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guitar fetish has these MODboards.. effects you can install inside or (i saw in a interview with the guitar fetish CEO or whatever) outside into a little effects pedal... any thoughts and have any of you used them?

from what i can tell by looking at guitar fettish they are a pretty new product, i had never heard of them before this post. assuming that the affects are good i could see some definate advantages and disadvantages to having them. on the one hand it would be nice if you didnt have to carry around a bunch of foot pedals, and then have all the extra cable to hook them up, it would also be much more compact and save you a lot of space. but on the downside i could see some issues with them, for one thing you are going to crowd you controls, if you already have 2vol and 2 tone then that is going to be a pretty crowded instrument. other downside is that if you sell the guitar you controls go with it, but may not really ad much resale value to the guitar since not everyone likes the same effects, if you decide to keep them though then you are going to have to do all the work or rewiring it again and be left with holes where the controls used to be. the other downside is just from the standpoint of playability, your feet arent doing much when you play anyway so its easy to just stomp a box, getting a nob adjusted (and getting the right one if you have multiple effects) could be a little tricky and cumbersome midsong. just my thoughts, if there were one or two effects i really likes and wanted to have onboard i might give it a try in a guitar that i knew i was going to hold onto for a very long time.

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~shad peters

http://www.flickr.com/photos/petersinstruments/
http://petersinstruments.blogspot.com/
http://petersinstruments.com/

I think it might be cool to use them to build a multi-effect pedal or something, but for the price you can buy the GFS foot pedals which are great by the way. The only one I might see being useful is the compressor. That is the only thing I would put in front of my amp, everything else goes int he effects loop so having it on the guitar is pointless. Not to mention to have full capability you are going to need a lot of extra knobs, most effects pedals have 3 or so knobs. I have a friend that has been saying he wants to try them, but I think it is pretty worthless to have them on the guitar. my 2 cents.

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John Thiessen
http://www.iszacguitars.com

there is a swell of folks using onboard FX. most notably the bloke from Muse.

they were around in the 60s so it's nothing new.

the cons are you need to stop playing to adjust them, unlike foot pedals you can switch in & out without using your hands.

As a company Guitarfetish are second to none. EXCELLENT customer service.

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My soundclick xx luthier blog xx luthier soundclick

I own an Electra MPC which has effect boxes you plug into the back of the guitar. It was a cool idea but came with limitations. You can plug two boxes into the back at one time, on the front of the guitar was two lever switches, one for each effect, to turn the effect on and a knob to control the speed or intensity of the effect. I usually have the power overdrive module and either the octave box or the phase shifter installed. Very cool.
Maybe you could do something similar with the MODboards.


Here is the model I own.
http://www.rivercityamps.com/electra/x120.php