Pics of indie bands' pedalboards, guitars, amps, etc.

[calaverasgrandes]

dood judgin people is FUN.
try this experiment

go to starbuck/peets and order a coffee. drink it.
kinda boring?
Now go to a starbucks/peets, order a coffee, drink it while making fun of everyone that comes in.
Way more entertaining!

[BrontoSoreAss]

The more pedals a band has, the less likely I am to like them. Fuck pedal fetish

This is a silly attitude. Pedals are tools among many others - they can be used tastefully or not. There are tons of tasteless derivative bands producing thoughtless shallow music using minamilist setups. A Telecaster plugged straight in can be the favorite weapon of a tasteless hack - as can a gigantic pedalboard - as can a rackful of compressors and protools. Tools are tools. They can be used in tasteful interesting ways or not, whatever form they might take. I don't know about yours, but in my local music scene it seems to me like there's lots of good music and bad inhabiting both ends of this minamalist-to-cableforest spectrum.

There are two kind of musicians that use unusual gear. There are the ones that are doing it because they have adventurous tastes. Then there are the ones that are just hopping on the latest trend.

A bit of a false dichotomy I think but makes an important point - there are tons of bands making music for the wrong reasons - sad but true.

Some folks are not satisfied with how their gear sounds, because it doesn't give them the soudns they hear in their head. So they modify their gear electronically. Adding switches for different frequency cutoff points or inductors. Then there are the "followers" that buy modded gear on ebay, because that is the cool thing now.

This I don't think is entirely fair to say specifically the latter part - there is such a huge market for weird quirky gear now that if there is something inparticular your after, that "you hear in your head", someone might have built it already. I have some gear I modified myself and gear that I bought off the "boutique" market where someone had already slammed out what I was after or at least part of the puzzle.

Now go to a starbucks/peets, order a coffee, drink it while making fun of everyone that comes in.
Way more entertaining!

True.

[calaverasgrandes]

I guess I got a bit of sour grapes going on.
I am just pissed because previously uncool obscure gear is now the new vintage.
Hands off my Moog MG1!

[Jeff White]

The more pedals a band has, the less likely I am to like them. Fuck pedal fetish.

You know, the same can be said for plug-ins, rack gear, pairs of shoes, amount of food in a fridge...

[calaverasgrandes]

hey, more shoes=less likely to get foot fungus!
I never wear the same shoes two days in a row.

[Snarl 12/8]

I'm trying to figure out why all the guitarists I've jammed with in recent memory have showed up with huge pedal boards and I cringe. I'm just turned off by it. I think it's a residual feeling from being a kid playing with other kids and all the jam sessions that were fairly pointless because the guitarist didn't know how to get a good sound out of their pedals and would spend the whole time dicking with them. All the recent adults I've jammed with have sounded really good and spent almost no time dialing in tones on their pedals. But I still have a knee-jerk reaction that I'll admit might not be warranted in the majority of cases.

[vivalastblues]

I've just found that in my experience bands that use less are able to do more, with IDEAS rather than tools.

A band like Lightning Bolt does well using a bunch of delays and other cool shit, because it complements their sound and they KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING. But assholes with 2 pedal boards full of distortions and delays that become so complicated they couldn't possibly know what the hell is going on (and anyone who plays music can tell that they don't) are just annoying and perpetuate this pedal obsession that seems to have started around the time Radiohead started using that many pedals.

It's fine to have a delay and a wah and a distortion, but I've found as a general rule, the more pedals the band spends an hour setting up to use, the less engaging the band is. Not always true - I've recently seen two great bands that used a bunch of pedals, but they didn't rely on them. They were just recent additions to their rigs, and both bands can run perfectly well without them.

I understand the sentiment of 'experimenting' and whatever, but I also think that time is sort of over and if you're not using the tool in a meaningful or significant way then you just shouldn't use it.

[vvv]

dood judgin people is FUN.
try this experiment

go to starbuck/peets and order a coffee. drink it.
kinda boring?
Now go to a starbucks/peets, order a coffee, drink it while making fun of everyone that comes in.
Way more entertaining!

I got yer point, and I agree!

Lemme say we've been actively auditioning guitarists for about a year.
Now, as a guitarist who owns about 30 pedals, I can diggit.
That said, I usually for a OD, a distortion, a wah, a reverb or delay, and mebbe one outtro pedal
(flanger, auto-filter, chorus, wacky-delay, etc.) on my boards, me.

Anywhat, when they show up with more than mebbe 5 pedals, they suck, whine that they can't get "my sound", etc.

