If there’s one thing Ionia guitarist Ome Wald and I can agree on, it’s that a pedalboard the size of West Texas has major tone-sucking dangers, and a bypassing solution can be crucial. And I don’t know if this was part of his impetus, but an equally important reason for that kind of signal routing is bad cables. Inevitably, something will die on you. Hell, it may not even be the patch cord. Sometimes the pedals themselves take a shit, or your power situation gets weird and one of the digital power hogs says, “nope, sorry pal it ain’t happenin’ today.” And if that happens mid-set, often it’s quicker to just nix your delay routing with the press of a button that to start an ad hoc rewiring campaign that jumps from point A to point D.
But there’s also something Ome and I have to agree to disagree on, and that’s vertical video. We try to be open to all sorts of musical philosophies here at Gear Gods. And this video includes a bangin’ playthrough of his “We Shall Overcome” lead, from the new Ionia record Postcards from the Edge Chapter 1 Delta 32, so I’m inclined to let these dudes slide for the cinematography faux pas. Also, I’m always in favor of some kung fu movie voiceover as a workaround solution for unideal acoustics. But please, please people, just rotate your damn cell phones 90 degrees.
I even thought, “well, am I just being curmudgeonly and dismissing cell phones and tablets, since they’re the new primary viewing screen?” Because that’s always been the argument, right, That TVs and movie screens and computer monitors are all in landscape orientation? But if all the kiddies out there are watching their videos in the palm of their hands, then maybe we should bend to our creeping obsolescence and admit our crotchedy graybearditude. But fuck it: no. And you know why? Because when you try to watch a video in portrait mode on YouTube it will still be landscape, with black side borders at the very top of the screen. It’s just that the rest of the pixels are filled with the bile pit of the YouTube comments section. So no, we have to take a stand.
But Gear Gods’ own resident angry man has said it far better than I ever could. Play us out, Glenn.
