1 - bad won’t ever play again
2 - didn’t care for it, won’t actively try and play it again
3 - liked it, would definitely play again, maybe even buy it
4 - actively want to play again and would like to buy so I can play as much as often as possible
To avoid confusion with BGG number ratings, I’m going to use ⭐️ for the Cody scale. Sorry, didn’t pitch it as a star system, but it’s hard to compare without some different indicator.
My suggested rough mapping:
BGG 8-10 maps to 4 (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
BGG 6-7 maps to 3 (⭐️⭐️⭐️)
BGG 4-5 maps to 2 (⭐️⭐️)
BGG 1-3 maps to 1 (⭐️)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Anything BGG 8 and up is something that as a board game person (someone with a collection) I want to own. These are all great. So… smoosh them all together into a single ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating, sure. I’d lose a bit of definition in what are my greatest of all time, but that’s fine. I’m still heartily recommending any here.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
To me the BGG 6s and 7s map to “would play again and maybe own”. I own plenty of 7s. I also own 6s, but something at a 6 is asking to be phased out of my collection. Famously, the BGG 7 rating is the most crowded, with 7.0 being borderline okay and 7.9 being amazing. So having all these (plus the decidedly situational 6s) as ⭐️⭐️⭐️ is similarly covering a lot of ground and I’d guess this is the most dominant rating and lacking in clearer signal.
⭐️⭐️
The summary of ⭐️⭐️ is “yeah, if someone else is pushing to play it I will, but I’m not going to be the one asking for it.” Which is not something I want in my collection (otherwise people will see it on the shelf, ask “can we play that?” And I’ll go “uh… sure?”). That maps to the BGG 4s and 5s, the mediocre to reluctant.
⭐️
Anything BGG 3 and under is different flavors of garbage. I have no love lost lumping that into ⭐️. It’s not like I’m going to walk someone through the nuance of why one is slightly less terrible than another. They’re all bad, run away.
Thoughts
Overall, what the Cody scale asks is “what extra are you communicating by letting people rate on a 10 point scale? I do think it’s overkill for most people, and that the extremes aren’t providing critical information. However with this system I do think you’re going to have a crowded set of ⭐️⭐️⭐️ just like you had crowded 7s. And I do think people want to know if a title is more trending towards ⭐️⭐️ or ⭐️⭐️⭐️. The question is whether individual raters communicate that or whether that’s the job of review aggregation to add in the decimal point.
Would it get more casual folks to rate things and overcome the BGG hardcore’s oversized influence of the top games? Maybe a little. But honestly, who other than the hardcore rates anything? Am I in any way contributing to the ratings on Amazon items, or what gets rolled up into MetaCritic for video games or Rotten Tomatoes for movies? Nope. I give zero input to those systems. Most of the ratings systems I’m coerced to interacting with are of the variety of “give 5 stars or you are sabotaging someone’s livelihood,” which is its own problem and leads us down the path of that Black Mirror episode with Bryce Dallas Howard. Yikes.
Thankfully that’s not the vibe here. A 4 point scale seems fine. If you can make it happen, go for it Cody. In the meantime I’m going to stick to the BGG scale because that’s the only place I know people actually look at ratings.
When I started playing guitar I would tune myself to match songs off the radio (don’t recommend) until I learned how to use a pitch pipe (better, still not good). In more recent times I would use a phone to tune, but I hated it. Interacting with my phone while I want to be in a guitar playing headspace is the anti-vibe. Just this last year I got my first headstock clip-on tuner, and it’s a revelation. With that I didn’t have as strong of a need for an on-board pedal tuner, but I’m glad I got one.
The Polytune is one of the most popular tuning pedals available. It’s main differentiator is that it can tell you the tuning accuracy of all your strings at once with an open strum. In theory this lets you quickly identify which string is out of tune, which is neat, but not something I turn to often. What I find more useful is the live readout of whatever pitch I’m playing. That can reinforce knowing the note names of what you’re actually playing, or help you figure out unfamiliar instruments by piping a microphone into your board.
At first I had the tuner set up to go out of a forked output from my Ernie Ball VP JR volume pedal. This meant that when I quieted via the volume pedal the tuner would still function for silent tuning (without needing to engage its foot switch). I’m currently not opting for this configuration because it just means one extra cable to disconnect and connect when I pack the pedal board.
