A little give away...

[ParameterMan]

Wow. Music is one of the few things that makes me feel really alive. I love to play wherever, whenever I get the chance, and I love playing to please the One I feel gave me the gift.

And, a Plexitone personalized by you is so juicy I can't pass it up. I love shiny new toys.

[Mr 9finger]

Well for me it's lots of reasons. No matter what mood I'm in, I can express it through my strings. It's a great stress reliever. An endless experiment and a lifelong adventure and a comittment. Something you never give up on. I honestly feel like it's one of the best enlightenments and frustations in my life. There's just so much to the instrument that makes it interesting and keeps the curious side of me constantly tinkering. Sure the WOW factor is cool, but it takes alot of hard work and endearment to get to that point and it's very satisfying when you get there so why not share it w/ other people.

As far as making a difference w/ my talent? I like to teach what I've learned. Weather it be talking to a bro via PM, IM, Email etc.. about how to setup his/her guitars. Helping them make an educated guess on pickup selection. Wiring questions, contstruction methods etc... Or be it teaching my neighbor the cowboy chords and basic scale patterns. Showing the kid down the street, that yes there are 6 strings on a guitar for a reason and you can do some really cool stuff w/ them even when they're not tuned down 2 steps. Alot of times I get more of kick out of helping my bros out than I do learning something new myself.

[JB_From_Hell]

....you can do some really cool stuff w/ them even when they're not tuned down 2 steps.

Liar.

[saladin]

I play music because since I was young, music is the one thing that brought me happiness and could repair the loneliness that life can sometimes bring. Music is honest, you can always trust in it. When feeling down I only have to listen to Beethoven's "Pathetique Sonata" and everything is well again. I only want to share these feelings in my own music with the rest of the world as some have kindly shared with me.

[GandLMan]

Music moves people, it relates your emotion to the world, and brings emotional healing that spans almost any communication barrier. The reason I make music is a) because I love it an b) because i know music is an essential part of who we are.

Great idea rid . . .

[daemon barbeque]

i make music because it flows in me.No mather wich instrument , i let it flow out of me.!(still i do not want the pedal.i just wanted to share)

[ratherdashing]

Rid, this is so generous. I'm sure there's someone who deserves this more than me, but I'll enter as well. I finally decided to get into the local music scene after 8 months in a new city, and I need a good amp rig. A Plexitone would be a great addition!

Some people make music because it makes them happy. Some people do it for popularity, or out of a desire to be heard. Some people (though very few ) do it because it makes money. These people are musicians by definition, but that doesn't mean they have the soul of a musician.

If you have the soul of a musician, you make music because you have to. To not make music is unthinkable to you. You hear it in your head every waking hour, and even make it unconsciously by tapping on your desk with your fingers, or strumming on the heat vents on the bus with your feet. You are a vessel and a conduit through which music becomes sound. You make it because it is there to be made, and if you don't do it no one else will. This is me.

[Robert S.]

Yes, Rid is the man and this is a seriously cool gesture. Just understand my Bro that if I don't win I will break into your account and turn you into a 14 y/o girl that plays a pink Daisy Rock flower guitar with stock pickups.

Actually, as cool as this box sounds I disqualify myself. It might make my Marshall sound too good and I am seriously in love with my Mesa rack. You can't serve two masters.

Now to the contest at hand:

Why I like playing music is almost as hard to answer as why I have blue eyes. Then again it might be that simple. My father had blue eyes. One of my earliest and dearest memories is watching my father leaving the house with a tweed guitar case to go for a lesson. i don't know why that I have a 35 y/o memory of such a thing but I can still remember that moment as if it happened yesterday. Seriously, were talking somewhere in the area of 1967 and it still sticks. Please don't do the math, this is my story and I'm sticking to it. I always thought that part of my passion for guitar and music was due to a sons love for his father but I think it goes deeper than that.

Another memory that I have was my grandmother singing Irish folk songs to me as a small child. She loved music and she was also a very accomplished painter. I still have some of her paintings hanging in my house and I treasure them. Maybe part of my passion for music and artistry is genetic as well. It does seem to run in the family and I have a very successful brother that lives in Manhattan and makes a nice living doing graphic design and mutli-media stuff.

As a young boy I remember playing a plastic, toy guitar with a friend behind his fathers garage. His father kept his ladders on the back of the garage and that was our stage. Anything by the Monkeys, The Candy Man and The Backstabber were some of our favorite charts. We thought we were pretty cool back in the day. I was hooked before I could get my hands around a real guitar neck and I remember my father telling me my hands were too small and that I had to be older before he could teach me to play. Boy did I pester that man for a guitar. Six years old and I already knew what I wanted to do.

