JPF Home Page Forums Musician Gear and Techniques Guitars and Guitarist Forum Overdrive/dist. stomp boxes

I have personally never enjoyed using a pedal when gigging. I played an old tele for 30+ years and I loved it's sound through my tube amp. I had a master volume and could get every bit of overdrive I ever wanted straight from my amp. Most of the boxes to my ear added too much of a processed quality to the sound, where I got less of the actual guitar tone and more of the stompbox. As I got older I became more and more enamored with cleaner tone with less overdriven tubes. I will use just a light amount most of the time. I now have a new tele because I no longer feel comfortable taking my old one out to clubs. It has a stock tele sound which, for me, sounds great through a Vox amp. Nowadays I use a much cleaner more country sound most of the time, but I am not playing as much straight ahead rock and roll anymore. It all comes down to personal taste.