Technology used in on Live Stage Performances.

I'm a musician, that started out with a Fender (Memphis) Stratocaster copy, a 1968 Fender Princeton12" in. amp, EHX Big Muff, EHX Electric Mistress Flanger Deluxe and 1969 Univox Univibe.
Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Robin Trower, Michael Schenker, Richie Blackmore, Neal Schon and later Eddie Van Halen, pulled me in to playing guitar.
A gal that was my girlfriend from 5th to 8th grade, was moving away and her dad gave me a Teac reel to reel with a stack of blank tapes.
I recorded all my cassette and vinyl records on those reels and started learning songs and solos verbatim, was a breeze.
Today, you can use this .

It has some great ( some enimic) built in effects, you can slow down the music without affecting the pitch of the note, loop it over 5 seconds to learn difficult parts, more easily. They have an MP3 version. The device above used CD's. Great learning tool to learn covers songs or songs for bands that you auditioning for .

On stages or practices, back in the early 1980's, were analog effects pedals on pedalboards, tube amps or solid state amps and were at the mercy of dirty electricity and 60 cycle hum.
Soon the prices for power conditioning, buffers to convert high into low impedance signals, drop so soon every live band or group, could use it live. Digital effects were relegated to the studio.

1985, M.I.D.I. Implementation was perfected, as to allow those sounds to go on stage.
Pedalboards were still 80% analog, but rack units would house different effects moduals and were the size of refrigerators, but were very expensive. Professional big acts or mid level acts only had access to those technologies.
By 1988, I was based out of LA, touring, soon digital multi effects units came out, those racks became smaller.
Pedal Boards went from analog to digital .


Soon, each program was like having different pedalboards. One would sound, like Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock / Band of Gypsys or Eric Johnson's Ah Via Musicom, Rush 2112 or Pantera's Vulgar Display of Power or any customized sound. All available at a Stomp on a switch.
Today's, newer technologies, what was pictured above, can now all fit in a back pack .