Guitar pedals

Author
Discussion

dojo

Original Poster:

741 posts

134 months

Tuesday 14th June 2016
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Anyone got any pedals they're loving, waiting for or flipped because they were awful??

I'm gassing badly to add/rearrange my board: Just added myself to King of Tone waiting list and trying to talk myself out of a Strymon Flint/Deco/Lex


davidd

6,443 posts

283 months

Tuesday 14th June 2016
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dojo said:
Anyone got any pedals they're loving, waiting for or flipped because they were awful??

I'm gassing badly to add/rearrange my board: Just added myself to King of Tone waiting list and trying to talk myself out of a Strymon Flint/Deco/Lex

I've been on the KoT list since about feb. Whilst I wait I'm amusing myself with a Thorpy FX peacekeeper and Gunshot both of which are epic

interloper

2,747 posts

254 months

Tuesday 14th June 2016
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Do you have a Korg Miku pedal in your collection? Its the best pedal ever!

Herkybird

82 posts

112 months

Wednesday 15th June 2016
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Got to say i can't fault the Strymon Big Sky. The range and quality of sounds it produces are incredible.
For when i need a bit of boost i use the TC Electronics Twin spark which for the money is a great little pedal

dojo

Original Poster:

741 posts

134 months

Wednesday 15th June 2016
quotequote all
interloper said:
Do you have a Korg Miku pedal in your collection? Its the best pedal ever!
I'd not seen this before - It looks absolutely mental haha

Yes the twin spark is great little boost - my friend has one, do you have the mini or the regular one?

davidd you'll have to give a review of the KoT when you get it - will you go for any extras??

Herkybird

82 posts

112 months

Wednesday 15th June 2016
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Twin Spark is the regular 4 knob version the Spark is the small 1 knob version.
I like a bit of flexability so went for the Twin Spark

chemistry

2,122 posts

108 months

Wednesday 15th June 2016
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xotic EP Booster - great little pedal, just makes everything sound a bit better

Fulltone OCD - my favourite overdrive

Mave

8,208 posts

214 months

Wednesday 15th June 2016
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I've got a mooer triangle muff on order at the moment - not owned any of their pedals before, but pretty cheap and with good reviews so thought I'd give it a go....

Baryonyx

17,990 posts

158 months

Thursday 16th June 2016
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I've got a Boss DD-3 digi delay that I adore. I usually leave it set to a quick delay that decays quickly. It sounds like applying thousands of pounds of studio magic to the tone. As much as I lust after loads of gear, Eric Johnson was right in just starting with a Stratocaster, a Fender tube amp on a clean channel and a select few pedals!

Le TVR

3,092 posts

250 months

Thursday 16th June 2016
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Digitech RP255; haven't found the need for anything else yet and it will be a while before i've exhausted all the possible permutations of effects possible.

dojo

Original Poster:

741 posts

134 months

Thursday 16th June 2016
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chemistry said:
xotic EP Booster - great little pedal, just makes everything sound a bit better

Fulltone OCD - my favourite overdrive
I have a Paul C Tim that I have as my always on pedal - I do like the look of those EP booster pedals though smile

Baryonyx said:
I've got a Boss DD-3 digi delay that I adore. I usually leave it set to a quick delay that decays quickly. It sounds like applying thousands of pounds of studio magic to the tone
Interesting to hear the different pedals people use as their tone pedals - I am just coming to the conclusion that I can't really use delay/it's not used in the styles I play.


Edited by dojo on Thursday 16th June 11:35

OldSkoolRS

6,720 posts

178 months

Thursday 16th June 2016
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chemistry said:
xotic EP Booster - great little pedal, just makes everything sound a bit better
I bought mine almost on a whim having read about them. I use it to push the front end of my Marshall JMP-1H 1 watt head (it's a non master volume amp). It does a great job of this, but I also use it with my other amps, turned down, just for the tone it gives.

I finally bought a (reissue) Tube Screamer after waiting 30+ years...I couldn't afford one at the time and bought a cheap distortion pedal instead (which I still have and has it's own useful sound). I really like what the TS does with all of my amps.

I still have a 30+ year old Ibanez PT909 phase pedal, but it's one of those pedals that you seem to use on one song, then turn it off again...

Mave

8,208 posts

214 months

Thursday 16th June 2016
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Baryonyx said:
I've got a Boss DD-3 digi delay that I adore. I usually leave it set to a quick delay that decays quickly. It sounds like applying thousands of pounds of studio magic to the tone. As much as I lust after loads of gear, Eric Johnson was right in just starting with a Stratocaster, a Fender tube amp on a clean channel and a select few pedals!
I pulled mine out of the loft recently to do some Pink Floyd stuff - forgot how much texture it adds smile

Mastodon2

13,818 posts

164 months

Thursday 16th June 2016
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Boss DD-3 is a great pedal, loads of room to adjust the settings and it sounds fantastic. Like Baryonyx, I love a delay with a single repeat and a quick delay, works like a plate reverb and adds lovely depth and colour.

I currently have no pedals, having used modeling amps and multi-fx units for years. I have just picked up a Carvin Legacy, my first tube amp in since I had a Peavey 6505+ a while back. I'm going shopping tomorrow, I'll probably get a Boss OS-2 OD/distortion pedal, a Keeley Aurora reverb and maybe a wah, the Dunlop Jerry Cantrell. I'll invest in a powered pedal board too - no point fking on with loads of batteries or 9V adaptors, just buy the carry case / board, set it up and leave it. Might as well get everything at once instead of procrastinating and fannying on.

