Is there a future for analog pedals?

[bean]

Now that there are so many great sounding modelers in various form factors, from pedal sized to full size floor or rack multi-fx, do you think the days of the analog pedal are numbered? What can an analog pedal do that a modeler or DSP can't do just as well or better? (except perhaps introducing people to electronics). I can't think of anything else...

There will be an analog market for as long as analog components and related manufacturing processes are still commercially available. And probably 20-30 years after that. (IMO).

 

[jessenator]

There will be an analog market for as long as analog components and related manufacturing processes are still commercially available. And probably 20-30 years after that. (IMO).

well said!

We'll adapt, too. Components may go SMD, but as long as they keep making them, we'll building them.

 

[Grubb]

They're modular, affordable, collectable. Analog pedals are here to stay.

 

[HamishR]

I guess these analog pedals are going to stay around as long as we play wooden guitars with pickups made out of a magnet with wire wrapped around it.

I think there's room for both analog and digital. CDs never replaced records entirely. I use my own hand-built overdrives and boosts into digital reverb and delay. It's a case of using what works best for me for a particular job. I happen to like analog dirt and digital delays.

 

[PedalBuilder]

My analog pessimism comes in part from having worked for a long time with engineer/producer extraordinaire George Massenburg. He invented the parametric EQ, and the various analog studio gear he developed over the years is legendary. Nowadays he mostly writes plug-in versions of his old gear. True, he sat on the plug-in version of his GML compressor for maybe 10 years before he liked it well enough to release it, but the point is, it did eventually get there. It did get on par with the big analog box, if not even better. I'm sure a fuzz face is trivial to reproduce in comparison.

Ironically, the simple fuzz face circuit is impossible to model digitally. A key part of the fuzz face sound is the interaction between the low, non-linear input impedance of the fuzz face and the pickups of the guitar. I had an exchange on this topic with Cliff Chase at Fractal Audio and his view is that while you can easily model a fuzz face that’s behind a buffer, that kinda misses the what makes the fuzz face enjoyable in the first place. So I suspect that the last analog effects will be simple circuits like the fuzz face and Jordan Boss Tone that have low input impedances and are highly interactive with the guitar’s pickups.

 

[PunchySunshine]

 

[Feral Feline]

Just waiting for digital components...

Like when the 2N3904 is no longer manufactured, there'll just be a generic transistor with nanotechnology that enables "them" to program it to be a 2N3904 or a BC189C or a J201 — that'll be the big thing, TO-92 packages that can be programmed to be whatever BJT / JFET / MOSFET you want.

A generic resistor that you can program to be whatever EXACT value you need it to be so your pedal can be made within an EQ sweet-spot — no more of this close-enough for R&R decadeS BS, instead get EXACT resistor values!

Same thing for caps. Nanotech microcontrollers inside what looks to be a capacitor in different packages — need an electrolytic that looks like a box-film? Program it in. A mylar package, but programmed to behave like a tantalum ...

Generic chips, ie programmable ICs, that can be configured to be a Burr Brown bitsa, a Motorola mashup, a Texas Instruments topIC — THE SAD1024 ...


Kidding aside...


I HATE all the phone-app crap being developed and shoved down our collective throat. I don't want that premature end-of-life planned obsolescence BS. Remember the Digitech iStomp?

A Ford Model T can still drive down the road today, albeit slowly, but can you even connect a first-gen iPhone to the Internet? Can you even find a mobile-phone-carrier-company that has cellular connections capable of supporting a first-wave cell-phone ...

So, yeah, there IS a future for analogue pedals, maybe even for analog ones, too.

 

[kristopher]

I’m not Anti-digital; as I write this on an i-phone. But over the last few years I’ve purposely avoided digital involvement in my guitar setup. I tried a focusrite into garage band, and found I was staring at a screen and clicking a mouse more than I was strumming.
I’m 43 year old Luddite, and I plan to continue enjoying my analog set up for as long as I can. I like the interaction of a wood and steel instrument into a few boxes that have simple functions. And, like Nostradoomus said “if it breaks, I can fix it”.
Perhaps in 20 years, analog pedals and amps will be discontinued. But I will still have mine set up, ready to roll at the flick of a switch.
And hopefully I can source a replacement switch in an antique shop when that one pops. Haha

 

[Paradox916]

^very valid points. Countless times, plugin x or y stopped working after an OS or DAW update. Then you update everything, and settings are lost. But this is plug-in-specific. Physical digital boxes are somewhat better in this respect. Except... Remember Firewire? We have stacks of old Firewire hardware at work that's useless now: RME, MOTU, Metric Halo, Lynx, Mytek, Apogee, dCs, Mackie, Avid, M-Audio ... You name it.

