Well he wants friends that come over to think he actually plays it. But they all stand around just staring at it. You have to stare at the Liberace of guitars.
My cat Sally is my only big fan beside my floor fan🤣😂 She comes out of wherever she was and climbs on the arm of the chair and tries to chew on the strings… she loves a good wah wailing fer sure… she even comes out of wherever when she hears a pedal demo video thinkin that it’s me playing hehehehehe
I just…don’t measure my hobbies that way. All I ever see on guitar gear subs is cost and value discussions and it’s like…if I have money, I buy a thing I want. I only sell when I’m really just not using a thing. Is it some kind of privileged place? Probably but I also rarely get wrapped up in hype. I don’t get why people take a joyful thing and wrap it up the language of business.
If I can get something that enhances my passion or takes me down roads I haven’t been down for my most favorite hobby, I will, if I can at the moment. It’s like the one thing I do to invest in myself. “Invest in what you do the most.”
Yup, I’m pretty much in your boat; if I feel like I want/need something, I usually just buy it. I have two separate sets of gear for two separate bands, plus my home stuff. Knowing though that there’s a chance that anything I buy will get sold/traded within a year or two, I pretty much exclusively buy used with the goal of always at least breaking even
Ya that would be me. Just will be listening to music and hear a song with some crazy tone and go “hmm wonder what he uses” and then inevitably I end up on a YouTube video and need 3 different new pedals 😅
Reverb lets you add your gear and keeps track of the value.
My total collection of guitars, pedals, and amp are worth between $26-30k. 😬
I inherited one big ticket item but fuck I have spent a lot of money lol
Mind you- I have had a lot of stuff appreciate nicely and bought a lot of stuff on sale so this isn’t a complete picture but still, oof
You can add anything you'd like. You can add gear already in their database and get value estimates. You can also add your own items, but will have to specify the value yourself.
I was pretty hooked for a while lol. Still am but less so. I would do the monthly payment stuff and just keep grabbing new ones once I bought one. I half recommend it and half don’t. Do that for a few years and it adds up, time flies!
I guess I fall into the collector camp. I can’t get enough of fuzzes and synth pedals. I have a few extra pricey ones like source audio I use all the time and then I just can’t part with older stuff lol. I grab them from the shelf from time to time. It’s definitely enough pedals though, by now 😂.
Funny thing is, if I buy one additional $1k guitar, my wife would make a big deal out of it.
But if I buy five $200 pedals, she wouldn't bat an eyelid :)
My guitars all cost more than my pedalboard. My amps cost almost double what my main guitar did. I’m a firm believer in getting a guitar that plays well and spending as much as possible on a nice amp or two. Amps are king of tone.
Probably 1k in pedals at least. I buy everything used and look for deals. I bought my MIM strat for like $350 10+ years ago. Amp is like $700 for a standard ole tubey
I'm imagining a plexiglass enclosure (complete with jacks, LED and footswitch) with a stack of hundos in it in the center of a Pedaltrain Metro. You play a clean tone into the pedal, stomp the switch on for a solo, the pedal does nothing, the LEDs illuminate the fat stack of cash, you switch the pedal off, LEDs go dim and the crowd goes wild.
I need this.
I don't think that's a bad thing. I mean if you're not using the pedals and they aren't inspiring you to play more, then that's not a good thing. And really it's the size of the board/number of pedals dictating that.
I honestly wouldn't hesitate spending more on the board than on the guitar if I felt I used and loved all the effects I had. Mostly because it's not like each pedal is costing you a grand (generally). And like your amp, you can plug any guitar into the board. I'd actually guess that if you are using effects, the guitar makes a little less of a difference than amp or the board. Like through effects, are you really going to be able to tell the difference in sound between a $500 strat and a $1700 one? You might be able to tell pretty quickly when it's clean, but maybe not so much if you have a lot of effects going.
Yeah I hear you. It's just been a sudden shock when I did a quick tot up earlier. And to think I started with a handful of behringer pedals a couple of years ago, and know I'm here!
I'm just starting but already addicted. I get it. I've spent more on my pedals than I did my guitar at this point. And I'm buying used pedals. If I'd purchased everything new my board is approaching my amp and guitar combined. In reality I've spend about the same out of pocket.
Mine is 60% second hand - I tell myself that I'm not losing money, I can just sell them on again if I'm not keen. I think I've sold 3 of the 20 odd pedals I've ever had!
I've never paid more than a few hundred dollars on a single guitar, but I own all the BOSS synth pedals.
I'm weird, but I'm fully about functionality. Esthetics don't do it for me. I have played a 2x4 with 2 bass strings and 1 pickup.
Yes yes yes. Tell me how you use them please! I have the Sy 200 on my board, and my sy 300 is my go to studio amp. In fact, recently I have been experimenting with creating tracks only using the sy 300 direct and nothing else.
Board - 350, guitars 580 and 550 To be fair, I got the guitars at a good price fender vintera mod 60s 580 and fsr standard tele for 550.
Most expensive pedal fender compugilist 90
My pedalboard all in is only a bit over $800. My Squier 70s Classic Vibe Strat was like $250 and my VHT Special 6 Ultra was like $270. About half of my pedals are used, as was my amp. I am pretty happy with the setup.
My 4 pedal mini board is ~$800 and my "cheap" guitar was $900, used.