This demo sold me on the Attack Decay. But I hedged by getting the smaller “pico” version of the pedal, worrying that it was a nuanced effect not worth of board space. That was a mistake. One of the highlights is sending the threshold triggered signal through another set of effects in a separate send/receive loop, with is only present on the larger version of the pedal. Additionally the larger pedal has a fuzz effect built into it. As it’s an EHX pedal, as far as I can tell that a Big Muff style fuzz. So the pedal doesn’t need to a quirky toy, it can be a fuzz pedal that also does fun quirky stuff. Once I realize that, I got the larger version of the pedal and bumped the Big Muff off my board.
The bigger pedal also has 3 programmable favorites. Currently, mine are:
Basic fuzz
A trigger for a low growl of fuzz on stronger notes, which is very satisfying when playing a lead line
A bow-like effect with late attack and quick decay
I have the send/receive going through a Behringer Graphic EQ, set to create a kind of AM radio vibe that makes the fuzz feel more distant from the dry signal. I’ve also tried putting in a Flamma FC05 Mod so I can experiment with ways to make the effect signal unique. But as far as board space goes, I don’t want to dedicate a whole second stream of petals just for this occasional effect.
I got the Q-Tron because it’s on John Mayer‘s board and appears prominently in a couple of his songs. It’s an envelope filter, effectively an auto wah. It creates truly funky tones that have a quacking vowel sound to them. It’s very sensitive to signal levels, thus why it’s so early in the signal chain. It’s one of my least used pedals, but when the song is right for that vibe this is a super fun sound.
The Pitch Fork is one of my most used petals, primarily because it’s quicker to downshift my guitar one octave with this pedal then to swap in a proper bass guitar. When I’m laying down a loop, I’m gonna need a bass line, and this gets me there fast. Mind you, the pedal does a ton more than that. It can thicken your sound by adding octaves above and/or below, with or without your the dry signal. Or you can do the same thing with fifths (power chords all day), fourths, thirds, or even a warbly detune. I haven’t yet become a regular expression pedal user, but this is one of the few pedals where I’ve played around with attaching a pedal.
When I went down this pedal rabbit hole, I looked at a lot of people’s boards on Reddit. And you see the Morning Glory on a ton of them, often described as an “always on” pedal. I don’t leave mine on all the time, but it is definitely a common add of special sauce that makes everything sound nicer. It’s some subtle boost and crunch that’s easy to switch on without losing anything, or to stack grit into my drive effects which come afterwards.
I got the Triumph as a flexible EQ overdrive pedal. As with many pedals, I was directed to it by The JHS Show where it was described as a better Bad Monkey. It saves me space over something I had done before which is putting an EQ pedal directly after a drive pedal to shape it. This lets me do that in one pedal. But then I went and stacked a total of four drive pedals on my board and that leaves me less interested in fine adjustments to the sound of each of them. Instead I leave this one dialed in somewhere that sounds different from the other three drive pedals and call it good.
I was charmed into the PG 14 pedal by the infectious energy of Paul Gilbert‘s multiplevideos done in partnership with JHS to promote the pedal. I had never heard Paul Gilbert play before, which makes it weird that I have his signature pedal (named for his shoe size) on my board. But this thing sounds freaking awesome. It gets to this crunchy almost glitchy space that sounds so raw and cool. So that’s the configuration where I leave it by default, but I also know from prior experimentation that I can turn it into a number of different sounds if I need to.
I regretted not buying a DS1 in the 90s when I should have. I probably would’ve played my electric guitar a whole lot more. This pedal sold 1.5 million units for a reason. It sounds great. Bright and crunchy, good for lead lines or for rhythm. I squeezed this off my board for a bit because I had fancy new pedals… but when I tried hooking it up again I realized it really did earn its slot. It’s a classic.
I’ve never been ecstatic about my EHX Small Stone, as I could never get its phaser effect to be subtle enough for more frequent use. The Lillian fixes that handily by having a mix knob, but also so many other knobs that let me dial in a variety of gentle (or not gentle) phasing. That makes me a lot more likely to stomp this switch. Additionally, as one of my later acquired pedals I felt like I could choose one that I vibed with aesthetically, and the art on this pedal is great.
When I saw the amazing art on the Julianna, I stopped in my tracks. But chorus hasn’t been an effect that I got on with well enough to warrant a board slot. So why not a chorus pedal that’s for people that aren’t so into chorus? The Julianna demo video from Walrus Audio sold me on this being a tone I was interested in… but the Julianna is the more advanced stereo version of the Julia, with a higher price to boot. So I opted for the Julia instead. And my instincts proved correct; I’m far more likely to use a mild chorus.
