhow. 20:48 We don't have it you. You digressed and that's great. 20:53 Thank you for answering my questions and helping me get back to the thought and memory, remembering what it was like to buy pedals for playing purposes. 21:02 Yeah, not just for let's you. I mean, I feel like you've said it on here before. 21:06 It's like you actually play guitar. I just am an influencer. 21:08 That's what you always say. You've said that to me, at least on the phone. 21:10 I don't know if you've said it on here. I don't know if I said it because I think I it's totally tongue in cheek that. 21:14 Yeah, you still play. I still play and it honestly, the channel is a great way it it just it feeds the IT feeds gas, you 21:24 know, it feeds my gas and. I will say now you can definitely like sit down and listen to both of us have like part of our ways 21:31 we play, but it feels guest but also it feels like innovation in our playing. So I feel like we don't want to play the same thing every video. 21:37 Yeah, I feel like that's like sometimes I like to think of like let me play in like a different scale or like a different key because I'm tired of playing the same thing that I played on the last 21:45 demo video or whatever. On the BL13 video I asked myself what would Paul play? 21:50 Oh, and. You also complimented my chords on The Clone Wars, like several I. 21:55 Really like those chords. I was like. 21:57 Wow, I'll show you them after this episode so you can look at them. OK, OK, so. 22:01 I'll grab. A Yeah. 22:03 Do you have a question? Do you have a social media post for us? 22:06 I didn't have one because I wanted to try to get one related to this, but I, I, I feel like I'm just going to capture. 22:14 No, no, no, I'm just going to capture a whole bunch of genres with answering or responding to a common post on all forums, which is when you see a guitar, since we're talking about, you know, 22:26 making decisions about whether you should buy a pedal or not, which I think we've approached in different ways. 22:32 This is just more direct of like the framework we use because like there's also that like a specific pedal. 22:37 Don't buy the we. I think we had a whole episode called the Band-Aid, not the Cure. 22:41 Don't buy the Band-Aid by the Cure. Save up. 22:42 Money with our guest Robert from The Cure. Yes, yeah, that was a great, great episode. 22:48 Cover is when you think to yourself, this is to all guitar players. If you think to yourself, my paddle board's done, I'm going to post a picture of it and say it's 22:59 done. Don't do it. 23:01 Don't do. It don't do it. 23:03 There's going to be a ton of people in the comments section saying OK man, OK I it's just it's not worth it. 23:10 I have thought to myself numerous times, like when I first got like a pedal like a new pedal that like blows my mind like this is the last drive I'm going to have. 23:19 It's it's the end alls to be all. And then like six months go by, one of us texts an idea to the other. 23:25 A new pedal comes out. It's a new colorway, whatever, anything you're never going to be done. 23:31 And if you are, if you are, if you're a person listening to this and you are done, please tell me what you use. 23:37 I want to know 'cause I, I've I. What medication they're on? 23:42 Yeah, that that for sure medication, but also like what's what's your pedal board set up that you're like done with? 23:47 I want to know here, send us because I feel like I have a general family I live within like a formula. 23:53 Yeah, it's like I got my compressor, MY2 drives, my mod section and my reverb. But like those all change all this, right? 24:02 I feel like I get, I get the touring musicians who are like they're doing an album cycle and so they have to keep the board for like 3 years or whatever when they're doing an album cycle. 24:09 I get that, I get that. But these folks that they're just dumb is what it is. 24:15 Are they just sorry they're ignorant because they don't realize they haven't learned yet is what it is. 24:20 They have not learned that their board will never be done. Yes, it's a it's it's like working on your mental health, an ever growing journey. 24:28 Right. And we support that too. 24:29 Yes, we do. So work on that and don't post your your paddle board is done because you. 24:35 Just don't call it a final paddle board, just say it's state of the board. State of the Board is the best tag news because that's what happens I honestly, I I look back at my 24:45 January post of my 2025 State of the Board and it's all different already so I. Mean that was two months ago dude. 24:50 I know, I know it happens. That's why I don't even bother the pedal board you. 24:56 Don't wire it up. So all right. 24:58 Well, on that note, have a wonderful week all. We will talk to you next week. 25:02 Bye. © 2025 Spotify AB Legal Privacy Cookies