Guitar Pedals!

For overdrive it depends whether you're happy with what you can get out of yr amp without effects.

I don't know anything about current multi-fx and what is good or bad right now, sorry.

Get a ProCo Rat pedal and a delay pedal, hopefully one that has a phrase sampler on it too, those are pretty fun.

Dr. C the amp is a peavey one i don't know the model off the top of my head though (it outputs 50W) - will find out tonight.. the guitar is a tanglewood tomkat (it has two humbucker pickups one neck and one bridge).. it sounds... alright with the amp, but when it tries to be a bit crunchy it gets a bit soggy and limp. but it may well be me being rubbish at setting it to the right levels though.

n/a is right, get a delay pedal and a phrase sampler, my recommendations being a Boss DD-5 or DD-6, and the Boss RC-20. They've just brought out a new version of the RC-20, too (RC-20XL or something like that), which has some nice new features on it.

is a delay the same as an echo? i think the zoom thing already has that (i used it to great effect in a cover of "material girl")

my favorite pedal is my vintage Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man with Chorus and Vibrato.

Give us a clue about what kind of sound you're after. Name a record/band.

oh, and my picks for distortion pedals: MXR Distortion+ (a.k.a. the Bob Mould pedal) or a Big Muff Pi.

Remember to buy used.

A delay is different to an echo in that echo only repeats once, whereas a delay can be set to repeat several, variable, times.

this phase sampler thing sounds mad.. how do you control when you loop the thing? so you actually pre-record a length of sound for looping purposes?

okay talking to you guys now I think perhaps the amp might be more the key of what will make my guitar sound better. i'm going to spend tonight fiddling with my guitar and amp and see what sounds i can make out of it and then i can figure out what's missing. thanks!! will report back

You utilise the two pedals to start/stop recording, and control overdubs, and the pedal pretty much takes care of the looping part.

Also, the fearsome noise of three delays chained together is something to behold.

Has anyone heard this? I've been considering it for my studio. 4 mono fx in 2 rack spaces is nice.

http://www.valenciamusical.com/Korg-Pandora-PX4.jpg

I have a line6 DL6 delay modeling pedal, it's all I use. no it doesn't sound as good as the original pedals. but it sounds pretty good nonetheless and you can modify the sounds an awful lot.

All of that said, amps are heavy, and the band I play with has its own PA rig, so about a year ago I bought a Line 6 Podxt. I was nervous about a modeling device since I had played through some early ones and they sounded like crap. To my ear, the POD's sound gorgeous. More importantly, never has one piece of kit saved more back pain.

It has every effect you would ever want to deal with, delays, reverbs, phasers, fuzz tones, wahs, but I almost never use them. I use a few of the amp models (JC120, AC30, Blackface twin, Old Bassman, Matchless Chieftain, 90's Soldano) which are beautiful. OK and the Leslie effect because I am a total Charlie Hunter/Jimmy Smith freak, but it has a Leslie! How cool is that?

It's designed as a DI box for recording, if most of what you want to do is play live, look at the pedal version. 100 bucks more, but if you want to deal with Wahs and volume swells, as well as switching amps mid song, you need it the expresion pedals. Also, last I checked Line 6 are bastards about the add on pedal for the original model, I think they charge 250 bucks for it, (though I found it on Craigslist for 70).

Good luck.

i'll see on ebay if there is one that wouldn't break my pocket!!! wow you guys all rock

hopefully i will rock too, soon

so UK blues means "sposed to sound like an old 60's marshall"

Ken - dont buy a crybaby. if you want to have fun with effects, just buy a multi unit. doesnt sound like great tone is what you're going for, just some things to have fuyn with. those will generally have some fun delay, chorus, flange, spacey sounds. they'll be fun alright.

if you had more cash to spend, i'd recommend electro-harmonix pedals. they're some of the best out there, and definitely whacky... but geared more towards at least semi-professional music making.

In Guitar land there a few "Classic" amps and tones that serve as the basis for everything else. Since companies like Korg don't want to pay Fender and Marshall royalties for using thew actual names of the amps they abbreviate them or use euphemisms like the ones you see above. I'll translate all the settings on that Korg.

BTQ Clean - No idea, maybe a default setting?

BLK 2x12 - "Blackface" Fender Twin Reverb. Before FEnder was bought by CBS their amp faceplates were black with white script lettering. When CBS bought them out the faceplates were changes to silver with blue letters. The older "blackface" amps are universally considered to be better. (The "number x number" notation refers to the speaker cabinet on a given amp. The first number is how many speakers there are, the second is the diameter of the speakers.)