I love the sound of tremolo. Technically my amp has tremolo built in. But it lacks additional controls, and using the amp’s tremolo has the drawback that I might want different levels of tremolo on different overdubs within my loops. So I got a tiny standalone tremolo pedal. The Tidewater meets that needs tidily. I can control the rate and it has an indicator light to help dial that in. Plus I can adjust the mix to give a more subtle volume modulation.
As mentioned in my lessons learned, I was interested in a combo reverb/delay to cut down on wiring complexity. An often recommended option for that is the Keeley Caverns. In researching that I found the Parallax as a similar pedal with different options on the reverb side. It has a “shimmer” hall option, reverse reverb, and a “soft focus”, all of which give me something my previous reverb (EHX Holy Grail didn’t have. There are an intimidating number of knobs on the Parallax. Or at least that’s how it felt at first. This is one pedal where I’ve most engaged with its various settings. I can dial it in for a more standard reverb and a short “slap back” delay, or I can crank everything up and take it into orbit.
My experience with looping warrants its own post. But I’ll summarize by saying that upgrading my loop pedal was one of my most researched and most impactful decisions. Specifically I opted to trade up for something that had rhythm and had 2 loops so I could do verse/chorus alternating improvisation. I use this constantly and I absolutely love it. The only thing lacking is that I want to get an external foot switch to add tap tempo.
Rail height. The 3 rails of the Metro 24 is an awkward height. Most pedals are 2 rails worth of height, a wah or volume pedal is 3 rails high, but those are less central to me and I don’t mind having those off the board. There are pedal switchers that are 1 rail height, but if you only have 1 row of pedals I’m not sure those are needed. So if you’re just doing regular sized pedals on a 3 rail system you’re going to end up with sideways pedals to use the whole space. I wanted to increase to 4 rails so I could get 2 parallel rows of regular sized pedals.
Power supply fit. The flat Metro 24 did technically fit my power supply underneath, but it was a tight fit that meant that the power connectors had to all be right angles to fit at all, which for the cords that came with it meant the pedals had to take the straight connectors which created other fit issues. Better off planning of a matching power supply to solve this.
Number of power outputs. The power supply had 8 outputs, which seems generous but I was able to fit more pedals than that on the board. So I ended up daisy chaining off some of those isolated outputs. And with that I started to introduce noise issues.
Tuner staging. The volume pedal had an output for a tuner, which allowed me to use the volume pedal to mute while tuning. I like that better than using the foot switch on the tuner itself. However with the volume pedal off the board this introduced another cable that had to be managed when packing/unpacking the board. Not worth it.
Combo pedals. Due to the strain I was putting on the number of pedals and density of cables, I started to see the value in combo pedals (e.g. reverb and delay in one). These combo pedals can cut down on overall complexity
Patch cables. Flat patch cables are a must. The Livewire ones I picked up at Guitar Center were too bulky and stiff, making it hard to get a nice tight board. I’m not really interested in cutting/soldering my own, especially as I’ve been experimenting rapidly, so I needed storebought fixed length cables. The MXR cables were okay… still a bit bulky. The best I found were the EBS Premium Gold Flat (flat and flexible). But I filled out the board mostly with Rock Stock cables that gave me a variety of lengths for a reasonable price.
Velcro. The original video I referenced to build my board recommending using minimal velcro to attach pedals. Maybe that’s okay if you’re going to leave your board in one configuration, but I was experimenting and moving things around. For my next board, velcro all the way across.
It was time to build my second board. After more research I landed on two essential choices:
Another key lesson was planning for the power draw from each pedal to make sure I knew which output to use for each and where I could afford to daisy chain. Thankfully there’s a website to help with that, and I was able to build a table to help plan for my next board:
Brand
Model
Power (mA)
Behringer
EQ
8
Behringer
Compressor
30
EHX
Attack Decay
140
EHX
PitchFork
25
EHX
Small Stone
12
EHX
Q-tron
10
JHS
PG-14
67
JHS
Tidewater
3
JHS
Morning glory
43
Keeley
Parallax
75
TC Electronics
Ditto+
100
TC Electronics
Polytune3
44
Wampler
Triumph
21
BOSS
DS-1
4
BOSS
RC-10R
250
Next up, I’ll cover the pedals and signal chain on the new board.
There’s no single agreed upon rating system for all things. Sometime we use a 5 star scale. Sometimes a 10 point scale. Sometimes A-F letter grades (where maybe “S” is part of system). Sometimes thumbs up or thumbs down. Sometimes a heart vs. the absence of one.
