One of the biggest effects on your guitar tone is impedance.

With the vast array of pedals and effects in today's music stores, the temptation is high to run an instrument through 27,000 small, battery-powered boxes before the signal hits the cabinet, let alone even gets recorded. In a nutshell, the more processors the signal passes through, the dirtier it gets.

Although there are a couple of solutions for this, one of the coolest ones I've seen lately comes from the Nashville-based company Creation Audio Labs. Their Redeemer circuit can easily be installed in your guitar or bass and preserve your tone from the instrument to its destination, despite how many different processors it goes through along the way. For those of you that are frequently recording different guitars, check out their MW-1, which was co-designed with rock producer Michael Wagner. For more information, check out: http://www.creationaudiolabs.com/