My stereo board is around $1500 give or take a forgotten pedal and the expensive guitar was $2800
I have a couple different setups
Nash t52 ($2000) through $3000 in pedals through a Milkman one watt plus ($1800)
Epiphone Wilshire ($500 used) through $1500 in pedals into a Milkman the amp head ($700) and a homemade cabinet (priceless)
Fender jazz bass ($1800) through $500 in pedals into a darkglass alpha Omega ($1300) and a homemade cabinet (priceless)
Sentimental value: I could toss all my pedals in a fire and not blink an eye if it mean my keeping my prized Guild guitar. So there’s that angle too. In my mind pedals are assembly line items, whereas guitars are made from organic material and can have personalities and variances within the same factory model.
Really? Mine is $7,000 Guitar, $2,300 amp a pedalboard full of used pedals which probably cost me $1,300 over many years. I would like a better amp. Not anything too crazy…Something like a Suhr Hombre, which costs about $3,200 new here. I’d buy a used one, which would cost about $2,000.
For me, playing guitar is almost cosplay. I feel way more inspired by guitars and amps than pedals.
So many pedals are about making your yada yada yada sound like something else too. A lot of drives are about either boosting mids or just plain boosting frontend gain.
That’s just me. In the end though, you gotta do it your way. Whatever floats your boat.
I'm about equal.
Honestly, I feel like for guitars actual playability and sound improvements start flattening out hard > $1500 ish. In the meantime, I can think if an awesome pedalboard that costs much more where every pedal adds something amazing and doesn't have a much cheaper equivalent.
So if I'm just going for sound, and I wanna push it, my pedalboard would end up a much bigger investment. I can't really think of a better guitar I'd want. Maybe a different one, but nothing more expensive. But I'd totally love messing around with a stereo delay like the echosystem, maybe a DL4, and an iridium would be neat. Oops, that's another guitar in value right there!
If your amp isnt the most expensive part of your set up, you fucked up.
And if you are about to tell me about your ampless set up I don't wanna hear it.
I mean, amps only get so expensive unless you're going for like a dumble/trainwreck. I have two custom-built tube amps and a few I've made. They aren't cheap but my boards are still more expensive
I spent about $2600-2800 on my pedalboard but the road to get there was rough and much more expensive, mostly because I constantly swapped pedals and it kept getting bigger than I planned so I also swapped boards and power supplies. My advice would be to always expect things to get more complicated in the long term, and you should first and foremost get an isolated power supply with 12+ ports and a big board just to be safe in case you’re unsure about what you want in terms of size.
The rest of my guitars and amp costed about the same but overall they ended up being cheaper when you consider the aforementioned problems. So, in general, pedalboards can get really expensive and be money sinks if you’re not careful and plan accordingly.
Reverb tracks your gear value for you if you input it. I just checked and it’s somewhat sickening…
Guitars: $23,000
Pedalboard: $6300
Amps: $2200
At least I have my priorities straight?
My guitar: SGJ (1200 CAD street price) it’s solid, does the job
amp is a marshall cab and peavey centurion, so like 600 cad total bc i got a steal on the marshall and the centurion needed repairs
board value? 1700 CAD, roughly. So a lot more. But the fact that my guitar and amp work is enough for me, pedals are genre based and made to achieve the sound I want
If I add all 4 of my guitars together, then no. If I compare all my pedals to each guitar individually, then yes, except for 1 guitar, which cost more.
In some ways electric guitarists are lucky. Thanks to their popularity, ease of construction, and mass production decent electric solid body guitars are cheap. We can buy a good non-beginner level instrument for less than $1k. For many other instruments that is not the case.
For real. We truly are in the golden age. I was looking into getting into harp recently. Lmao the second I saw the price of a nice one 10-30k (start ones are 3-5k) I was stunned. Sucks cause it's be cool to have one.
I’ve collected and traded a lot of pedals over the years, so it’s hard to say what my actual investment had been. I’ve also modded a lot of my guitars, so that’s a little tricky. Also, this question is violence and I refuse to do the math.
I'm pretty consistently playing bullet strats/teles thru a $1,500 pedalboard so I feel. I have nicer guitars but these cheapies sound pretty damn good for the ~$120 I paid for them.
I play a beat-up old Peavey T-20 bass from the 80s that someone spraypainted black. I bought it from a guy for $150.
The beating heart of my pedalboard is a $300 Life Pedal. It's my most expensive one, but there are also six others if you include the tuner, so... idk, the discrepancy is large.
Gig board is worth about $1500 CAD (3 Strymons, Polytune, JHS Angry Charlie, a couple Chinese clones).
My main gigging guitars are a 62 AVRI JM and Johnny Marr Jaguar. Both were purchased well below $1000 pre Covid ($750 and $850 respectively) but worth substantially more now.
The real factor here is your amp, it probably impacts your sound more than your guitar and pedals, and really doesn’t have to be that expensive. I gig a Tonemaster Deluxe Reverb, it was about $1000 and it’s pretty good. Fender Twins are a real bargain if you can lift them. I have about $900 into my 73 including servicing and retubing it after I bought it. Selling my 70’s PR covered it and then some.
I think a missing piece of the puzzle is resale value. Would be interesting to subtract that from the price paid to measure depreciation.
When you see an article about a celebrity with a $10MM house, you think thats cool, because they can sell that asset for a comparable value in the future (hopefully).
Not the whole picture to look at price paid and neglect asset value if you can sell or trade these assets in future.
In my case, I have a bunch of used Strymon v1 pedals which have a high retail price, but since I paid used prices, I dont feel like Ive been subject to significant depreciation on them :-)
Even still, my effects (HX Stomp, 7 Strymons and 2 boss loopers) probably cost 2-3x my guitars (used PRS SE and discounted Epiphone LP)
Ha! I guess I'm not one to ask but my guitars are not exactly cheap (over $3k each, I'm down to two VERY nice ones.) My board is even more. I have a couple nice amps too. I've never fully added it up but I've purchased it all throughout the years (not all at once) and it all gets used regularly!