Different rating systems may be preferred depending on how much time we spend with media. A song, averaging around 3 minutes long, probably doesn’t require a detailed 5 star scale; a simple “heart or not” system is plenty. Movies we spend a couple hours with, so they seem to warrant more. Video games may get a dozen or more hours, and that seems more likely to land a 10 point scale. But hey, each reviewer is going to do their own thing. And review aggregation sites are going to turn that into number soup. But there is some rhyme to which rating scales we pick for which things.
The predominant resource on board games is Board Game Geek, and BGG asks its users to rate games on a 10 point scale. Not only that, but they provide suggested definitions for those values.
10 - Outstanding. Always want to play and expect this will never change.
9 - Excellent game. Always want to play it.
8 - Very good game. I like to play. Probably I’ll suggest it and will never turn down a game.
7 - Good game, usually willing to play.
6 - Ok game, some fun or challenge at least, will play sporadically if in the right mood.
5 - Average game, slightly boring, take it or leave it.
4 - Not so good, it doesn’t get me but could be talked into it on occasion.
3 - Likely won’t play this again although could be convinced. Bad.
2 - Extremely annoying game, won’t play this ever again.
1 - Defies description of a game. You won’t catch me dead playing this. Clearly broken.
You may notice that this scale is mostly oriented around desire to play. That’s a reasonable index, but not the only one. It’d be weird if we primarily reviewed movies based on your interest in seeing them again. We fully accept that a movie can be seen once and never returned to, but still be great. But as physical objects that take up space in your home, board games seem held to this standard of “how much value are you getting out that shelf space?”
So, how do I rate my games? Since BGG has definitions for their rating system, I try to adhere to that as closely as possible when rating on their site. But there are other factors. It’d be uninteresting to me to have a perfect 10 game only be a function of endless desire to return to it. How the game makes me feel? What memories does it has the capacity to form? Does community flow from the game, can it make bonds? And yes, is it an appropriate price for the quality of experience? All of this factors in.
So, here are some representative examples for each rating.
10
Outstanding. Always want to play and expect this will never change.
Anything at this rating has to be truly special. Dare I say… meaningful? Impactful, sustaining, and something that really captures my identity.
Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game. I have played close to two hundred matches of this game. I have played in tournaments. I have made various after-market customizations to enhance my experience playing the game. I followed its evolution over many years, eagerly tracking every news article. I have fond memories of playing with specific people and leaning into the whole experience of this game. It’s captured my imagination and brought me real joy. It’s a 10. What else could it be?
Another example: Skull, in my opinion, a perfect game.
9
Excellent game. Always want to play it.
This rating is only for great games that stand above most, but maybe don’t quite get into the truly rarified air of my greatest of all time.
Just One. I’ve never not had a delightful experience playing this simple word game. It works for kids and adults. You can drop in and out. It doesn’t exactly capture my imagination and live rent free in my head. But it’s a reliable good time. Incredibly solid.
Alternate example: Kemet, a heavier game by comparison that has shown itself to hold up to dozens of plays.
8
Very good game. I like to play. Probably I’ll suggest it and will never turn down a game.
A game that garners an 8 is truly solid. It’s going to be beloved by me, but not entirely unconditionally.
Root. I can’t picture myself turning down a game of Root. It’s such an interest piece of design and art. But for sure it’s not for everyone. It can be hard to teach (although not as hard as people think). I’ve heard it described as too clever for its own good. But I love it.
Alternate example: King of Tokyo is worth acknowledging as a popular late night game with many of my friends. I’ve cooled on it, but only after it wracked up almost a hundred plays.
7
Good game, usually willing to play.
I own a lot of 7’s. They’re good. They’re just not quite great for one reason or another.
Ra. I very much enjoy this classic auction game. But I’ve seen firsthand how the random swings and missed opportunities can really frustrate and alienate other players. I think my experience with this one would be rated higher than others, but it’s not a solo game and I have to recognize that something keeps it from landing.
Alternate example: Android: Infiltration. Is a push-your-luck heist game that has shown surprising longevity. It has real flaws, but it’s got some magic too.
6
Ok game, some fun or challenge at least, will play sporadically if in the right mood.
A lot of games are going to sit at this rating. I’ll play them if someone else is feeling drawn to it, but I’m not often going out of my way.
Citadels. I’ve certainly had fun with this one. But it’s got some mean edges. And the building aspect is pretty thin. There are other role selection games that are often going to be a better use of my time (like Libertalia or Mission: Red Planet).
