Pedalboard Version 3

My guitar pedalboard has continued to evolve from its last iteration, and after many stable months of the same configuration I’m calling this “version 3.” Why change it at all? Two instigating events:

Pedalboard Version 2

After I created my first pedalboard, I learned so much, and assembled a second board. Let me go over the contents of my second board, in signal chain order.

Pedalboard Lessons

After creating my first pedalboard and living it with it for a while, I had some lessons:

Journey to My First Pedalboard

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.