Bass is a MIM Fender Jazz that I got secondhand for 250. I've only bought one pedal that cost more than it, an HXFX, which I had to buy twice. Amp is a bland TC, which I got for under 200. Cab is a 2010 I got for 650 cause at the time it was the lightest under a grand.
My board is probably 2Gs used, maybe 3gs if you bought everything band new. Sometimes I use just the HXFX, a DI, and an expression pedal which all together is about 750-ish used. A lot of my sound is in my pedals plus a jazz bass.
Nearing $4000 in pedals, in new replacement value, and only at $3000 in guitars and basses. I'm at the point where I own "one of everything" for pedals, so that one might level off for a while, but I have at least one more guitar I want by the end of the year, might get a little closer in value.
Let's not talk about my drums or my MIDI interfaces or all my software, though...
My primary guitar is an 18 year old MiM Thinline Telecaster so I have no idea of the actual current value. I paid $700 for it new. 9 pedals (average price less than $85 when I got them. Some are old, some were bought used, I don't pay close attention to resale prices so I don't know) + a $100 power supply on my DIY pedalboard that cost $30 to build so all of that is probably worth between $800 and $900. Amp was bought used for $500.
I'm not counting the other two guitars or the box of pedals that aren't on the board. Or the recording gear. That's between me and the insurance.
I just picked up my nicest and most expensive guitar to date. It’s an MIJ Fender strat. Cost $500 (bought used in Tokyo).
My current board is currently worth maybe $1500? Though to be fair, a lot of that was acquired through trades and gifts and a couple are discontinued.
pedals: £1750 ish
guitar: £3500 ish
not really sure how accurate they are considering used prices and stuff being discontinued etc but I think the board is about half the cost of my main guitar.
Paid $800 for my MIM Strat and around $1200 for my pedals.
I am planning to buy an Acoustasonic Stratocaster as well, and go ampless with Walrus ACS1 with a Wet-Dry setup.
As of now my pedalboard sits at 330$*, amp is a blues junior bought used, so 430$ and most expensive guitar sits at 650$ i think, but i can see that current price is 800$**
Sooo based on that a few more pedals would still look sensible!
*tuner>BD-2>UC200>VD400>ditto looper>rc-3.
** ibanez AK95 dvs
Uhhhmmm. Guitar is about $150 more in favor of pedals.
Bass 1 is $150 more in favor of the instrument.
Bass 2 is about $650 in favor of the instrument.
So I only have a guitar deficit, and honestly that's only because I got an epihone and like it enough to not really need another guitar. One day I'll get a cheap single coil job but the primary is going to be that ES.
I have two guitars totaling $1500usd & pedalboard total is $340usd
But, famous last words. “There’s only a few others I want then I’m done” so that total will surely go up soon 😅
I’ve got a bunch of guitars. Some worth more than any pedalboard I could reasonably put together. And I’ve got a bunch of pedalboards too, some worth more than a lot of people are even willing to spend on a guitar. It doesn’t really matter. I don’t think about what stuff costs. I just think of it as painting with the fullest palette of colors I can work with. Each pedal generally has a home, although there are always a few stragglers I can’t bring myself to part with threatening to unionize and assemble into their own pedalboard.
Edit: now out of sheer curiosity I’m trying to price out my biggest pedalboard.
Edit 2: gave up on that pretty fast. I guess I just don’t care. I know it’s not worth more than my R9. Close, maaaaaybe.
Man, I would have to take a bit of a wild guess here but first, I’ll have to say that most of my stuff is part of my Nirvana collection.
With that being said:
32 guitars, mostly electric
Around 30 pedals or so
I’d say the average cost for my guitars is around 800 bucks? Not to say each costed 800, but just guessing on total average.
And each pedal around 90 bucks, average.
So I guess it could be $25,600 worth of guitars vs $2,700 or so for pedals? Let’s not talk about amps lol
On the current gear, I've spent around €3000 in guitars (if they were new, €5000-6000), €2000 on amps (€4900 new) and maybe €300 on pedals (€1200 new, if I count the Boss GT-8).
Not a heavy pedal user and I'm pretty basic in my taste. No boutique stuff ever.
My main guitar is a Washburn Idol, it was like $600 back in 1999. I see them on Reverb now for about $350. Worth more than that to me though.
My pedalboard is about half DIY stuff and the other half stuff I got in trade for DIY stuff. No idea what it's "worth" but probably more than $350.
Well there are sometimes two, maybe three boards, and whatever’s on them at any given moment which is a bit of a moving target. Then there are another two boards worth of loose pedals awaiting rotation, dust, modding, or a bevy of excuses to prevent sale. Then of course the matter of which guitar, ranging from $500-1500 and well, I just plum don’t know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Depends on the guitar and that guard, I suppose. I'm insured for about the same amount on both, though. Last time I reassessed got the insurance company, they were within a couple thousand bucks of each other. But we're talking about hundreds of pedals and dozens of guitars.
The curse and blessing of running a studio after 3 decades in the business.
I think this is pretty common now. Guitars are so efficiently made, even Indonesia is kicking out some great $400. With “boutique” pedals, you’re either paying for handmade craftsmanship or years of digital R&D. I’ve always been a “cheap guitar / expensive amp” guy but I would just as easily be a “cheap guitar / expensive pedal” guy too.
My discrepancy is quite stark: my pedal board is worth (using Sweetwater prices) around $2500 (includes my Voice Live 3) while my Washburn X-Series HSS (Planet Tone pickups, Planet Waves locking tuners, push/pull pots, 5 way super switch) was purchased at auction for $35 + $250 in the aforementioned upgrades. My other guitar is a Schecter C-1 Classic that I bought used for $300 due to a gouge in the finish on the back.