Another example: Kingdomino is perfectly fine. It has an interesting drafting mechanism and is easy to teach. But it’s not pulling me in.
5
Average game, slightly boring, take it or leave it.
Average games are average. There’s nothing terrible here, but we deserve better than average for our time.
Century: Spice Road comes to mind for this rating. It’s a bunch of resource conversions and recipe fulfillment. It’s fine. It’s decidedly average.
Another example: Catan was once exceptional, and is now average in the robust feast of modern board games we have available today.
4
Not so good, it doesn’t get me but could be talked into it on occasion.
A 4 rating means is not for me but is for someone.
Talisman is not something I’m interested in. It’s a role-to-move with fantasy adventure theming. I’ve never felt like winning was the product of clever play.
Another example: Canvas fell flat for me as a component gimmick without much game behind it.
3
Likely won’t play this again although could be convinced. Bad.
If a game is a 3 then that means I’m pretty sure it’s terrible but I hold a small sliver of hope that I’m wrong.
Munchkin is not my jam. The entire experience devolves into tearing someone down in their moment of joy. It has a humor to it, but not enough to make me want to play.
Another example: Steam Up: A Feast of Dim Sum has the most lovely components with its steam trays. But I found the act of watching other players rotate my agency away turn after turn infuriating.
2
Extremely annoying game, won’t play this ever again.
To earn a 2 rating you need the confidence of being never worth another look.
Exploding Kittens has its audience. To me it’s just some random shit happening. No thanks.
1
Defies description of a game. You won’t catch me dead playing this. Clearly broken.
I’d guess that most 1 ratings on BGG are hateful review bombing, not actual thoughtful criticism. I’ve only ever given it out for this literal description… is this even a game? Am I missing something because it doesn’t even seem to function.
Doggy Go! is the only example I found where I gave out a 1. I grabbed it from a convention library and literally couldn’t figure out if it was a game or just some objects you were expected to use to find your own path to fun.
My first electric guitar was a hand-me-down from my uncle, given a few years after I started playing guitar in elementary school. It was the era of grunge, and much of the music I was listening to was filled to the brim with distortion. A stark contrast with my modest electric setup. And yet, when I assembled my own money to buy my first ever guitar pedal… I hipstered myself. I could have bought a distortion pedal like the Boss DS-1, used prominently by Nirvana and so many others. Or a Big Muff Pi fuzz pedal, used heavily by the Smashing Pumpkins. Or I even could have bought a delay pedal to do my best impression of U2’s The Edge. But no… I decided at the last minute to get something quirky and “unique”: an octave pedal, the DOD Octoplus. It was immediately clear I had made a mistake. An octave pedal can have its uses, but as a first and only pedal? A dismal choice. And I had no money for a second pedal.
The end result? I spent the next 25 years primarily only playing acoustic guitar.
It wasn’t until I was 40 years old that I actually bought myself my very own electric guitar (a Fender Stratocaster, classic and versatile). It only took a global pandemic to push me to make the purchase, stuck inside with an evaporated social calendar. But I was ready to do it right, and get pedals too. I did a lot more research this time (thanks dramatically more developed internet!). So without spending too much money I got some classic building blocks.
It was enough to let me fool around and enjoy myself. But in time, life started to normalize. I couldn’t continue to leave this awkwardly daisy-chained cluster of pedals and wires out on the floor. They got shuffled away, to come out sporadically. Inconvenient set-up and clean-up prevented this from being a regular practice.
Years later, I moved into a bigger house. Literally the first things I moved over were my instruments. After breaking it in with my acoustic guitar, I realized I could set up my electric guitar, amp, and pedals in this new space. The moving boxes hadn’t yet arrived, but I filled that empty house with some epic fuzz. For a moment, it was glorious. But the pedals were still a mess of tangled wires, so I moved everything into the basement. Sadly out of sight, out of mind, and underloved.
After over a year of being in the new house, with the financial pressure reduced, I felt like I could explore solutions to this problem. I had long ago learned that an instrument in a case never gets played but an instrument on a stand does. You have to remove the friction between you and the behavior you want. An effects-free electric guitar is okay, but never is going to be a draw over my acoustic. However, an electric guitar connected with all sorts of toys is a totally different story. So I needed a way to organize the toys.
Enter the pedalboard.
I was aware of the concept of a pedalboard, but having no experience I turned to YouTube. I sampled a few tutorial videos, but the one that got me there was this one from JHS. Not only did it walk me through everything I needed to build my pedalboard, but it also sent me down a rabbit hole of an incredibly entertaining and well-produced channel all about pedals. It was not a cheap discovery.
