I'm not selling my old pedals. Here's why.

I agree. I've found that keeping a small stash of pedals that didn't quite fit on my board, but I still really dig can help prevent some GAS. It's fun to swap things out from time to time and keep it fresh.

 

Just wait til JHS does a feature-show on your old pedals.

 

I view each pedal sold to be little sacrifices. Each time I sell a pedal I make a big deal about it to my wife, really make a big show about it. That allows me to sneak four more pedals in the door. Sometimes a pedal has to take one for the team, you know?

 

I do the same. If they survive the first year they are pretty much keepers even if they don't go on the board.
I've found some in the closet I forgot I had, lol.

 

It's rare I hate a pedal and that is the reason I'm selling it. It's usually a sacrifice. An attempt to be reasonable in my gear acquisition. I ask myself what do I really need? Where is there redundancy in my pedals?
I've also bought and sold and bought certain pedals again. Some were sold a second time, others were kept the second time. I've just accepted the game for what it is. If I had the financial luxury to keep every bit of gear that has passed through my hands I definitely would. There's lots of stuff I wish I still had around to rediscover.

 

I feel the same way. I enjoy periodically experimenting with old pedals that don’t see a lot of play time. Every once in a while I’ll find a combination of pedals, guitar, and amp that are surprisingly good.

 

I'll sell old pedals I don't like..but I'm just about out of those. The 20 or so that can't fit on my board will just have to wait their turn.

I also like pulling out something I haven't heard in a while and remembering why I own it.

 

Yeah, I sold them all. I am not into dust collecting chachkies. Once I find what I like, they never seem to come back out.

 

I sell some of my leftovers, because selling 1 pedal is the perfect excuse for buying 2 more!

 

This is highly relate-able for me. I've been ridiculed (for lack of a better word) on here for holding onto pieces of gear that I didn't immediately bond with.

4 out of the 6 pedals on my main/favorite pedal board are ones that I purchased, didn't really dig a whole lot, and then put on the shelf to collect dust for years on end. Actually, one of them I had sold and then repurchased a few months ago.

I think this was due to numerous factors. The first being I started playing with a softer touch a while back which flipped my entire world upside down within a matter of a couple of days. I quickly realized that most of my tone woes were due to me attacking the strings way too hard and way too often with a very hard and thick pick. This might be suitable for some heavier genres, but I don't play heavy music so it was really just fighting with my tone the whole time. I wasn't getting an accurate picture of how certain dirt boxes sound and react to my dynamics.

Another factor is I started almost exclusively using clean Fender amps like Vibro Champs, Deluxe Reverbs, & Vibroluxes, whereas before this I almost always used Vox Ac models. As we know, these amps tend to take pedals differently from each other. Sometimes even drastically different.

Another factor, and possibly the most important, is my technique has improved over the years which in turn changes my overall sound, which in turn dictates what pieces of gear work well with it.

There's no doubt in my mind that my next favorite pedal could very well be one that I already own and thought that it didn't work for me. It's already happened numerous times. Now that I'm aware of this, I'm much more reluctant to sell certain pieces of gear.

Don't get me wrong, sometimes I just know something isn't doing what I wanted, in which case I won't be too hesitant to part with it. Other times, things are just different than what I'm currently itching for, but deep down I'll know there's something special about it in its own way. Where I draw the line I'm unsure. I probably just go with my gut feeling by that point.

 

I won't say I'll never sell a pedal. Some things I know I'll never use again. But, I'm definitely more hesitant to do so now and give it a lot more thought before doing so.

It's just been too many times that I've sold something (for a loss) and realized somewhere down the road that I really wish I had held on to it.

 

My problem is that I’ve discovered what a difference subtle changes can make. Swap a speaker in my amp for example and a pedal that was benched suddenly becomes a star player.

 

Don't know what that word sell means ?

 

Usually when I decide to sell a pedal I break it out to give it one more go, and it ends up back on the board! lol

 

I NEVER sell my pedals ever. Reason? I never buy a pedal, etc, until I have a distinct use for it, such as a new composition, or a part of a song, etc. I also seldom look for something "better" if the existing gear has served me well onstage and/or in the studio. As a result I have a small library of such things that I can call upon when the song requires.

 

The King of Tone is a perfect example of this for me. When I bought mine several years ago I thought it was a good pedal, but at the time I was into different sounding OD pedals and it wasn't something I'd use. I chose to put it away rather than sell it since they were so hard to get.

Fast forward a few years, I'm building a cover band board and the KOT becomes the centerpiece. Glad I didn't sell it.

 

Completely agree. There are a thousand tubescreamer clones out there, but the one I have is good enough for me. Don't want to get caught in the buying/selling cycle trying to find one that might be just a smidgen "better" than the one I have.

 

A better alternative is to keep buying moar and bigger pedalboards, complete with multiple daisy-chained midi bypass switchers to handle your ever-increasing pedal collection, says the guy with two Pedaltrain Novo 32s.