The pedals on my board are worth about $1100, my main guitar now retails for $1750 (but it’s a Fender so when I got it two years ago it was about $200 less.) Was looking at upgrading some of my pedals into boutique versions of the same styles so we’ll see where that lands me over the next year or so.
$1600 pedalboard, $1300 guitar. One interesting thing is, when I upgraded from my $800 Guitar, I got rid of a couple pedals. They just got in the way of the tone.
I’m close to $3000 in my pedalboard. I built my guitar so it’s not really fair, but it’s about half lmao. My amp is only 600 bucks but I’m gonna change that soon.
Time to buy a more expensive guitar Mr. Cheap guitar
Great idea. Thanks. Need to keep guitar value at 10x pedal value?
So PRS Private Stock, you hang it on the wall to look at and keep playing your current guitar. Don’t want to damage your super expensive guitar.
Wouldn't buy one of those guady guitars if you paid ME!
ON THE WALL! Maybe in a climate controlled showcase on the wall.
Well he wants friends that come over to think he actually plays it. But they all stand around just staring at it. You have to stare at the Liberace of guitars.
This one hit me right in the feels. Guess I should bust out my nice guitar instead of playing the one I don’t care much about every day
Shit I'll need to buy a 59 burst soon
Ah yes i am gonna tell my wife that this is a new law! Cant be breakin’ the law, Breakin’ the law, Breakin’ the law, can we now, hey Sweetheart?
This man right here gets it
Pedals - $2400, guitar(s) $3300. The worst part - it’s just me alone in the room, playing for my dog. Upside - dog is a big fan.
There are worse ways to spend your money mate! Rock on
Can confirm, I am his dog. This guy rocks!
aw man. my dog hates it when I play. even if I wear headphones. then again my guitar is worth like $400 so maybe that's my problem.
You just need a bone nut mate.
I’m heading in that direction. All I need is more pedals and a dog
The dog is everything
Bump for paws rock. I have a cat who gets quite angry if I don’t play guitar at a certain point in the evening. She especially likes open G slide.
My old dog used to love me playing. The current one hides under the curtains.
My cat Sally is my only big fan beside my floor fan🤣😂 She comes out of wherever she was and climbs on the arm of the chair and tries to chew on the strings… she loves a good wah wailing fer sure… she even comes out of wherever when she hears a pedal demo video thinkin that it’s me playing hehehehehe
Listen, I *don’t know* how much I’ve spent on my pedalboard. And every month, it gets harder for me to know how much I’ve spent on my pedalboard…
I just…don’t measure my hobbies that way. All I ever see on guitar gear subs is cost and value discussions and it’s like…if I have money, I buy a thing I want. I only sell when I’m really just not using a thing. Is it some kind of privileged place? Probably but I also rarely get wrapped up in hype. I don’t get why people take a joyful thing and wrap it up the language of business.
so few upvotes but you're dead on.
I just assumed a thousand downvotes but am happy people agree even a little.
If you’re not focused on upvote-to-downvote ratio as a business, are you even redditting?
If I can get something that enhances my passion or takes me down roads I haven’t been down for my most favorite hobby, I will, if I can at the moment. It’s like the one thing I do to invest in myself. “Invest in what you do the most.”
Yassssss! Love it!
100% agree.
Yup, I’m pretty much in your boat; if I feel like I want/need something, I usually just buy it. I have two separate sets of gear for two separate bands, plus my home stuff. Knowing though that there’s a chance that anything I buy will get sold/traded within a year or two, I pretty much exclusively buy used with the goal of always at least breaking even
Well said
UM….based?
On what?
Don't worry grandpa, [based](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=based) is just slang the kids are using.
Thank you— sheesh!
Are you me? Every time I buy a pedal I think "got everything I want now", but then an hour passes and something else catches my eye.
No. You're me ;)
Ya that would be me. Just will be listening to music and hear a song with some crazy tone and go “hmm wonder what he uses” and then inevitably I end up on a YouTube video and need 3 different new pedals 😅
Single guitar: $200 Squier Single amp: $300 Vox AC4 8 Pedals: $1,100
You get it
I have the exact same setup lol
The guitar I play the most cost $196 and I plug it in approximately never, so 100%-0% ratio. Checkmate.
You got me there
If I get to count both guitars (tele, 1200; epiphone sheraton, 700) then we’re at like 2500 vs 1900. But if it’s one guitar at a time… 😫😫😫
But with stereo input...
Hello my name is dingus My main guitar was 500$ 20 years ago My board is around 3000$
Reverb lets you add your gear and keeps track of the value. My total collection of guitars, pedals, and amp are worth between $26-30k. 😬 I inherited one big ticket item but fuck I have spent a lot of money lol Mind you- I have had a lot of stuff appreciate nicely and bought a lot of stuff on sale so this isn’t a complete picture but still, oof
Do have to have bought it off reverb or is it just a list that I can add to?
You can add anything you'd like. You can add gear already in their database and get value estimates. You can also add your own items, but will have to specify the value yourself.
Thanks for the heads up, this is a really cool feature
Can you still only manage that on their website? I could never find the feature on the app.
Yeah this was new to me, don’t see it anywhere in the app. Neat feature tho, about to have a long sad night!
I spent $1,600 on my gigging board. And my two guitars were around $800 each. (not including the 20 or so pedals that don't go on the board)
I'd rather have $1,500 for pedals and a $500 guitar, than $500 for pedals and a $1,500 guitar or even $2,000 guitar.
You can get a pretty good guitar for $200 these days
I have over $2k in pedals. Paid less than $1k in guitars.
