Practical or Pointless
In this article, I'm going to show you a host of different guitar accessories, gadgets and just plain odd devices marketed to guitar players, and we're going to decide together if they're practical or pointless.
It ain’t rocket science. Let's just do it.
Stomp Switch Toppers
First up are the Barefoot Buttons stomp switch toppers. These go on top of your stomp switch. They make these under tons of different brand names--from independent companies like Beetronics all the way up to massive conglomerates like Sweetwater --but it’s more or less the same device.
The basic pitch is that if you have freakishly large feet-- like me, for instance --you can put this on top of the footswitch to make it easier to turn off and on. If there’s a tap tempo button or another switch that’s difficult to reach, just add a stomp switch topper and make things fifty times easier for yourself. You’d expect me to be a little biased on this one, since I am their target audience (a freak with huge feet), but I’ve tried using these gadgets in the past and just never kept it on my board. For whatever reason, the stomp switch topper didn’t work for me in a practical way, so I’m tempted to put this in the “pointless” category.
But the real question is: what do you think? Practical or pointless?
ProCo RAT Tail
Next up is an item made by ProCo that, until very recently, I didn’t know existed. I was doing some research and stumbled across it. It's...unique, and I think the name says it all: the ProCo RAT Tail. The RAT Tail-- in addition to being a very trendy hairstyle for men over forty --is a distortion cable with a knob. Plenty of distortion cables already exist, so it’s the knob (and the awesome name) that set this apart. You can switch between true bypass and two additional distortion settings, which is heckin’ convenient.
Honestly, ProCo’s copy on this product sums it up better than I ever could, so here you go:
“Want to goose the front end of your amp with some gnarly-sounding dirt? Out of pedalboard real estate? Then plug your guitar into a ProCo RAT Tail Distortion cable. Loaded with the same clipping diodes as a vintage RAT Distortion pedal, this cable is a great way to propel your amp into sweet, grungy overdrive. A 3-position switch at your instrument's input puts two ranges of distortion, plus true bypass, right at your fingertips. Complete with composite conductive vinyl-and-copper-braid shielding and a rugged matte PVC jacket, the RAT Tail Distortion cable is a quick, easy way to add edge to your guitar tone.”
Obviously, there’s a lot to unpack here, but I want to zoom in on one feature this advertisement didn’t mention: the ProCo RAT Tail requires a battery, by which I mean “tiny batteries”. They're so small that my giant, freakish hands can’t even hold them properly. And even when we hooked them up the RAT Tail, they went dead almost immediately. So we took a page out of MacGyver’s book and opened it up and forced a AA battery on to it to power it instead.
Nick and I jammed with this, and true to advertising, it sounded like a RAT Distortion. The real question is: is it any more convenient having to grapple with an extra cable than it would be to just put a RAT Distortion on my pedal board? I’m honestly not sure.
I’m going to need your input on this: is the ProCo RAT Tail practical or pointless?
Guitar Tuners
Guitar tuners didn't always exist, and a lot of musicians in this day and age still don’t use them. Some people just tune by ear, or to a piano, or to the other instrumentalists. They’re minimalist musicians, and I can respect that. Other musicians enjoy gadgets and gizmos, so they jumped on the guitar tuner train as soon as it left the station. The first option we had was a truly giant tuner (like, the size and weight of an old school toaster) with a microphone inside. You’d see this kind of thing on stage with Led Zeppelin. Next up, we got digital tuners. And then in about 1985, we got the first pedal tuners. I remember buying my first pedal tuner in ’98 from Musician's Friend, an Intellitouch Guitar Tuner.
In 2021, we’ve got some great options for tuners, everything from standard pedal tuners to headstock tuners. We have options from Korg and Peterson as well as the TC Electronics Polytune, Ernie Ball’s Flextune, and the Snark, which is probably the best-selling tuner ever. My personal favorite, and Nick’s too, is the D'Addario NS Micro Soundhole Tuner. I highly recommend it.
But this raises a valid question, the question: do you even need pedal tuners and giant tube tuners? Are clip-on tuners going to last? Are they practical or are they pointless?
I just report. You decide.
MXR Paperweight
Paper was first invented in 25 A.D. by the Chinese, and honestly it’s been riddled with problems from the beginning. The biggest problem, of course, is keeping track of paper money. It’s a tale as old as time: you get a big pile of cash from your hot gig, you set it down before you count it, and it's windy in your room. The wind starts blowing that fat stack of cash all over the place. Naturally, you panic. Or rather, you start to. Then you remember that MXR solved this problem in 1978 when they introduced the MXR paperweight.
Now you can take that big stack of cash, put the MXR paperweight on top, call it a day. No more wind, no more problems.
Is it practical or pointless? I don't know, but I do think it’s worth mentioning that Analog Man ended up with a stash of these at some point in the early 2000s.
Electric Bows
You've probably heard of, seen, owned and/or broken an EBow. They came out decades ago. I've had a ton of them. I think I got my first one in 2001 or 2002, and I've broken between thirty to fifty of them onstage. Frankly, that says more about my grace (or lack thereof) as a performer than it does about the durability of the EBow, but modern musicians agree: we’ve officially moved past this era.
There's a new product in town, and I think it replaces the EBow. It’s called the Sound Stone guitar sustainer, and it’s pretty baller. It comes in a delightful little bag (think the kind of pouch you’d carry rupees in if you were playing The Legend of Zelda). The Sound Stone runs on a nine volt battery, so you turn the switch on and it puts a magnetic presence over your string to hold that specific string infinitely. You can hold it over, you can add in hammer-on style slides, tons of different things. Basically, it's an electronic bow effect with the potential for infinite sustain, which is every guitarist’s dream.