I had a 16 channel firewire mixer that became useless for its intended purpose, everything becomes obsolete eventually. Somethings have longer life span than others, especially when it comes to the latest and greatest…. Beware of the bells and whistles I guess. Look at the fractal stuff sure it’s almost industry standard for touring musicians the III goes for over 2k where a first gen now can be had for $400… and at what point does it become a paper weight?

 

[Coda]

Don’t think of it as tech from a tech/business/capital sense. Think of it as tech in an artistic sense. Digital effects are a medium, just like analog effects, or oil paints, or pastels. Remember: they stopped making the BMP for about a decade. Sure it returned, but not in the form people wanted/remembered. So you end up with losers like me making them at the kitchen table, and then selling them by dropping a few off a various local music shops. I could buy a new one, but I want the sound of a particular one. There will always be pedal “artisans”…

You’d be surprised how many people still use and prefer straight-razors for shaving…

 

[jimilee]

Nope, these things come in cycles like LPs. Digital will make a new showing, then people will remember why they like analogue pedals. I’ve seen it probably 3 or so times in my lifetime.

 

[Gordo]

Here's a good example of trying to stay versatile these days. If I was in a live rock band I'd really like to have my 50w Marshall and a decent board. Even that might be overkill for most bars these days. I'm playing in a praise band with no gear onstage so my pedal board also has a Blackstar Amped 2 that is a hybrid of analog and digital but no tubes and no speakers. In the interest of staying REALLY portable this weekends' complete rig is this and I paid $48 on a black friday deal.



Has a battery that lasts about 12 hours. XLR out to front of house with IR cabs and 8 different amps. 36 presets. Does it sound as good as a AxeFX? I dunno, maybe by the time it gets to the audience. I doubt it, but damn close. For my purposes nobody will know the difference. Would I rather use my own pedals? Damn sure. But at the end of the day I can take the train with a guitar case and a cable and do the deal. Will I stop making pedals? Hell no. This is just a convenient alternative and those alternatives are getting solid but will never replace the real deal.

Called a G-Tank, which pretty much describes the build quality.

 

[Gordo]

For the record the band has a shit hot drummer and a good bass player with a few tracks flown in for impossible to cover keys so I have it pretty easy.

 

[jimilee]

For the record the band has a shit hot drummer and a good bass player with a few tracks flown in for impossible to cover keys so I have it pretty easy.

I used to run sound at church. We always had fill in drummers, one of which would do Nico Brain Iron Maiden drum fills. It was awesome.

 

[Nostradoomus]

Don’t think of it as tech from a tech/business/capital sense.

This is also part of why I stay away, they aren't mutually exclusive. That's a topic for another thread though.

 

[tegendemuur]

Analog will stay for a long time in hybrid form, I suspect. It's the only way for analog to survive the modern consumerworld. That it, outside of basic distortion / fuzz, which will remain, I suspect, because it's cheaper to do this in analog than digital. Full analog will die with the snobs. No idea how much kids of today will care about any of this? Don't care either. The world has gone to shit at that point anyway.

 

[HamishR]

Another way to look at it: Music has always evolved with the technology to make it. But people still play trumpets and harpsichords. I find it interesting how closely related music and technology are now and have always been.

As a photographer I once had a job documenting historically important houses in an older part of town. The house was being rented to some guys who were musicians, and one of them had loads of electronic gear for playing the latest electronic music stuff. We had a little chat about music and he asked what I played - at the time I had just joined a rockabilly band. He kinda smirked disdainfully and said "That's so '80s". I didn't bother correcting him.

I seem to use whatever makes the sound I like. I still use tube amps, as I suspect a lot of us here do. I use them because they sound good. I use my analog dirt pedals because that's the best way yet I have found to make the dirt sounds I like. But I use digital for delays and reverbs because they sound great and are quiet. I also like tube and SS because I can build and tweak them. I love that we can mix technologies from various eras and get the sounds we like. My rig spans at least 70 years in technology.

 

[xefned]

Nope, these things come in cycles like LPs. Digital will make a new showing, then people will remember why they like analogue pedals. I’ve seen it probably 3 or so times in my lifetime.

Yep, this guy right here

Kemper is just the latest RP-1.
Remember 1992 when everyone sold their pedals to buy these?


You'll all be back eventually.

 

[JTEX]

Yep, this guy right here

Kemper is just the latest RP-1.
Remember 1992 when everyone sold their pedals to buy these?
View attachment 87067

You'll all be back eventually.

I actually had one of these briefly. Circa 1992 Hated it even back then, went back to the store just days later. Couldn't get a good distortion out of it. Reverbs were great though.

 

[xefned]

There's a popular youtuber who gets all his toans from an ME-50.
At $125, I nearly bought this unit, knowing there's $125 worth of usability in there. I'm sure the purchaser was one of his followers.



So there’s probably a coming quad-cortex pendulum with some righteous deals in the next decade.