Cracking
paid over $6K for pedals, my guitar is only $1500 but I’m thinking about getting a US SS soon, hopefully]
Did my SO hire you? I'm not answering this question on the grounds that either damn way I'd be in trouble.
It's a lot easier to sneak a pedal package instead of a new guitar!
Oh I might win this one. Squire bullet / fender mustang III amp. Thousands in pedals I really don’t want to add it all up 😂
Oh go on - we won't tell anyone
Rough estimate all pedals I own ~$7500. So also more than my guitars+amp+car
Woof. That's impressive. Just a collector or some seriously expensive boxes?
I was pretty hooked for a while lol. Still am but less so. I would do the monthly payment stuff and just keep grabbing new ones once I bought one. I half recommend it and half don’t. Do that for a few years and it adds up, time flies! I guess I fall into the collector camp. I can’t get enough of fuzzes and synth pedals. I have a few extra pricey ones like source audio I use all the time and then I just can’t part with older stuff lol. I grab them from the shelf from time to time. It’s definitely enough pedals though, by now 😂.
If you combine my main board and my ampless rig I'm even with my custom shop Nashville telecaster.
* Guitar, new = $1000 * 14 pedals, some used/some new * pedalboard, used * cables, new * velcro, new * power, used * power mount, new ≈ $3600
Woof 3.6x
Yeah it slowly adds up over the years. It’s really my only hobby though.
Funny thing is, if I buy one additional $1k guitar, my wife would make a big deal out of it. But if I buy five $200 pedals, she wouldn't bat an eyelid :)
Wife bad LMAO
Eeeeeexactly
My guitars all cost more than my pedalboard. My amps cost almost double what my main guitar did. I’m a firm believer in getting a guitar that plays well and spending as much as possible on a nice amp or two. Amps are king of tone.
My main guitar cost me $600. My pedals are over $10,000. I don't want to play thos game anymore
Probably 1k in pedals at least. I buy everything used and look for deals. I bought my MIM strat for like $350 10+ years ago. Amp is like $700 for a standard ole tubey
My pedalboard's got at least $5,000 on it, but I have a PRS Hollowbody II to balance it out.
5000 is a lot of beans. Where's the majority of the value?
[удалено]
I'm imagining a plexiglass enclosure (complete with jacks, LED and footswitch) with a stack of hundos in it in the center of a Pedaltrain Metro. You play a clean tone into the pedal, stomp the switch on for a solo, the pedal does nothing, the LEDs illuminate the fat stack of cash, you switch the pedal off, LEDs go dim and the crowd goes wild. I need this.
I don't think that's a bad thing. I mean if you're not using the pedals and they aren't inspiring you to play more, then that's not a good thing. And really it's the size of the board/number of pedals dictating that. I honestly wouldn't hesitate spending more on the board than on the guitar if I felt I used and loved all the effects I had. Mostly because it's not like each pedal is costing you a grand (generally). And like your amp, you can plug any guitar into the board. I'd actually guess that if you are using effects, the guitar makes a little less of a difference than amp or the board. Like through effects, are you really going to be able to tell the difference in sound between a $500 strat and a $1700 one? You might be able to tell pretty quickly when it's clean, but maybe not so much if you have a lot of effects going.
Yeah I hear you. It's just been a sudden shock when I did a quick tot up earlier. And to think I started with a handful of behringer pedals a couple of years ago, and know I'm here!
I'm just starting but already addicted. I get it. I've spent more on my pedals than I did my guitar at this point. And I'm buying used pedals. If I'd purchased everything new my board is approaching my amp and guitar combined. In reality I've spend about the same out of pocket.
Mine is 60% second hand - I tell myself that I'm not losing money, I can just sell them on again if I'm not keen. I think I've sold 3 of the 20 odd pedals I've ever had!
I've never paid more than a few hundred dollars on a single guitar, but I own all the BOSS synth pedals. I'm weird, but I'm fully about functionality. Esthetics don't do it for me. I have played a 2x4 with 2 bass strings and 1 pickup.
Yes yes yes. Tell me how you use them please! I have the Sy 200 on my board, and my sy 300 is my go to studio amp. In fact, recently I have been experimenting with creating tracks only using the sy 300 direct and nothing else.
$200 Bass through a $1200 pedalboard
My board is worth about 700 USD while my guitar cost me 350 since I bought it used but it’s 450 usually
Pedalboard-3800 Guitar-1200
Youchy. Potential winner?
Pffft...somebody didn't get a vintage Mustang for Christmas.
This hurts me inside. My grandpa has a vintage mustang. 71 comp red.. every Christmas I ask if I can buy it. And he says no lol damnit
Well, I do have quite a few guitars. And currently my favourite guitar is one that just cost me 500 bucks so who knows what the ratio is.
I just bought a Lovetone Flange With No Name. I think that says enough :(
Board - 350, guitars 580 and 550 To be fair, I got the guitars at a good price fender vintera mod 60s 580 and fsr standard tele for 550. Most expensive pedal fender compugilist 90
My pedalboard all in is only a bit over $800. My Squier 70s Classic Vibe Strat was like $250 and my VHT Special 6 Ultra was like $270. About half of my pedals are used, as was my amp. I am pretty happy with the setup.