But dreams aren't always realistic, so is the Sound Stone practical or pointless? You tell me.
Pulstron
Next up is an item that I've purchased in 110℉ weather in Fort Wayne, Indiana at Sweetwater's Gear Fest, an outside festival showcase. I’m talking about the Pulstron, which was pitched to me as an exciting new pulsating guitar effect and cable in one unit. Per the product’s description, the Pulstron is a “light-activated sound effects unit, designed to operate in low or bright light room conditions. It can be used with any guitar, bass or keyboard.”
I paid 20 bucks for this. Some would say I got a bargain. Some would say I got taken for a ride. You be the judge.
The Pulstron has a light sensor that plugs into the guitar, basically connecting the guitar to the amp and receiving the signal through the light sensor. The basic idea for this device is that you move your hand back and forth, interrupting the light’s signal and creating a tremolo effect. Unfortunately, there is a possible problem. If you don't have full light on a photo resistor, it's going to make the signal from the guitar really dark and crappy.
That said, there's another accessory that could help fix that: the RockStock Bright Switch USB Light & Charger. You can charge your cell phone or iPad from it, and it also has a USB light. So if we hook up the USB light onto the guitar and connect it with the Pulstron, you have potential for some awesome tremolo effects.
Now, that’s a lot of hullabaloo to engage a tremolo effect on your guitar, which you could arguably get with a standard pedal. So tell me: is it practical or pointless?
Guitar Picks
Next up is an accessory that's highly controversial. Some people don't use them. Some people say they're stupid. Some people love them. I have seen full out punches in the face at NAMM over this. I’m talking about guitar picks, folks. Here's the thing: it's hard to pick the perfect pick (see what I did there?). You’ve got literally thousands of options here, all the way from the standard Walrus pick, to the Gravity pick, The Magic Room pick, Guitar.com picks, wooden picks and nylon picks. More options than we could ever need, if I’m being honest.
That said, there is one specific guitar pick that really, really means a lot to me. It comes in a little jewelry case. I actually had someone buy this for me and bring it back from Hawaii. I've had this for 15 years, and here’s why: it’s allegedly made from the ivory of prehistoric mammoths. Yeah. Whether or not that’s true, I have to give this company ten out of ten for sheer audacity. To actively market a product by saying it comes from a dinosaur is pretty bold. Let me quote the company on this directly:
“The wooly mammoth was the distant cousin of the modern elephant. Although extinct for 20,000 years, their preserved remains are occasionally found intact with long curved ivory tusks. Mammoth ivory can take on a variety of colors, all of them scarce and difficult to work with. Each piece of mammoth ivory is unique and exists as a witness to prehistoric times.”
In this week’s episode, Nick and I shot it out between literally dozens of picks trying to answer the question: does the pick you use really matter? Is it practical or pointless to worry about your picks? Honestly, I’m going to shoot straight and say: no, I don’t think it matters. But if it makes you rock harder when you use a pick made from the tusk of a woolly mammoth, then by all means, use it.
Submarine Pickup
Next up is an accessory called the Submarine Pickup. Here's the idea. You put this pickup sensor under a few strings (between one and three strings), and you send the signal out of this to a different output. So you have your normal electric guitar with two pickups, and you pick out whatever you want to use for your normal guitar signal. Then this Submarine Pickup is an additional pickup on top of that, processed through a different channel or a different amp.
This gives you tons of options. You could run out to just a bass amp and put it just on your low strings, or put it on your high strings and put an effect on it that you don’t want to affect the low strings. You get the idea. Does this add an unnecessarily complicated layer to your guitar signal, or is it super convenient to be able to zoom in a specific effect pedal or one-off technique on a few guitar strings?
Basically, is it practical or pointless? It's up to you to decide.
Guitar Pick Holders
There's one other trend that's been going around for about ten years, and it started with people putting Altoids mints cans on their pedal board, using them as carrying cases for their guitar picks. And the gear community took that idea and ran with it, giving us guitar pick holders/containers from companies like Walrus, October Audio and Harmony Guitar. You’ve got different shapes, from square to more rounded cases. Again, it’s a situation where we have much more variety than is reasonably needed, and I’m okay with that.
Honestly, I just don't know where I stand on this. Do I want to put a little case of guitar picks on my pedalboard? Can’t I just have a guitar pick tucked into my pants pocket like a normal person? Simply put: is this pointless or practical?
Kyser Short-Cut Capo
Last is a piece of gear that I've used for years, and I’m not ashamed to say that I love it: the Kyser short-cut capo. You've probably heard of the capo, which simply clamps onto your guitar and shortens the neck of your guitar. For instance, if you put it on the second fret and play a G, you're actually playing an A, so it helps you transpose and get different sounds. It's really useful and really fun.
The Kyser short-cut capo is different. I think it started from people flipping their traditional Kyser capos upside down, and they would just cover three strings. Basically, you can put the Kyser short-cut capo on your guitar, and your E bass is untouched, while your A, D and G strings are clamped down at the second fret. You can do any fret you want, really, but the practical usage that everyone starts with is to put this capo on the second fret. As a result, your guitar is in a type of open E tuning instantly. It's really great.
Now, you always see capos being used on acoustic guitars, which bums me out a little. It implies that electric players can’t use capos, too-- which they totally can. In fact, I love them on electric guitar. If you're totally nuts, you can even double them up and use two capos at once.
Ultimately, is it practical? I’m going to say yes.
This article took me to a deeper place than normal. It’s left me wondering not only if this gear is practical or pointless, but if my life itself is practical or pointless. Maybe life's just a vapor. Maybe everything is useless. I don't know.
What I do know is that I love my guitar, so I’m going to go play it.