This weekend, for the first time in 8 years, I took my Les Paul out of the closet and sat down and tried to actually play and make an unholy racket - like in the old days. Only nowadays, I am not rebelling against, parents, God, society and country, I’m rebelling against old age and tin-eared wife.
Thing of it is, out of the closet also come my motley collection of effects pedals - most of which date from the 70’s or early 80’s. Which got me to thinking - what are the dopers favourite guitar/bass/whatnot effects pedals and what cool sounds are they wringing out of their axes/amps?
NOt playing but still have a strat copy and Chiquita travel guitar, Big Muff Pi, Boss OD distortion, Boss Octave Box (cheaper than buying a bass but not as flexible), EH Queen Wah with trigger, cry baby wah (trashpicked!), Ernie Ball volume pedal. Getting rid of a Europhase Phaser and a Fender 2-second delay box.
If I was getting into it right now, I’d want the PodXT live multieffect/amp modeler and/or the Line6 Flextone amp, and either an Ibanez Jem 7-string with Floyd Rosee. Second the feeling for a looping station, but I was most impressed with the review of Electro-Harmonix’s latest offering for looping.
Agree entirely with this statement, the EH 2880 looper looks awesome. Just wish I had some money right now so I could buy it. Other than that I must recommend trying a stereo chorus (line 6 do an excellent one) going into two amps. It will change the way you think about guitar sounds forever.
Being about fifteen years behind the times technically the flashest effect I use is a DDL.
A different angle. The thing that’s changed my approach drastically is that my Ibanez Turbo-Overdrive broke. I used to play through this constantly if I wanted any drive at all, consequence being weedy tone and no dynamics. Now to get some drive I have to turn up and overdrive the amp*. Totally different experience. Back when I was playing in bands I used to do it this way (which is why I was always too loud) somehow I lost my way trying to keep up with Steve Vai et al.
Way back I started a thread listing all the guitars I have (far too many for a non-gigging player) and all the guitars I have had. It was an insanely long list.
My last gigging setup was exactly this. It wasn’t actually a chorus it was an Ibanez aural expander (or enhancer or something) it was purple with four buttons for different settings, mono in stereo out. Dunno why I ever sold that.
I hate to be a dinosaur, but it’s been years since I used any outboard effects, and I don’t miss 'em. I plug straight in to my Fender Prosonic, set the onboard reverb and distortion, and let 'er fly.
There are countless pedals out there - new modeling pedals like POD’s and the Boss pedals already mentioned. THere is also a ton of traffic in vintage pedals - I have a first-generation Rat distortion pedal (good enough for Jeff Beck and Dave Grohl, good enough for me) that I hear has some value.
However, I tend to plug straight in. I have a great amp (Cornford Hellcat - a handmade British amp that can do Vox cleans and Marshall crunch like nobody’s business) and prefer that simple purity. I also have a Tweed amp - sounds like the old 50’s Fender Tweed models - amazingly sweet…
Modeling pedals are great for versatility - you can get close to a wide variety sounds and effects - so you can dial up a '64 Fender Blackface Deluxe Reverb with a tube echo on it, all via that one modeling pedal, or switch over to a '67 Marshall Plexi. But you know what? The sounds are close, but no cigar - they don’t come close to having the touch dynamic secret sauce that the real-deal tube amps have. They are GREAT for a relatively inexpensive way to have a broad spectrum of sounds - but a quality tube amp changes everything…