Effects Pedals (guitar)

Living in a city where you don’t really have the opportunity to be super loud and not a complete asshole at the same time doesn’t leave you many choices in regards to experimenting with guitar amps and effects.  You wind up playing guitar unplugged or an acoustic or you pay your scarcely earned dollars for a rehearsal space and even that has it’s issues. You’ll find yourself nestled between The Bro-Metal bands and the Teen Angst Punk Rock played by 38 year olds and their bass and kick will boom and echo through your half assedly sound proofed room.

However, once in a blue moon you wind up at the rehearsal spot alone because the rest of the band bailed on practice and this gives you an opportunity to crank the amp and play whatever the hell you want to.   For me that was an opportunity to once again pull the effects out without having to worry if anybody but myself can keep time with it or hear the nuances I do.   I used to play with effects a lot and then I think as a result of writing more songs at home, the effects started dropping off one by one.  Instead of a whole board turned on at once, I now just use one or less at  a time.  I don’t know if it’s old age or that all the bands that knew how to use the effects effectively are all 10years defunct and so I’m uninspired by those types of sounds.  Regardless, things just weren’t the same.  The excitement of discovering a new combination of sound or rhythm was lost on me and the one piece that I did like with the tremolo/delay/wah combo I tend to use often, actually sounded better with just a little overdrive and reverb.  

Did I grow out of It or has my writing just developed into something different that no longer benefits from heavy usage of boss pedals.  I’m more into thinking about what will accentuate the dry guitar part as opposed to what will send it to the freaking moon.  It makes sense since most songwriters tend to become more Country or Bluesy as time goes on, maybe I'm due for this transition.