Tweed 1x12 - Fender amps from the late 50s were covered in Tweed

Tweed 4x10 - This refers to the Fender Bassman, which was meant for bass players in the 50s, but is now sold as a blues guitar amp. SRV used one.

AC15 and AC30TB - These refer to Vox amps, made famous by the
Beatles and Brian May from Queen. The AC30 in particular is sought after by Beatleheads.

UK - Always means Marshall, the gold standard of all things distorted. The three different ones probably correspond to the old Super leads that hendrix used in the 60s (blues), the JCM's with Variacs that Eddie Van Halen used (80s) and whatever they have out now (modern)

Recto - Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier, always plays second fiddle to Marshall, but I thuink they're nicer amps. Santana uses Mesas.

Fuzz - Self explanatory I think.

Walter's advice is good. You have lots of variables to play with without effects - pickups, guitar vol, guitar tone, gain on amp, clean/OD on the amp. I reckon with those I can get from a reverby, thin Beatlesy sound through 60's garage rock (a touch more crunch and wind down the tone on the guitar), 'classic' rock (less reverb, switch to OD channel, go to both pickups), Led Zep 1 and II sound(increase OD channel gain a bit, bring the tone on the guitar up fully), classic punk thrash (OD channel or OD2 if you have it - gain half way round, a touch of reverb and choose bridge pickup only for thinner clipped sound or both pickups for a 'fatter sound' e.g 3rd album Ramones! Roll the treble off for the latter if desired) postpunk scratch - (bridge pickup only, back to clean channel, but with lots of gain and NO reverb.).

None of those use 'effects' except reverb. I have a Telecaster with single-coil pickups and a Marshall MG100, so obv there are differences depending on set-up. The Marshall has two OD channels, the second of which has outrageous sustain. The built-in DFX unit has a Chorus, Flange, Delay etc. I use delay quite a bit. Add it to the clean channel with a bit of reverb and you get instant Durutti column or Felt. Add it into OD1 with a bit more reverb and you're The Edge. Ramp up the gain and the reverb and you're up in the stratosphere Dave Gilmour-stylee. The delay is good for any kind of solo if you kick it and out via the footpedal.

oh wow, thanks. this clears up about 10 years of idley wondering about this...

3 base pedals everyone should own - crybaby wah-wah, distortion (anyone can play guitar with a distortion pedal!) and digital delay.

for more fun i suggest a phaser pedal. chorus and flanger pedals are nice but definitely my least used.

i guess one of those all in one things is more prectical but half the fun for me is hooking up different pedals and stomping them. its no fun being delicate when youre rocking out.

side note: cats love the sound of a wah-wah. i dont know why but if there are cats in the house and youre using your crybaby they will starting purring and rubbing around your ankles.

here are the set ups of two of my fav musicians who heart their pedals:

for guitar

ihttp://guitargeek.com/rigs/img/m/magicdirt_adalita_2001.gif

for bass

ihttp://guitargeek.com/rigs/img/m/magicdirt_dean_2001.gif

I have a Dod "Vibro-Thang" pedal! It's great!

The BTQ probably refers to "boutique" but I have no idea which boutique amp they're supposed to be modelling.

electro-harmonix makes a sustain pedal: snakefinger? blackfinger? blacksnake finger? something like that. has anyone used it?

Sound samples of Blackfinger here:

http://www.ehx.com/ehx2/Default.asp?q=f&f=%2FCatalog%2F02%5FHome%5FStudio%5FPerformance%5FProducts%2F04%5FBlack%5FFinger

It sounds really good. We just sold one on ebay yesterday.

Your set up sounds interesting and v. different to mine. I tend to go for a BIG amp with few gizmos, so that I can easily get the sound I want playing live. But as I was sort of indicating upthread, you can get a massive range of basic sounds with this. People often talk as if Overdrive is an *effect* i.e on or off, but on a decent amp it's a whole continuum from 'just breaking up' clean through crunchy blues through to wild sustainy fuzz. I know you have a similar range of levels on a pedal, but I don't think you need them when you can do it with the amp. Then you factor in the effect of the guitar controls and the pickups and you can do just about anything.

Anyway, I digress. Post-punk guitar - well, I was just talking about a thin scratchy 'Josef K' type sound above. I guess someone like the Gang of Four are using a much fuller, but dryer sound, at least on the early stuff. I'd have to experiment, but I think my best approximation of Go4 would be an overdrive channel with maybe a third gain, bass and middle almost full on, treble not more than half. Guitar volume not on full (to kill a bit of the sustain) and no reverb on the amp. I don't know whether bridge or both pickups would be best. Of course I'm talking about my set-up here, it might not work for all. I think the Tele is a good postpunk guitar with its natural brightness. Actually they're great for anything.

