gemini://mederle.de/b/16-gimme-knobs.gmi

I started playing electric guitar again in earnest about a year ago. I've been practicing for 30 minutes to two hours every day since. It helped me stay sane during the pandemic and what with all the other catastrophies. It also made me listen to music differently, my left hand gained a lot of dexterity, and as a tech nerd, there was a lot of new terrain to explore. Signal chains, tubes, amplifiers, pedals. I soldered my own RAT clone distortion pedal, learned about clipping diodes, upgraded the pickups in my Squier Telecaster, and I watched a lot of Youtube videos about guitar theory and gear.

One thing I'm not yet on board with is virtualizing the hardware. I get how a Kemper simplifies everything in a way. You simulate your amp and your pedals, it's less stuff to haul and buy, and you can do whatever. Certainly makes sense for a professional musician. My gear sits around my desk, though, where I spend most of the day working as a project manager for a software company. As much as I love computers and technology, she sheer haptic pleasure of switching on a pedal and turning its knobs instead up pulling up a dialog on a screen is one of the things that makes playing guitar an escape for me that works.

Progress is mostly good. There are things, though, that these days are less good for my taste. A buckling spring keyboard beats everything modern computers offer in terms of input devices. And there's something to say about a good pedal with three knobs that each have one purpose, and you can operate them with a toe. Good luck trying that with a touchscreen.

Gimme Knobs