Most boutique stuff looks kinda cool, you have to abmit it. Also the old stuff we love has got the right "looks", mainly because it transports an image.
What if someone would put our beloved circuits in some cheap, ugly boxes (think Johnson 50's Tremolo-always on ebay).
Would we even look at them in a music store?

Just take a look at Jacques pedals. Don't the handwritten pedals "look much better sounding" than the new ones in those industrial looking boxes?

personally, it ould look like a turd to me. I'm about the energy and fire of the performance, and if the effect helps that to blossom, than it doesn't matter to me when it comes to looks.

gagan has the sweetest looking peds tho, with the skillit shit tho. =)

To me the coolest looking pedals are those sturdy built, and that really matters to me (and everybody I suppose)...

www.sugar-mountain.net

It's all good, I really don't care to be honest.
I'm more of a performance minded guy.
I think if you use pedals enough they get beat up.
My Blues Devil is all chipped up and nasty looking, but that is because it is used a LOT.
So in it's own way it is kewl looking.

I can't get too excited about the aestetics of something that will be thrown in a bag,
lays on the ground and gets stepped on repeatedly.
I want it to sound great and hold up well.

MH

http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/389/the_jon_klein_combine.html

I dunno - I think we have some sort of attraction to the pretty colors. Like collecting dinky cars as a kid (Hot Wheels, you know) there's something fun about getting one of each or trying the newest thing before your friends. Of course I don't have a single friend that has paid $200 for a pedal unless it was a Boss multi-processor. I got friends that make great music (with great tone) with cheap gear. That looks ugly too! But once I prided myself on not having 2 pedals of the same color... And deep down inside, I still don't want 2 pedals by the same maker on my board! How dumb is that? Couldn't explain that to you if you asked me...

I guess I'm fortunate that I think most pedals look pretty cool. Especially in the boutique world.

______________________________
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. - Douglas Adams

I don't care what a box looks like. If it sounds great and has a good stomp switch, I'll take it.

quote:

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Originally posted by Nathan:
I dunno - I think we have some sort of attraction to the pretty colors. Like collecting dinky cars as a kid (Hot Wheels, you know)

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I say this all the time! I started collecting pedals pretty young (got my first Muff Fuzz at 10, Script Phase 90 at 11....) and I basically went from an obsessive Matchbox collector right over to pedal collecting. I definitely draw a connection there.

I wouldn't buy a pedal for the look, but I do like the look of cool pedals. I'm one of those geeks at your gig that walks in the room and goes right up to the stage to check out the pedalboards. If I see something cool looking, I'll wait all night until I see it get stepped on.


Roger

tremolo lounge recording
www.tremolo.com

the curtain society
www.curtainsociety.com

With the boutique pedal market being largely internet driven, looks do matter. It's something that is easily communicated on a web page. Sound clips are good, but somethign recorded with gear unlike yours and then digitized and run through itty bitty computer speakers is really only a rough guide as to what you may get out of a pedal.

A good looking pedal on the other hand may be enough to stir some intrest, Or it may be enough to move someone who's thinking about maybe buying a pedal off the fence and into buying mode. They can say to them selves, "I know it looks good, so it will probably sound good" It's not logical, but it happens.

And some people ljust apprecite good pedal porn. And others do simply want ot collect. Look at all the fuss that can be raised over a Z-vex sparke kanji #10 of 11 fuzz factory. Or Fulltones buy this one for $100 more cause it's red custom shop pedals.

Some guys here, and elsewhere, enjoy buying and trying out pedals then sell them soonafter to move on to other pedals. So aesthetics always help a sale like that.

And everyone knows that good paint (especially orange) makes the pedals sound better.

Never hurts to look good

Ain't Easy Being Green
Quote from a Kermit/Don Henley song off Unpigged

Confessed Pickaholic!

I don't know about looks, but the smaller the better for myself