It's a passion that I have always had and that I have never let go of. To this day, even on my worst of days a good hour of beating on a guitar makes my life have focus and meaning. Music is just what I do and it makes my life better.

How I feel about making my surroundings better with music is a different thing. I write and play because it makes me feel something but I don't have any illusions about saving the world anymore. Truthfully, I don't think that any of the men that actually made the world a better place did so on purpose. It truely is a hard gig to get and an even harder job to pull off. I think the best we can do is to live by our convictions and to speak our hearts. If we get lucky, we might just touch one person and maybe give to them what music has given to us.

[Robert S.]

I teach several students for free. It's not that I don't need the money but instead because I love what I do. Music has made my life better and I try to share a little of that with anyone that cares to spend the time to get a grip on it. Music education in the U.S. has fallen off hard since the 1980s unless you live in a more affluent area and most folks just don't get that exposure in public schools anymore. I try go give away what was freely given to me by so many people in my life. I help out on this site because it keeps me connected with my passion and in all honesty I get back far more than I give. I fix guitars for free on occasion if someone is in a jam because it makes me feel better about myself and the smile that I get from someone that just got their baby back is priceless.

I could go on for ever but I think that about covers it. Thanks again Rid for doing your part in making a difference. If everyone reached out just one time the world would be a far better place.

You rock in my book Bro!

[Luís]

Well, I'll gladly enter this since I could use any pedal.

I started when I was 16 all by myself. Couldn't afford a decent guitar or lessons so I learned from a book and with my dad's old Stagg classical. Not playing pauper, I personally didn't have the money and my parents wiselly decided not to invest in something that might not go anywhere.

I started because I had started to like music, I loved how it made me feel, how some songs just moved you and I wanted to do the same. I decided to pick up the guitar because it's portable, relativelly cheap and it's an instrument that can produce a lot of sounds if you know how to do it... and I wanted to know how. Don't think I'm just there yet but that's another story.

I learned the very basics all by myself and I'm still learning (one always is in life). Eventually I got a better guitar, a small amp that fitted my needs and personal budget.

What I most enjoy about playing and is that it makes people get together and hang out. If you play a song everybody knows and likes their mood is gonna change and the environment changes with it. People sing and if they have an instrument they'll play. It brings people closer together.

I don't think I have any talent but that's the change in see in the environment whenever I play and there are other people around (not often).

[Luís]

Well, That's my submission. Great of you to do this, man.

[dani]

i started playing music when i realized music is the best way i can communicate my feelings. it is an extention of my feelings and emotions.

music allowed me to express myself without inhibitions especially so here in singapore where restrictions and old-fashioned mindset prevails. singaporeans are cultivated by the system to conform and not question. young folks here are reluctant to express how they feel in fear of being ostracised for being a non-conformist.

i hope what i do with music is able to give a voice to what most of us singaporeans feel but are afraid to speak up.

[real59er]

I've been playing for over 30 years, and purely out of a complete love and passion for the instrument. It is an absolutley necessay outlet for me, a way to express and channel a variety of emotions. It is just something I need to do. I just love everything about it, the sounds, the feel, the gear, everything. I won't get into a mushy treatise on touching people' hearts, but there is a unifying "universal language" of music that brings people together, and can also bring out the best in people, this forum being a sterling example!!

Now I have a Plexitone, and Rid, I've had the opportunity in other threads to express my gratitude for this contribution to tone. I'll just reiterate that it just LOVES my Marshall, and is exactly what I've been wanting for years. I would love to have this one you are offering, but would understand if Plexitone owners did not qualify for this giveaway. Either way, very generous of you Rid. You are a class act, friend!

[Hoss]

a personal pedal from a worldclass builder...to freaking cool man!!!

i'll definitely give it a go...

why i play music

actually i'll start from the beginning...

