Re: I have a few words about brands and people who judge them.
I agree with that. Dismissing a pedal because of its low price point is a mistake. Look at Visual Sound / TrueTone's Garage Tone series as a good example. Most of that line is now discontinued and whatever is left is on its way out. They were very good pedals and priced around $50 US. They flopped because many potential buyers assumed they were crap because if the low price point. But I see many people who have bought them placing them right along side some very expensive pedals.
Low pricing does not always mean it's crap. Sometimes it's just a good deal. But if you exclude lower priced pedals from your gear search without at least trying them, you could be missing out.
An acquaintance of mine mentioned several years ago that when he tries gear, he doesn't even look at the prices until he's tried everything that caught his eye and decided what he likes. If the piece he likes most is more than he has; he either saves up until he can afford it or he checks the price of his other choices working his way back until he finds something he's satisfied with that fits his budget. One time he ended up with a Squire Strat he preferred over some MIM and USA strats... His first choice was a USA Strat that was out of his budget, his second choice was about $800 below his budget... An American Standard was his #3.
You know having a engineering background I tend to look at things from just more than a ear or sensory perception sort of thing. Restating the simple fact, a talented player playing "anything" can make it sound good, so judgments based on the "newness facade" seldom hold. I mean if you find something that is just $30, has a wide range of versatile adjust, low noise, fidelity buffering or bypass then by all means, do tell. I usually run through everything a pedal has to offer in a couple weeks, if they do well they survive being replaced and personally I do not care what they cost. I have returned several $300 pedals as they just did not live up to the hype.
To clarify a basic premise in the gear realm, one plays what one can afford and progression is a normal development of just about anything. I started using Boss stuff centuries ago and while I do think the Waza stuff is pretty good, there are just some lines and gear stuff I just do not care to revisit. Now that being said some new things turn my head indeed but to merely buy cheap for cheap's sake or expensive for expensive sake is lacking the all prevalent axiom of "bang for the buck".
I like to think there is a happy medium and that is usually where I end up. I do not need and do not want a Les Paul costing 8-9K nothing is going to convince me it "sounds" 3x better than the ones I have. I am sure I could rip through a $30 pedal and make something out of it, who could not given they can play in the first place.
Problem I always run into with low priced stuff is they are noisy on my rig, have a lack of tone range, degrade my signal, or breakup when hit normally.
Should one settle for cheap cables as decent ones might cost a little more and yes there is a difference.
I mean we have players out there who consider impedance distortion, tracking glitch, tone loss and ground loop hum part of the "tone". So really it would seem what one hears and likes can make another wretch.
If you can have what you want even by saving up a little then it seems choices are more to a persons individual choice and taste. Some have poor taste on many levels. Just because I would rather drive a Mercedes than a Ford Fiesta does not make me a bad person, I don't know, maybe it makes me a better one. I had my times of being broke and not being able to buy anything, I do not miss those times. Progression is the way of life, I play better than I did years past and my gear constantly keeps changing towards a higher end. Should I drop that and play a cheap guitar, low priced pedals and super cheap cables and batteries again? Why? I like where things are going, I would probably quit playing if it were not for something cool i just got. Gear is what makes the guitar fun for me, take that away and the guitar is pointless for me.
Some cats like little tiny pedals and low priced stuff, have at it. If you have been playing for a number of years and just use what you started with and keep buying the same then it would seem to be arrested development.
. That's because I'm a firm believer in the law of diminishing returns & don't necessarily believe an 8k guitar = happiness + untold talent.
