I share the aspirations with those who have posted about downsizing their gear and playing more.
As a part-time musician who plays for fun, I gig only occasionally and I'm not interested in writing nor recording music. My main playing activity is at local open jam sessions (blues, bossa, funk and jazz). Fortunately, there are several venues that host jam sessions, and now that 2026 is the year of my retirement from full-time working I'll have more time to participate in these various jam sessions.
On the musical side, considering that jazz plays a big role in these open jam sessions, a goal for the year is to gain fluency on more tunes so I don't need to rely on charts when a tune gets called. To do that, I keep notes of the tunes that tend to get called at jams and bone up on those. I also work on a few of my personal favorite tunes to bring to the jams. For learning and practicing tunes, even though there are some better options, I'm using iReal Pro for its simplicity and flexibility. To me, it's like using a metronome, although more fun, and is sufficient to get tunes up to tempo for sessions.
Using pedals at jam sessions is a bit problematic, as there's a premium on getting on and off stage quickly as a courtesy to others. Also, the music we play at jams doesn't really need pedals and very few people actually use them in that setting. It's more about the spontaneous interaction and being in the moment than striving for a particular sound or tone. A couple times, I've brought an auto-wah and have guitars with on-board effectors (boost, compressor, distortion, phaser) but most usually I'll just plug into whatever backline amp is available at any particular venue and concentrate on playing.
So what the heck am I doing with dozens of pedals? I've always been fascinated by sound shaping for its own sake, and like to mess around with pedals at home for the fun of it. During corona, when playing out came to a halt for the better part of two years, I bought a lot of pedals. But once playing out was possible again, many of them are gathering dust. I have used some in practical situations on occasion, such as doing a live solo guitar set a few times a year. For those I'll try to use different pedals each time as a way to get some practical use out of what I have. What I found is that I don't really need too much distortion, and that out of all the myriad variants an old 1980s RAT is just fine. I have several loopers for these solo sets but found that the EHX 720 works best for my basic needs. I love delay, and found I'm most inspired by actual mechanical tape delays and the drum style ones, more so than the digital emulations, so I settled on the T-Rex Replicator and Binson. I've had some fun with the GameChangerAudio Plus and like it better than the Freeze, and to add a little warble to my playing without having to fumble for a twang bar, I enjoy using their Bigsby. I also have several compressors, but found I really like the Effectrode PC-2A above the others. And so forth. If using a pedal is a criterion for keeping it, then practically speaking I honestly don't need very many pedals.
To balance that practical dimension with my general sound shaping fascination, I am going thru all my pedals, using these one off solo sets as a springboard to decide which to keep and which to let go. There are some that I'll keep just because, but before selling off those that don't make the cut, I hope to be able to play most of my pedals at home as way to cull those that I might use playing out. That can turn turn into a fun project, so for 2026 a goal is to have a gradual, yet loving, pedal purge. There's also 30 guitars and 5 amps to consider, but this is already getting verbose so I'll stop here.
Happy New Year to everyone and may your 2026 be filled with blessings and joy and lots of music!