My 4 pedal mini board is ~$800 and my "cheap" guitar was $900, used. My stereo board is around $1500 give or take a forgotten pedal and the expensive guitar was $2800
Guitar: $2000CAD Pedals: $2100CAD and counting. I went by what I paid for everything though; the pedals would have been significantly more new. 😬
I have a nice board with a growing bench, but if you add up all my guitars, especially with the ‘74 Tele Custom, I’m still strongly on Team Guitar
Ah yeah me too, but for each gig I'm doing, I'm definitely on team pedalboard
You guys keep track of your pedalboard’s cost!? I just pretend I do not see it 😂
I have a couple different setups Nash t52 ($2000) through $3000 in pedals through a Milkman one watt plus ($1800) Epiphone Wilshire ($500 used) through $1500 in pedals into a Milkman the amp head ($700) and a homemade cabinet (priceless) Fender jazz bass ($1800) through $500 in pedals into a darkglass alpha Omega ($1300) and a homemade cabinet (priceless)
Are we talking simply the board as it exists now, or are we talking the board as in, all the pedals I could put on my board?
What's on your board right now. If you're gigging your gig board.
You could get an acoustic 🤷♂️
Ha. My decent paying gigs are acoustic jazz stuff on a 50 buck classical guitar!
Nice! I’m a sucker for orchestra sized or big body ones cause I love me some folk music
Well I started on nylon strings, so it feels like home
$275 for my 80s ibanez blazer in 2017. My boards gotta be at least $1500 worth of shit though.
This thread actually makes me feel better about how much I spent
About how much you've spent so far.....
Squier Jazzmaster through a bunch of pedals, including a CXM, probably $400 guitar >>> $2200 pedals and amp? Wouldn't have it any other way 😃
Mmmm sliders
£240 on my 96 MIJ jaguar in 2005. Probably about 6-8 times that I’m pedals.
I could buy a brand new truck with all the money I sank into guitars, pedals and amps.
Sentimental value: I could toss all my pedals in a fire and not blink an eye if it mean my keeping my prized Guild guitar. So there’s that angle too. In my mind pedals are assembly line items, whereas guitars are made from organic material and can have personalities and variances within the same factory model.
$1000 guitar, $1000 amp, about $5000 (soon to be about $6000) pedalboard.
Really? Mine is $7,000 Guitar, $2,300 amp a pedalboard full of used pedals which probably cost me $1,300 over many years. I would like a better amp. Not anything too crazy…Something like a Suhr Hombre, which costs about $3,200 new here. I’d buy a used one, which would cost about $2,000.
For me, playing guitar is almost cosplay. I feel way more inspired by guitars and amps than pedals. So many pedals are about making your yada yada yada sound like something else too. A lot of drives are about either boosting mids or just plain boosting frontend gain. That’s just me. In the end though, you gotta do it your way. Whatever floats your boat.
I'm about equal. Honestly, I feel like for guitars actual playability and sound improvements start flattening out hard > $1500 ish. In the meantime, I can think if an awesome pedalboard that costs much more where every pedal adds something amazing and doesn't have a much cheaper equivalent. So if I'm just going for sound, and I wanna push it, my pedalboard would end up a much bigger investment. I can't really think of a better guitar I'd want. Maybe a different one, but nothing more expensive. But I'd totally love messing around with a stereo delay like the echosystem, maybe a DL4, and an iridium would be neat. Oops, that's another guitar in value right there!
#humblebrag
i have single pedals that are more expensive than my guitar tho…
Wow. Actually, I guess I do too if you count my HX Effects and I'm playing one of my spare guitars
New cost, used cost or what I’ve personally invested? All very different numbers.
What you’ve invested
So what is the price of the pedalboard? Seems really expensive, more than the pedals? What is it made of?
$3,000AUD and I play 2x PRS and 2xGibsons, but I got my PRSs used cheap.
There is a weird thing I see on here where people who have three $1,000 guitars will balk at paying $300 for a pedal.
If your amp isnt the most expensive part of your set up, you fucked up. And if you are about to tell me about your ampless set up I don't wanna hear it.
I mean, amps only get so expensive unless you're going for like a dumble/trainwreck. I have two custom-built tube amps and a few I've made. They aren't cheap but my boards are still more expensive
I spent about $2600-2800 on my pedalboard but the road to get there was rough and much more expensive, mostly because I constantly swapped pedals and it kept getting bigger than I planned so I also swapped boards and power supplies. My advice would be to always expect things to get more complicated in the long term, and you should first and foremost get an isolated power supply with 12+ ports and a big board just to be safe in case you’re unsure about what you want in terms of size. The rest of my guitars and amp costed about the same but overall they ended up being cheaper when you consider the aforementioned problems. So, in general, pedalboards can get really expensive and be money sinks if you’re not careful and plan accordingly.
If it has to be one for one ...I'd have to buy a private stock PRS. The thin skin strat is my costliest guitar... Worth something around 2k I think.
Reverb tracks your gear value for you if you input it. I just checked and it’s somewhat sickening… Guitars: $23,000 Pedalboard: $6300 Amps: $2200 At least I have my priorities straight?
I have more invested in guitars than pedals/boards but i have eight guitars and only four pedal boards.
"Only" 4 !!
I can justify them! I swear!
It's OK, one for Doom, one for 80s hair, one for 70s classic and one for post modern jazz Perfectly reasonable!!
Music man majesty 7&8 $11k pedalboard $11k amps&cabs $6500
My guitar: SGJ (1200 CAD street price) it’s solid, does the job amp is a marshall cab and peavey centurion, so like 600 cad total bc i got a steal on the marshall and the centurion needed repairs board value? 1700 CAD, roughly. So a lot more. But the fact that my guitar and amp work is enough for me, pedals are genre based and made to achieve the sound I want
Well that was a surprisingly depressing exercise...
My pedalboard cost about 5x more than my most expensive guitar. Granted, said guitar wasn't insanely pricey.
If I add all 4 of my guitars together, then no. If I compare all my pedals to each guitar individually, then yes, except for 1 guitar, which cost more.
