I recently bought a book with all the scales in it showing all the keys the scales are in, and in every position on the fretboard.

I also recently bought a multi-fx pedal board too.

Do others on here find it counter-productive to practice scales and other daily practice routines while also testing out and playing with effects?

Or do you find it easier to dedicate time to practicing, and time to messing with effects?

Thanks,

Most of the time I don't plug in to practice. I also like to practice at the end of my day so it's either that or headphones. Mucking about with effects is a whole different mind set for me than practice.

i love effects... and i practice with them sometimes, but when i practice scales and exercises and whatnot, i tend to play clean.

i practice my band's songs with the effects i use live. that way i can work on tap-dancing as well. :D

Thanks guys.

I tried it anyway :)

When running scales using distortion, octave division and other "straight up" effects I had no problems except lots of "string zing" on the distortion settings.

Start adding flanger, reverb or combining effects and yeah, some of my scales got lost in the effects...but most I could keep up with just fine.

You should practice half of your time with a vanilla(read: plain, no effects) tone and the other half with your distortions or modulations. Because some effects help accentuate bad technique (esp. distortion) plus you learn how you have to alter your playing style to makes such-and-such effect sound good (some efects sound better while digging in and others you might want to be more "gentle" with).