You Know What's Awesome About Effects Pedals?
 

Even if you what you're playing is ****, you can still make it sound good if you're using the right combination of effects. They give hope to ****ty guitar players like myself because they hide mistakes very well. Still, it makes me wonder which guitarists nowadays are just hiding behind effects..

If your using effects pedals to hide your mistakes, you're a ****ty guitar player because you're using them for that purpose, not because your not amazing at playing your instrument.

thinking that effects actually cover up your mistakes is about as sensible as thinking that buying a high end guitar will offset any lack of practice and turn you into a virtuoso.

Well, sometimes a hefty splash of reverb can add some 'forgiveness' to your tone.

I like how Omar Rodriguez-Lopez uses his effects... not to hide mistakes, but more as an extension of the guitar itsself. I love effects, I think they're wonderful, but yeah, if you're using them to mask mistakes it'll end up sounding like mud, effects or not.

I agree, effects are great to enhance a piece, not to hide a f**k up, besides, sometimes it makes it worse.

Actualy, he uses his effects to wage battle with the guitar. He's on record in interviews as saying that in his early guitar playing, he hated the guitar and only stayed with it because it fit the band. He used effects pedals in order to get the guitar to sound as little possible like a guitar. he "used to consider pedals as ammunition in my war against the guitar"

fair, but no amount of delay can cover up the fact that you're fingers are moving off time hehehe

I use tons of reverb and delay in my playing, I'll occasionaly flub a chord, and I'll hear it, but it sounds much better with all of those awshome effects then when I flub the same chord on my acoustic. Wait, or maybe it's just that I think dissonance and such sounds so much better when candy coated in layers of milky reverb and smooth delay giving it a nice tasty flavor, Hah!

I personally don't understand the reasoning behind using an effect to accomplish anything other than having the effect in your music because it belongs or is musically creative.

How would a classical guitarist go about hiding mistakes with delay and distortion without sounding ridiculous? Do people just resign themselves to playing a musical style that uses effects just because they suck at playing? Seems pretty limiting to me.

Effects have their place in particular situations regardless of whether someone plays well or not. To use an effect not for its value, but simply to hide crap playing, isn't going to do much in the grand scheme of things. You're still going to sound like crap if your playing sounds like crap. I think the problem lies in the person doing it not realizing that.

Learn how to play your instruments properly, and apply effects when they're called for. Otherwise you'll just sound like crap or, if you're lucky, you can get away with being considered "experimental"...