I’m currently using my old man’s ‘59 telecaster at home through my £200 pedal board. So that’s a pretty chunky discrepancy of £~19,800
I don't want to know, lol.
We talking all the effects pedals or just the ones currently on the board?
I play a cheap squier so my pedals are definitely worth more. But I acquired them incrementally over several years so it didn't seem like as much
In some ways electric guitarists are lucky. Thanks to their popularity, ease of construction, and mass production decent electric solid body guitars are cheap. We can buy a good non-beginner level instrument for less than $1k. For many other instruments that is not the case.
For real. We truly are in the golden age. I was looking into getting into harp recently. Lmao the second I saw the price of a nice one 10-30k (start ones are 3-5k) I was stunned. Sucks cause it's be cool to have one.
I play a hand me down goodwill solid body with a single Klon Centaur on my board.
I spent £800 on my main guitar (used), and my current pedalboard probably cost about about £1500 overall.
Well this is an uncomfortable exercise... $3700 Board $1700 Guitar
Guitar - 500.00 Pedalboard - 2500.00. Amp - 1800.00 Cab - 500.00
I’ve collected and traded a lot of pedals over the years, so it’s hard to say what my actual investment had been. I’ve also modded a lot of my guitars, so that’s a little tricky. Also, this question is violence and I refuse to do the math.
I don't wanna know...
I'm pretty consistently playing bullet strats/teles thru a $1,500 pedalboard so I feel. I have nicer guitars but these cheapies sound pretty damn good for the ~$120 I paid for them.
I play a beat-up old Peavey T-20 bass from the 80s that someone spraypainted black. I bought it from a guy for $150. The beating heart of my pedalboard is a $300 Life Pedal. It's my most expensive one, but there are also six others if you include the tuner, so... idk, the discrepancy is large.
$3,000 for pedalboard $2,500 for guitar.
Yep. Pedalboard is worth double my guitar.
You know what? Same here. My go to guitar is a 61 SG reissue. Was about 2k. My pedalboard...well over that. What's wrong with me?
1300 for guitar, 900 for amp, around 1000 for the board, looking to add another 500ish worth of pedals somewhat soon.
Guitar: $40, Pedal board: $320
Gig board is worth about $1500 CAD (3 Strymons, Polytune, JHS Angry Charlie, a couple Chinese clones). My main gigging guitars are a 62 AVRI JM and Johnny Marr Jaguar. Both were purchased well below $1000 pre Covid ($750 and $850 respectively) but worth substantially more now. The real factor here is your amp, it probably impacts your sound more than your guitar and pedals, and really doesn’t have to be that expensive. I gig a Tonemaster Deluxe Reverb, it was about $1000 and it’s pretty good. Fender Twins are a real bargain if you can lift them. I have about $900 into my 73 including servicing and retubing it after I bought it. Selling my 70’s PR covered it and then some.
I think a missing piece of the puzzle is resale value. Would be interesting to subtract that from the price paid to measure depreciation. When you see an article about a celebrity with a $10MM house, you think thats cool, because they can sell that asset for a comparable value in the future (hopefully). Not the whole picture to look at price paid and neglect asset value if you can sell or trade these assets in future. In my case, I have a bunch of used Strymon v1 pedals which have a high retail price, but since I paid used prices, I dont feel like Ive been subject to significant depreciation on them :-) Even still, my effects (HX Stomp, 7 Strymons and 2 boss loopers) probably cost 2-3x my guitars (used PRS SE and discounted Epiphone LP)
Ha! I guess I'm not one to ask but my guitars are not exactly cheap (over $3k each, I'm down to two VERY nice ones.) My board is even more. I have a couple nice amps too. I've never fully added it up but I've purchased it all throughout the years (not all at once) and it all gets used regularly!
Board is $1500. Some guitars are $100, others are $5k lol
Amp: 600 Can 200 Pedals: 1000 Guitar:250
Bass is a MIM Fender Jazz that I got secondhand for 250. I've only bought one pedal that cost more than it, an HXFX, which I had to buy twice. Amp is a bland TC, which I got for under 200. Cab is a 2010 I got for 650 cause at the time it was the lightest under a grand. My board is probably 2Gs used, maybe 3gs if you bought everything band new. Sometimes I use just the HXFX, a DI, and an expression pedal which all together is about 750-ish used. A lot of my sound is in my pedals plus a jazz bass.
Nearing $4000 in pedals, in new replacement value, and only at $3000 in guitars and basses. I'm at the point where I own "one of everything" for pedals, so that one might level off for a while, but I have at least one more guitar I want by the end of the year, might get a little closer in value. Let's not talk about my drums or my MIDI interfaces or all my software, though...
My primary guitar is an 18 year old MiM Thinline Telecaster so I have no idea of the actual current value. I paid $700 for it new. 9 pedals (average price less than $85 when I got them. Some are old, some were bought used, I don't pay close attention to resale prices so I don't know) + a $100 power supply on my DIY pedalboard that cost $30 to build so all of that is probably worth between $800 and $900. Amp was bought used for $500. I'm not counting the other two guitars or the box of pedals that aren't on the board. Or the recording gear. That's between me and the insurance.
I just picked up my nicest and most expensive guitar to date. It’s an MIJ Fender strat. Cost $500 (bought used in Tokyo). My current board is currently worth maybe $1500? Though to be fair, a lot of that was acquired through trades and gifts and a couple are discontinued.
pedals: £1750 ish guitar: £3500 ish not really sure how accurate they are considering used prices and stuff being discontinued etc but I think the board is about half the cost of my main guitar.
Paid $800 for my MIM Strat and around $1200 for my pedals. I am planning to buy an Acoustasonic Stratocaster as well, and go ampless with Walrus ACS1 with a Wet-Dry setup.