One effect I am defintely interested in is the blackfinger. Cheers for that info John.

Amusingly (or not) enough, the Ebay guy just emailed me and let me know that he overbid and is bailing on the auction (dick.) So if you're thinking about getting one, let me know at my genuine email address listed below. $130 plus shipping would do it.

Sorry. I promise never to do that again.

Personal fave; Brownstein uses it.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/KORG-TONEWORKS-GUITAR-EFFECTS-PEDALBOARD_W0QQitemZ7351955996QQcategoryZ22669QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I use the Bass version, it can be programmed to do some wacky shit but it's also super quiet, has good quality delays/reverbs/phasing/flanging etc: The distortions are okay, but you'd be better off with the distortions upthread, plus you can get them super cheap, which leaves you money to buy one of these...

http://www.stevesmusiccenter.com/EHMicroSynth.html

solid state distortion:
a vintage rusted BigMuff

noise:
MoogerFooger RingMod

loops:
Boss Loopstation & Akai Headrush (used to use the Headrush a lot more but have settled down with the loopstation)

http://www.digitech.com/products/JamMan/JamMan.htm

In the hands of a hippie, they are ultra-yutch. That's right, Joseph Arthur, I'm callin' you out!

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7350685521
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7351145841

BTW - Dan, did you know that Rob Simmons and Paul Myers are back in action in The Fallen Leaves. (www.thefallenleaves.net)
It looks like Rob's playing a Telecaster now.

And chopped their hands off.

They are expnsive, but are the best effects I've ever used and - very important this - hold their value:

http://www.lovetone.com/

I occasionally look on Ebay and find some of the pedals on auction for twice the price I paid, but I wouldn't sell mine unless I had nowhere to sleep.

http://lalweb.com/

Argh, the company is currently moving its base & thus not producing at present. They has a pedal called the "Rattle Crow" as well.

http://www.analogman.com/lalfx.htm

http://www.axeandyoushallreceive.com/

I bought my GS Wylie fuzzbox off him last year, and he was an absolute pleasure to deal with. His site is like boutique effect pedal heaven (or hell, if you're broque)

well! i have had a bit of fun two nights ago playing on the guitar with my amp, and it sounds OK (it sounds fine when i'm twanging chords and stuff but certain notes when i play them together the sound gets a bit iffy, but that could well have to do with my playing technique/maybe bad tuning). I think actually i'm going to stick with it for a little while and play with it to see whether i can wrangle out a good sound out of it (i kind of want the guitar to make a bright-ish tone when i'm like playing individual notes, and i reckon there must be some combination of levels on the guitar and overdrive on the amp that would do this, but so far what i've got is some feeble fuzz at the background of a normal note sound).

eventually though, that Line6 POD does seem VERY EXCITING, and I would like to get one at some point (basically if i can find one on the cheap or i have enough money to shell out).

Have you got an overdrive channel on the amp? Maybe what you want is the clean channel with quite a lot of gain until it's just breaking up or overdrive channel with not much gain. Treble up full on the guitar, but not more than half on the amp. Both pickups?

Basically I don't know what your amp or guitar are like, so you know.. but is there an record or band guitar-sound that you're after as a basic sound.

i think i like the guitar sounds that you get on REM's out of time album where the dude does the little riffs in the background. i don't think it should be a very tough sound to get but i just need to work out how to get the twiddly bobs in the right place i think!!

Honestly thanks for helping out! I really know very little about this it seems.

http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/models/g21u/10.gif

* 96 kHz sampling
*
24 bit A/D/A conversion
*
32bit processing
*
20Hz - 40kHz flat responce
*
120 dB SNR

* 16 amp/stomp modeling
*
9 effect modules
*
54 effect types
*
40 user patch + 40 factory patch
*
6 bands EQ

USB audio interface
Built-on Expression Pedal
Harmonized pitch shifter
World fastest patch change
Built-in PCM drum machine

And there's one on ebay right now for $159.

hey, is it bad to take a guitar to the guitar shop, try out both pod and zoom pretending to have an intention of buying and then go away not buying either, and getting it from ebay?

As a man who's owned a couple digital 8 tracks and DAW programs, I realize that this pedal (and the Zoom 8 tracks with usb) are about the best solution there is to home recording. Any other way of putting the music into your computer is going to give you noise from the fan in your computer or other oddness. But if you like using amps, the Zoom G2.1u is the best solution because it has two settings: recording (no amp) and live (amp) so you can get the same effects on stage you might record with your home recording equipment without cranking the amp in your tiny apartment.

