board kept growing and growing to the point that I needed to buy a kart with wheels to haul around my two-amplifier wet-dry rig with my huge pedal board and two guitars . And let me say it was fun ! I loved it .
But there came a point where I couldn ’ t afford to spend that much time on my set up for services and gigs . I quickly realized I didn ’ t need all that stuff , I just needed to simplify . I started to simplify by getting rid of reverbs and modulation pedals and only using an HX effect and keeping my overdrives , and delay , but still I had to haul everything around . There ’ s nothing wrong with this set up , and in part I still wish I had this because it was fun to have , but it wasn ’ t necessary or the most efficient option . In fact , I ( Chris Rocha ) just did a live recording at the Crypto Arena for Miel San Marcos next album where I only used my Signature distortion / overdrive pedal ( Jet Pedal ’ s Mr Jax ) and an HX Stomp along with a Jet Revelation reverb pedal and that ’ s it . Small , effective , and powerful .
ALL WE REALLY NEED
In the end what we “ really need ” is a caseby-case scenario . We don ’ t need a big board unless we need all the pedals for all the sounds , we don ’ t need another multi-effect unit unless perhaps we ’ re making and selling patches and presets , we don ’ t need a fifth overdrive unless we like the sound and color of overdrive .
What we do need is more inspired musicians to keep playing , keep worshiping , and keep building the body of Christ by worshiping to the best of our abilities and helping build up others . And if a big pedal board will help you do that than by all means go do it and do it to the best of your abilities , and if a small pedalboard is what you like than get the best sound you can possibly get from your small board .
Keep in mind the more cables and pedals we throw on the board , the more maintenance we ’ ll need , the more cables we have , the more signal degradation we ’ ll have which means we need more equipment to keep the fidelity of the signal alive , we ’ ll need to use buffers to keep it faithful to the signal . But most importantly let ’ s never forget the reason we do it , and to whom we must give all the glory !
Chris Rocha Chris Rocha is an American Christian producer , guitarist , business owner and pioneer in the Spanish Christian music industry . He is a two time Dove Award winner , has worked on two Grammy award winning records and has produced or recorded guitars on 5 Grammy nominated albums .
Jonathan Diaz Jonathan is a guitarist who is not only involved with his local church , but is also the director of School of Rock Cocowalk and instructor of CR Online !