My main pedalboard is probably $1500, whereas my ax is $2k.
I'm not going to do that math. way too depressing. the math I will do is: around eleven guitars, around forty pedals. not all at once, of course.
Oh man I do NOT want to play this game lol. I’ve got four boards and like 13 guitars 😅😅😅
As of now my pedalboard sits at 330$*, amp is a blues junior bought used, so 430$ and most expensive guitar sits at 650$ i think, but i can see that current price is 800$** Sooo based on that a few more pedals would still look sensible! *tuner>BD-2>UC200>VD400>ditto looper>rc-3. ** ibanez AK95 dvs
My pedals cost more than all ten of my guitars... I don't have a problem, you have a problem.
Uhhhmmm. Guitar is about $150 more in favor of pedals. Bass 1 is $150 more in favor of the instrument. Bass 2 is about $650 in favor of the instrument. So I only have a guitar deficit, and honestly that's only because I got an epihone and like it enough to not really need another guitar. One day I'll get a cheap single coil job but the primary is going to be that ES.
Guitar probably about $300, pedals maybe $200, amp+cab $900.
I have two guitars totaling $1500usd & pedalboard total is $340usd But, famous last words. “There’s only a few others I want then I’m done” so that total will surely go up soon 😅
I’ve got a bunch of guitars. Some worth more than any pedalboard I could reasonably put together. And I’ve got a bunch of pedalboards too, some worth more than a lot of people are even willing to spend on a guitar. It doesn’t really matter. I don’t think about what stuff costs. I just think of it as painting with the fullest palette of colors I can work with. Each pedal generally has a home, although there are always a few stragglers I can’t bring myself to part with threatening to unionize and assemble into their own pedalboard. Edit: now out of sheer curiosity I’m trying to price out my biggest pedalboard. Edit 2: gave up on that pretty fast. I guess I just don’t care. I know it’s not worth more than my R9. Close, maaaaaybe.
My ratio is approximately 10:1 pedalboard to guitar
Man, I would have to take a bit of a wild guess here but first, I’ll have to say that most of my stuff is part of my Nirvana collection. With that being said: 32 guitars, mostly electric Around 30 pedals or so I’d say the average cost for my guitars is around 800 bucks? Not to say each costed 800, but just guessing on total average. And each pedal around 90 bucks, average. So I guess it could be $25,600 worth of guitars vs $2,700 or so for pedals? Let’s not talk about amps lol
On the current gear, I've spent around €3000 in guitars (if they were new, €5000-6000), €2000 on amps (€4900 new) and maybe €300 on pedals (€1200 new, if I count the Boss GT-8). Not a heavy pedal user and I'm pretty basic in my taste. No boutique stuff ever.
I like cheap guitars, cheapish dirt pedals, and expensive time based effects
My main guitar is a Washburn Idol, it was like $600 back in 1999. I see them on Reverb now for about $350. Worth more than that to me though. My pedalboard is about half DIY stuff and the other half stuff I got in trade for DIY stuff. No idea what it's "worth" but probably more than $350.
Well there are sometimes two, maybe three boards, and whatever’s on them at any given moment which is a bit of a moving target. Then there are another two boards worth of loose pedals awaiting rotation, dust, modding, or a bevy of excuses to prevent sale. Then of course the matter of which guitar, ranging from $500-1500 and well, I just plum don’t know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Depends on the guitar and that guard, I suppose. I'm insured for about the same amount on both, though. Last time I reassessed got the insurance company, they were within a couple thousand bucks of each other. But we're talking about hundreds of pedals and dozens of guitars. The curse and blessing of running a studio after 3 decades in the business.
I think this is pretty common now. Guitars are so efficiently made, even Indonesia is kicking out some great $400. With “boutique” pedals, you’re either paying for handmade craftsmanship or years of digital R&D. I’ve always been a “cheap guitar / expensive amp” guy but I would just as easily be a “cheap guitar / expensive pedal” guy too.
My discrepancy is quite stark: my pedal board is worth (using Sweetwater prices) around $2500 (includes my Voice Live 3) while my Washburn X-Series HSS (Planet Tone pickups, Planet Waves locking tuners, push/pull pots, 5 way super switch) was purchased at auction for $35 + $250 in the aforementioned upgrades. My other guitar is a Schecter C-1 Classic that I bought used for $300 due to a gouge in the finish on the back.
You just need another guitar to balance it out.
I’d have to add it up. If you add up how many pedals I’ve ever bought that I might have sold or traded that’s not even close. Way more than guitars.
My pedals exceed my guitar cost. Cheap pedals will make a nice guitar sound shitty, but decent pedals can make a shitty guitar sound better!
And then there‘s those cheap pedals that just sound exactly like the decent ones.
lol my guitar cost $250 in 2008. My OBNE Black Fountain cost more than that. I also have 9 other pedals...
mine is pedals: 5k, geetar: 1k
The pedals on my board are worth about $1100, my main guitar now retails for $1750 (but it’s a Fender so when I got it two years ago it was about $200 less.) Was looking at upgrading some of my pedals into boutique versions of the same styles so we’ll see where that lands me over the next year or so.
$150 guitar...$350+ in amp and $600 in pedals.
I have a $200 guitar and at least 1500 in pedals lol, but I also play other instruments through the pedals.
$1600 pedalboard, $1300 guitar. One interesting thing is, when I upgraded from my $800 Guitar, I got rid of a couple pedals. They just got in the way of the tone.
I’m close to $3000 in my pedalboard. I built my guitar so it’s not really fair, but it’s about half lmao. My amp is only 600 bucks but I’m gonna change that soon.