On Texarkana - he has a bit of chorus on there, I think.
Radio Song intro - it's a bit compressed and piano-ey there. On Near Wild Heaven - it's pretty much clean and I guess that's what you're after? I reckon there's a tiny bit of chorus. I can get pretty much exactly that sound on my tele on the bridge pickup. You want to take off some of the treble on the guitar or it will be filling-looseningly bright. Maybe the guitar volume should come down a bit too. Try it on the Tomcat.
Shiny Happy People - same sound, but a bit more gain. You can hear it starting to break up a touch.

I would try and demo the zoom etc on an amp that is as close to yours as possible, Ken.

I have been working at home today, so naturally a bit of guitar-playing too. I have been trying replicate I'm in Love With A German Filmstar. God, those old Echoplex things were good weren't they? I have pretty much got the basic sound sorted, but haven't got all of the intro yet.

Ken - I've never actually taken my guitar to the store to try out crap - i've always just used theirs. it should work ok unless you've got some fancy schmancy guitar that sounds like nothing else. which i dont think you do :)

and, this G2 looks marvelous. i'd definitely get it. and get the one with the expression pedal cuz those are fun to use.

dr c i'll give your recommendations a try tonight! i was going to record a load of stuff from the amp last night but never got round to wiring anything to it and stuff so ended up just fiddling around playing stuff. last night, somehow i made the guitar sound a bit like the guitar on "Gay Bar" by electric six!!

i do like the sound of that USB thing! Because my main problem with recording at home just now is precisely getting so much noize.

http://ilx.wh3rd.net/newanswers.php?board=12

actually it's I Love Guitars renamed as I Make Music. Hopefully discussions like this, and others, will plant seeds and grow in it's fertile soils.

now I am moving towards analoge pedals, they are just better, but toneworks is awesome!!

YES

I feel like the pedal market has become a lot like the craft beer market. And overdrive is the IPA.

In any case though, I just bought this Maxon tube overdrive pedal that I think is the 90s and I really like the way it sounds. This is it + fender amp vibrato and some non-standard picking technique
https://www.instagram.com/p/COWoqW4jm1q/

I stopped playing guitar a few years ago and sold most of my peds. Started fucking around with it again over christmas and went to build a small pedal board. All the old DOD FX series pedals that you used to be able to reliably buy for under $30 are all over $100. It's fucking nuts.

Overall I try to limit my use of pedals, I just feel like I get too lost in them. I have a thing I love called the Fender Pinwheel which is a very good sounding leslie imitation with some neat features, e.g. a speed variation that's sensitive to your playing. I really want to get an expression pedal for it - I love the sound of a speeding up/slowing down leslie. I've actually thought about buying a real leslie at times.

I don't like playing with effects that take your guitar completely out of the realm of sounding or responding like a guitar, which I feel like a lot of the sought after pedals do.

That Pinwheel sounds cool. I was looking at rotary pedals a while back and found some video on youtube where a guy showed that you could do a very reasonable impression of some rotary sounds by stacking a chorus and a tremolo. I tried it out and it does the trick for me, although my set-up doesn't have adjustable speeds or touch sensitivity. I think the Earthquaker Night Wire tremolo is touch sensitive.

I hate the hypebeast model of selling pedals via ten second sellout drops. I get it when it’s a one-person operation (though you could have a waiting list) but when Chase Bliss does it for a $600 pedal that will double in price for collectors, fuck off.

That Pinwheel sounds cool. I was looking at rotary pedals a while back and found some video on youtube where a guy showed that you could do a very reasonable impression of some rotary sounds by stacking a chorus and a tremolo. I tried it out and it does the trick for me, although my set-up doesn't have adjustable speeds or touch sensitivity. I think the Earthquaker Night Wire tremolo is touch sensitive.

― peace, man, Friday, May 7, 2021 9:36 AM (thirty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

FWIW ever since I got my little princeton reverb, the amp vibrato sounds so good that I don't use the pinwheel as much. I tried using both at the same time but they seemed to sort of override each other so that either one or the other would be prominent and the other not so noticeable depending on my playing settings.

I hate the hypebeast model of selling pedals via ten second sellout drops. I get it when it’s a one-person operation (though you could have a waiting list) but when Chase Bliss does it for a $600 pedal that will double in price for collectors, fuck off.

― Joe Bombin (milo z), Friday, May 7, 2021 9:59 AM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah I pretty much hate anything in the guitar/amp/pedal markets that places any value above sound tbh. Not buying a pedal on excitement, need to hear and play the damn thing.

Like these things are at bottom tools for making music. I don't imagine carpenters set up an auto-refresh to buy the latest boutique sander.