Are you a player or builder?

[junkemail86]

Seems like there are a lot of people with electronics or engineering backgrounds here.  I was wondering if most of you consider yourself better axemen or solderhands?  I'm neither by trade, but I hope that my playing is at least a little better than my building after looking at my soldering work...

[bigmufffuzzwizz]

Yea I find myself putting more confindence into my building. I have friends who smoke me playing guitar and I feel like I can leave it too them. But my buddy who always plays guitar (8 hours everyday) says he wants to move away from "pedals" and more into real "guitar playing/tone". I'm sure he'll still play my pedals though! 

[jkokura]

Hee hee!

http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=114.0

Jacob

[stecykmi]

i actually pursued engineering (mostly) because i got interested in musical electronics.

i later found that as an engineering student you don't have enough time to play, haha. my guitar playing hasn't progressed very much since school. if i had to make a gamble on which i could make more money doing, i'd have to choose the technical side of music, but i'd like to think that i'm still a (mediocre) player at heart.

[juansolo]

Definitely a builder. I only bought a guitar a couple of years ago with a desire to learn to play and it wasn't long before I'd bought a BYOC kit as I fancied getting back into electronics also. The building then overtook the playing. With a full-time job in IT and my main hobby running fast cars around in circles, the playing has certainly suffered.

I'm definitely addicted to making pedals. Every time I find a new schem or board out there for something interesting, I'm itching to throw it together to see what it does. Basically I'm a geek, always have been, always will be.

[jimmybjj]

I'm not either really, I like to do both  At this point I enjoy building more than I enjoy playing.

[aziltz]

i'm in a band, and were honestly a very good sounding, 4 piece cover band.  We haven't played any gigs and its pretty laid back.  We're also all full time graduate students in physics, so free time is a luxury!

I like to think I'm a decent guitar player.  I'm not the fastest but I also dabble in song writing when I have time.  When I make it big (with a real job) I hope to get one of those home studios above the garage.

I mostly design and build effects because I have a need or cool idea for a pedal.

[Myramyd]

I mainly build so many pedals right now because I get a chance to try them out live!

I carry two pedal boards to practice and gigs right now. 

Playing 4 hours of Classic Rock from the 60s-90s warrants a lot of pedal-based diversity. Trying to figure out how to narrow down the pedal selection but it's proving to be tough. I used to use a Line6 POD forever (*boo*) so I got used to a lot of tonal variations.

The only hard part is when we learn a new song that requires yet another pedal. Like we just started playing "Owner of a Lonely Heart" which required me to add my POG and Whammy pedal with a parallel looper. 

J

[Nuno_VanBamsteen]

Player 1st, builder second.
IF I have spare time, I'm much more likely to practice than build-mod.
I have a hankering to do 2 projects at the moment.
I have a Glitterati build I want to get rolling, and I have a DS-1 Allums' Recto Plus mod I want to install.

You can find my band on the web or youtube.

"Chaometry"

NVBS

[ChrisVereb]

I'm making the transition to builder from player.  Having kids has slowed my gigging to hault and even really reduced my outside the basement jamming.  I've made money playing, but never desired to make a career out of it.  I'm an EE by trade, but I'm more of a digital/software guy.  Music processing is what got me into engineering in the 1st place, but it's only now that I've really decided to look into making some devices instead of just knowing the theory.

[jball85]

player

[aflynt]

This is an interesting question that required some reflection on my part...

I always used to think of myself as a player first, but the signs were always there. It started while I was first learning to play, spending hours pouring over equipment catalogs. I played professionally for over 10 years, but gradually found myself spending more time tinkering with pedals and amps and eventually computers than practicing. Now I've got about 10 years in as a full time software developer and while I still regularly play jobs for money, I find that what I still do the most is tinker with technology. Lately, all my spare time consists of building pedals (that will likely be replaced with some other technology related hobby eventually).

I practiced and played the guitar constantly for nearly 20 years, and that knowledge and facility is still there, but the fact is that it's been about 10 years since I've reached a new plateau. So... Even though I love music and still play, I guess what I really am deep down inside is a "builder."

-Aaron

[nzCdog]

player... tho I am a tad compulsive by nature so building gives me productive something to focus on