From 1983 – 1999, I played guitar entirely without effects. Then I bought a BOSS CE-3, HM-2, and an RV-3, and I used those exclusively until about 2005. I’ve only begun to collect pedals in the last 4 years.

During all those years that I didn’t use any effects, I concentrated entirely on song-writing. Now that I have tons of effects, I haven’t necessarily lost my ability to write songs; but I find myself not writing as much because I spend more time now learning to play guitar, and playing around with effects and textures. My feeling is that eventually, when my aptitude for writing guitar lines and using effects is completely second-nature, I’ll come around to being more prolific with song-writing; but this time I’ll have the added extra bonus of having more mastery over guitar and effects to enhance the songs with.

I use effects a lot, but I don’t soak my guitar in effects. I try to be more subtle. Except with fuzz. I use fuzz all the time and go completely over the top

I look at the pedals as instruments within themselves,
less is more for defs but…sometimes more is more too

I agree with Pablo on this one– they are instruments in themselves (at least the more complex effects). I keep my Barber LTD on almost constantly to enhance my tone, and then I have some different flavors of distortion/fuzz when I want to kick it up. I recently go the XO Worm, and it has a lot of options, but the effects are subtle enough that they can’t cover up a bad riff, only add to good riffs to make them better. Overall, I’d say that it depends on the user. For me, more is more. I find that pedals make me want to play and inspire me to write things, if for nothing else than to justify keeping them.

Right now a Strat, a reverb and an overdrive into a Fender Champ does it for me… What’s less? Go figure!

Yeah Big Muff is almost always on for me.

The brief quiet respite gained by turning it off for a few bars is much more interesting than the hole loud/quite loud thing.