All except one guy showed up with the most pristine pedal board,
8 or 10 pedals, all boutique stuff, a beautiful amp, etc.
I swear he used paste wax and Armor-All on everything.

When I tried to switch my bass with him for a jam he about hadda heart attack.
"Nobody plays my stuff".
So I didn't get to play his random Les Paul, and he didn't get to play my '63 P-bass.
And we did not call him again.

[dave watkins]

the blog is really great, thanks for sharing!

also, sometimes minimal gear can be awesome, sometimes tons of gear can be awesome.

also also, i love that the volume knob for the tempo guide is taped down in the first picture, i can't tell you the amount of times i've seen folks do live sets and go for a loop and some cheesy drum beat comes through the amp.

[Mudcloth]

Thanks for posting the blog link, very cool.

Giant pedal boards can be kind of obnoxious, yes. I played with a guy who had two gigantic pedal boards. He played a Balalaika.

I used to only use a tuner, an overdrive and a boost and one of the bands I was in asked me to not use so many pedals. It didn't look cool.

My board right now has a tuner, fuzz (rarely used, unless I've had a few beers), overdrive (usually on the lowest drive setting) boost, phase 90 (rarely used), vibrato/tremolo, delay ( almost always used as slapback).
Some gigs I only use the tuner and maybe the boost. Depends on the band, depends on the music. They're tools. Sometimes a song calls for a little vibrato. Nice to have it when the song wants it.

I also occasionally use a capo. I like the sound of ringing strings sometimes. Can I play in the key of G without a capo? Yes. Can I capo the third fret and let it ring? Yes. Also a tool. If all I had was a guitar and an amp (without reverb or vibrato) and a cable I could get through just about any gig because I know how to play the guitar. That's a nice feeling.

I have been surprised before listening to a band that dresses funny and has beat up, shitty gear.

[younglungs85]

*bump*
Lots of new gear posted! (St. Vincent, Acid Mothers Temple, Nada Surf, Local H, Olivia Tremor Control, Joseph Arthur, Bear In Heaven, Wye Oak, Agalloch, Wild Nothing, Sharon Van Etten...)

http://OtherBandsStuff.com

[Darlington Pair]

I'm trying to figure out why all the guitarists I've jammed with in recent memory have showed up with huge pedal boards and I cringe. I'm just turned off by it. I think it's a residual feeling from being a kid playing with other kids and all the jam sessions that were fairly pointless because the guitarist didn't know how to get a good sound out of their pedals and would spend the whole time dicking with them. All the recent adults I've jammed with have sounded really good and spent almost no time dialing in tones on their pedals. But I still have a knee-jerk reaction that I'll admit might not be warranted in the majority of cases.

I think that's an unfair generalization, just because you have a lot of pedals doesn't mean you spend a long time trying to obtain a good sound that you can't seem to get. I have a friend who a couple of years ago spent 2 1/2 hours of studio time trying to get the perfect sound out of a DD-3. Some folks are like that, it doesn't matter if it's 1 or 100 pedals.

In full disclosure, I have a fairly large pedalboard because I dig having a wide range of sounds available and my pedalboard is wired, snaked, and I'm quicker with set up/break down than a lot of guys are plugging a guitar straight into an amp, because I don't screw around on stage. That's not true of all guys with big pedalboards, but it's also not true of all guys with just a Les Paul and a Marshall.

I like a guy just as much with guitar/amp as I do one with a big pedalboard just as long as they are making good music I find the gear to be irrelevant. But come on, gear is fun and can be inspiring to build something and have a new unique sound at your disposal.

There are certain folks that have a fetish for mojo and/or trends, let's try not to let it bias our opinions of music that we might just enjoy.

[Nick Sevilla]

I love my pedals.

And I understand why in a live setting you need a bunch...

If you need 15 different sounds and don't want or can't change settings every song really quickly, having more pedals means getting to the next song/sound faster.

Cheers

[Smitty]

To the OP: MOST EXCELLENT BLOG. You literally just made my whole day with it. I am totally that guy who always wants to know what people are using, down to the little nitty-gritties. Please keep it up!

I played with a guy who had two gigantic pedal boards. He played a Balalaika.

If I went somewhere and saw two gigantic pedal boards and a Balalaika set up, I would hang around until I got to see what happened, no matter how long I had to wait. It's like the old saying about the loaded gun introduced in the first act of a play.

[younglungs85]

To the OP: MOST EXCELLENT BLOG. You literally just made my whole day with it. I am totally that guy who always wants to know what people are using, down to the little nitty-gritties. Please keep it up!

Thanks for the words, I will most certainly keep adding to it!