Knowledge in hand, I waltzed into Guitar Center to pick up the board (a Pedaltrain Metro 24), the power supply (Voodoo Lab Pedal Power X8), and some patch cables. And while I was there… I grabbed a pair of used pedals to round out my options:
For some reason the sales associate tried to talk me out of buying any TC Electronic pedals. Which is funny, because their looper would become the single most effective tool in getting me to play my guitar. More on that later. So the internet provided 2 more pedals to round out the rig:
Imagine a time lapse here of lots of velcro, threading power cables through the board, and maneuvering stiff patch cables. But I emerged victorious.
But most importantly, it solved my problem by enabling everything to be put neatly away at a moment’s notice. Immediately I started playing a lot more. I had my looper pedal to give me a way to layer my creativity. I had fun noise machines at my feet. Mission accomplished.
But Pandora’s box had been opened. I had created a platform for experimentation, and introduced to myself to a whole field of guitar effects to lust after. What followed was a period of rapid experimentation and expansion fueled by the combination of The JHS Show and reverb.com.
When I started playing guitar I would tune myself to match songs off the radio (don’t recommend) until I learned how to use a pitch pipe (better, still not good). In more recent times I would use a phone to tune, but I hated it. Interacting with my phone while I want to be in a guitar playing headspace is the anti-vibe. Just this last year I got my first 
I have the send/receive going through a 
I got the Q-Tron because it’s on John Mayer‘s board and 
The Pitch Fork is one of my most used petals, primarily because it’s quicker to downshift my guitar one octave with this pedal then to swap in a proper bass guitar. When I’m laying down a loop, I’m gonna need a bass line, and this gets me there fast. Mind you, the pedal does a ton more than that. It can thicken your sound by adding octaves above and/or below, with or without your the dry signal. Or you can do the same thing with fifths (power chords all day), fourths, thirds, or even a warbly detune. I haven’t yet become a regular expression pedal user, but this is one of the few pedals where I’ve played around with attaching a pedal.
When I went down this pedal rabbit hole, I looked at a lot of people’s boards on Reddit. And you see the Morning Glory on a ton of them, often described as an “always on” pedal. I don’t leave mine on all the time, but it is definitely a common add of special sauce that makes everything sound nicer. It’s some subtle boost and crunch that’s easy to switch on without losing anything, or to stack grit into my drive effects which come afterwards.
I got the Triumph as a flexible EQ overdrive pedal. As with many pedals, I was directed to it by The JHS Show where it was described as 
I was charmed into the PG 14 pedal by the infectious energy of Paul Gilbert‘s 
I regretted not buying a DS1 in the 90s when I should have. I probably would’ve played my electric guitar a whole lot more. This pedal sold 1.5 million units for a reason. It sounds great. Bright and crunchy, good for lead lines or for rhythm. I squeezed this off my board for a bit because I had fancy new pedals… but when I tried hooking it up again I realized it really did earn its slot. It’s a classic.
I’ve never been ecstatic about my 
When I saw the amazing art on the 
I love the sound of tremolo. Technically my amp has tremolo built in. But it lacks additional controls, and using the amp’s tremolo has the drawback that I might want different levels of tremolo on different overdubs within my loops. So I got a tiny standalone tremolo pedal. The Tidewater meets that needs tidily. I can control the rate and it has an indicator light to help dial that in. Plus I can adjust the mix to give a more subtle volume modulation.
As mentioned in my 
My experience with looping warrants its own post. But I’ll summarize by saying that upgrading my loop pedal was one of my most researched and most impactful decisions. Specifically I opted to trade up for something that had rhythm and had 2 loops so I could do verse/chorus alternating improvisation. I use this constantly and I absolutely love it. The only thing lacking is that I want to get an 
My first electric guitar was a hand-me-down from my uncle, given a few years after I started playing guitar in elementary school. It was the era of grunge, and much of the music I was listening to was filled to the brim with distortion. A stark contrast with my modest electric setup. And yet, when I assembled my own money to buy my first ever guitar pedal… I hipstered myself. I could have bought a distortion pedal like the Boss DS-1, used prominently by Nirvana and so many others. Or a Big Muff Pi fuzz pedal, used heavily by the Smashing Pumpkins. Or I even could have bought a delay pedal to do my best impression of U2’s The Edge. But no… I decided at the last minute to get something quirky and “unique”: an octave pedal, the 