When i was a small child and at my grandmothers house i always picked up this old epi acoustic and tried to play it. The only thing was (i know this now) that it had old rusty strings on it and of course i knew zero about tuning or any of that...so making music with it was VERY difficult to say the least. But i always picked it up and banged around on it and just eventually figured that it was to difficult for me to play ( , age 5-10) So...throughout my childhood and teens i never attempted to play one, but lots of my friends did...i was so jealous! i was creative and i always had tunes and especially lyrics in my head, but i had no way to vent those ideas. I did continue to write though.
After i was married (early 20's), i became very good friends with my wife's brother (who played the drums) and her cousin (who played guitar) and we hung out quite a bit. So we'd be having a good time and then they would start playing music and maaaan did i want to be involved! i felt like a third wheel when they started...so one night i was sitting there listening to them play and i took a good hard look at the bass sitting there in the corner and i just walked over and plugged it in. Before too long i was playing right along with them and they were shocked to say the least. i kept it up, bought a bass and amp of my own, and we played at least a couple times a week until they got married and moved away. then i sold my gear like an idiot!
I still continued to write songs though, and i started working with a guy who said he needed a bass player and singer...so i said i could do it, and i did, and they were great with putting my songs to live music and it was so cool to finally hear it! well, as most bands go...it split...and several bands after that split and it was soo frustrating to not be able to put my stuff to music again...so i told myself one day "just buy a guitar, learn how to play it, and put music to it yourself!"
So i bought my Takamine after playing a ton of acoustics and only knowing one chord that i didn't even know the name of (G)...lol Now, i was officially in love with making music...i loved my guitar, i loved the tone, and i loved writing music, i loved the whole process...it was unlike anything i'd ever done before...a true expression of myself and my feelings and my passions. So i started teaching myself more and more chords and tried to learn songs and continue to write them, when i decided i would try to play the electric. i had never even picked one up before, much less tried to play one, but i walked into a music store and this beautiful Crimson Burst guitar with a Pearl guard immediately caught my attention! i knew it was a telecaster but it had a weird pickup in the middle with the name Seymour Duncan written on it...i thought "pretty cool, someones modded it a little bit" and i was sold!
That little name on the pickup is what brought me here...as i had to know what it was and stuff like that. Turns out it was a hot rails in the middle posistion !? lol! Well, i fell on some bad luck and tight times and had to sell it and a fellow forum member (and great friend now) bought it from me immmediately (even though i know he didn't need it) and it really touched me and my wife! So i stuck around here and made tons of new friends and learned more about guitars/amps/& pedals than i could possibly imagine. but i stayed a primarily basement player, tooling around writing my own stuff and not getting much better at all until i'd say the past 6 months really!

cont'd

[Hoss]

cont'd

That's when our church's youth pastor left and the entire youth praise band! the guy who had to fill in for him came to me and i told him "i'll help you out anyway i can, i don't want this to fall apart or fail"...so he said "i need someone to head up the music...and you play guitar right!?" I took a deep breath and said "sure, i won't let you down!" So i took on a job that i wasn't really ready for (or so i thought) because there wasn't anybody else frankly. Well, it turns out it was the best thing i've ever done...gradually we pick up more people to play and now the full band is back and my playing has "had to" pick up to their level and i'm actually doing what i LOVE THE MOST...which is play & sings songs i'm SUPER PASSIONATE about and that's Christian Music...i'm having more fun playing right now than i ever have in my ENTIRE LIFE!!! hands downs!!! i would love to have a "marshall" type pedal to help me cut through just a bit more with this full band now...my "mesa" and "tweed" setting on my little tech 21 pedal worked ok with just a couple people playing, but i actually used the "british" setting for the first time last week because my other settings were getting lost in the mix...i could hear myself ok, but the "tone" just wasn't there ya know?! so i'm looking for a good "british" cutting tone in a pedal now...i think the plexitone would fit that bill pretty good...and hopefully the sound would not only make me happy, but make the kids that listen to the songs positive messages and music so intently!

Good luck to whoever wins it, because i'm sure no matter who wins it will go for good music!!

later,
mike

[Kamanda~SD]

Wow man, thats awsome of you! I'm not a big pedal user (although just picked up a used boss ch-1) so I'm gunn let this one go to someone more deserving, but just wanted to say this is awsome of you man! Someones going to be happy!

P.S. "Dani" I LOVE your avatar!

[Stevo]

Great gift. I really like mine

[Vasshu the humanoid typhoon]

Ah guys....this is better than I could imagine
I have added a bonus or two..also stuff of my own.... one is CMmarked though, but is still a one of a kind thing, the other is very customised...the wife will soon start the reading, I will let this one go one for some time.
Niels

[Luís]

CMmarked? What's that?

You the man, Niels.

[Voxman]

That is soo cool Niels
First of all:
I make/play music cause i need to do it.It`s not very important to me if others like my music or not,it`s nice when someone do,though

But,if my music influence other kids to start play a instrument it would make me a happy man.