I love how Mark compared guitarist's pedalboard with a plane's cockpit. I really can't understand how people can go through all that stuff, too.
For my fellow guitar Knopfler loving nerds, I feel compelled to let you know that I recently brought THE most amazing pedal, the Strymon Deco.
The Deco emulates the effect of tape saturation and delay between two tape machines and it really is quite remarkable and useful. No, you don't get "the smell of tape" but the sound of it is the best sounding harmonic distortion at low volumes I've ever heard. This is a very nice thing indeed when at home, but also for weddings etc. when you don't want to saturate your valve amp and make everyone feel their at a concert!
I've been using single coil Strats and a Jazzmaster through the Deco and into a Princeton, which has allowed me to ditch my (previously always used) Compressor, Chorus & Overdrive pedals. The result is amazing. If I get time in the Easter hols I'll make a quality demo vid, but in the meantime I'll copy up Strymons own yt vid as an example (I'm usually wary of demonstration vids from promoters as they hardly ever sound like it does when you finally get the real thing, but the Deco has amazed me.)
To summarize, this little gadget can add subtle or noticeable dynamic harmonic distortion AND/OR act as a two tape deck chorus, delay, flange machine just like in the 60s and 70s.
