I'm as guilty as anyone for acquiring too much equipment, especially given my current meager skill set. While it's fun to test and research and compare different equipment, the sad reality is that I simply haven't accumulated sufficient playing time to even be able to hear most effects unless I start turning pedal knobs from zero to infinity (save for distortion of course). I was watching a pedal effects tutorial by Anders where he was using (I think) a chorus pedal and isolating sounds by fiddling with the knobs. At one point he said that he didn't like to turn the intensity all the way up because it made him feel kind of seasick. Meanwhile, I was straining to discern even the faintest change in the sound as he worked.
It takes the brain a long time to start hearing things that it's been filtering out for a lifetime. In medical school, it took me a few hundred hours of listening to heart sounds before I finally started hearing all of the varied subtle sounds made by a diseased heart. Before that, listening to a heart through a stethoscope was akin to holding my head underwater just as a motor boat rumbled by. That's about where I am now with guitars, amps, and pedals.
This doesn't mean that I'm free from want for more gear, but now I'm committed to avoiding the acquisition of more gear until I can appreciate the sonic nuances of all the button/switch/knob riddled gear that I already have. That could take a long time.
Sascha
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