I love the way the Legacy sounds, but would like to be able to make a few tweaks via pedals. With the 6505+ I spent the whole period of my ownership never getting round to getting an OD pedal (for the sake of £60) and as a result was never 100% happy with how the amp sounded unless the neighbours and the wife were out so I could turn it right up to saturate it, by which point it was so loud I'd have to stand in a different room to play it, while the plaster fell off the ceiling and the dead rose from their graves, so great was the volume.

chemistry

2,122 posts

108 months

Thursday 16th June 2016
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With the xotic EP Booster, I thinks you can only really appreciate it when it's off. By that I mean, when I first got it and plugged it it, I wasn't blown away by how it coloured my tone...but after half an hour or so I turned it off and everything just sounded flat and lifeless. I think it's analogous to salt in food - correctly used you aren't really aware of it having a specific taste within a meal, but if there's no salt in a dish you suddenly miss it!

Consequently, it's now an always on pedal for me.

For what it's worth, I mainly play it through an Am. Std. Strat into a H&K Tubemeister 36 head and 2 x 12; that's a pretty 'transparent' setup so I think the colour that the EP Booster brings can really be heard (aside from being murdered by my crappy playing...).

chemistry

bga

8,134 posts

250 months

Friday 17th June 2016
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I'm loving my TC Spark, it just makes everything sound better.


The Nur

9,168 posts

184 months

Friday 17th June 2016
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I have a Big Muff Pi which I've only recently plugged in for the first time in a decade. Recently I decided to take my first foray into valve amplifiers with a Blackstar HT1R and I'm really loving it. Already want something bigger/meaner though...

Any recommendations on something to really push a small valve amp?

bennyboysvuk

3,491 posts

247 months

Friday 17th June 2016
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The Nur said:
Recently I decided to take my first foray into valve amplifiers with a Blackstar HT1R and I'm really loving it. Already want something bigger/meaner though...
That's a very slippery slope right there. Enjoy it.

dojo

Original Poster:

741 posts

134 months

Friday 17th June 2016
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The Nur said:
I have a Big Muff Pi which I've only recently plugged in for the first time in a decade. Recently I decided to take my first foray into valve amplifiers with a Blackstar HT1R and I'm really loving it. Already want something bigger/meaner though...

Any recommendations on something to really push a small valve amp?
You want to push it to break up?? Your muff is pretty big sounding, you could run a boost/OD in front of the Muff then you have the option to run on own or stack with the muff ... Personally love a fuzz - can get proper nasty wink

Mastodon2

13,818 posts

164 months

Friday 17th June 2016
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I got all my pedals tonight, went to Guitar Guitar Newcastle, who were fantastic and very helpful. I took my Strandberg Boden OS7 with me and played through a 65 Amps Whiskey combo, which was a nice enough piece of kit, it would want to be for £2000 a pop! I play through a Carvin Legacy at home, which is boutique, hotrodded Marshall-esque on the drive channel and Fender-like on the clean, this Whiskey was the closest thing they had.

I went in knowing I wanted the Keeley Aurora reverb, a Boss OS-2 and a Boss powered pedal board. I ended up having a wah wah shootout and selecting a Dunlop John Petrucci signature wah, the Keeley Aurora, a Maxon OD9 and a Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus. I'll break down the selection process and my thoughts on this kit below, for those who are interested.

The Keeley Aurora was never in doubt, I'd heard nothing but great things and video reviews were very convincing. It has hall, plate and room settings, with warmth, decay, slapback and blend on knobs for adjustment. Every setting sounds amazing. Setting the decay to the max on the hall setting lets you build enormous soundscapes from a few notes, or setting it to plate with high slapback and short decay gives it perfect country quack. Very versatile, there is a lot of room to adjust each of the 3 base settings, I can't imagine ever needing more customisation. The quality of the reverb is what really shines though, it's just so, so good, it's the best reverb I've ever heard. I'm absolutely thrilled with this pedal.

The OD of choice was to be a Boss OS-2, I said I wanted a pedal for tightening and livening my tone up, which is what OD pedals do when used on top of an already driven amp, and the OS-2 has a distortion feature so it's two birds with one stone. As a comparator for a "tightener", a Maxon OD-9 was selected. In practice, this did the tightening and livening of the tone much better than the Boss, with less noise. Ok, it doesn't do full on death metal gain but I don't need it to. Anyone who is familiar with the Ibanez Tubescreamer (probably the world's most famous and renowned OD pedal), Maxon were the designer and have always manufactured it as an OEM for Ibanez. Now they've released it under their own name, it looks identical to the Ibanez bar the logo and it's slightly cheaper - only by a few quid and they're not exactly budget options.

The wah pedal shootout was fun; I wanted lots of adjustment options to get my perfect sound dialed in and ended up with a MXR CAE, which has a boost adjust knob and two different Fasel inductors, switchable by knobs. This had a great sound, but the Petrucci signature pipped it; the Petrucci wah has no adjustment knobs but the baseplate can be removed to adjust the components inside using a screwdriver (simple stuff, basically turning knobs to match up with lines inside the unit) to adjust the sound. It's based of John's rack wah setting in it's factory default mode, but has volume and 6 EQ controls inside the shell. The default sound is amazing though, loads of sweep range, very expressive and easy to control and with a great "quack" towards the full toe-down point. The action is very smooth and fast, the control button needs very little pressure to click it either - gone are the stiff Crybaby pedals of old, that needed a stamp to turn them on and a heavy foot to rock the pedal. I love it!

To power all this I wanted a Boss powered board / carry case - I can't be arsed fannying on with 9V batteries and adapters. I had a look at them but ultimately they're big, clunky and can suffer noise issues when powering both effects loop and guitar in-line effects, I remember my ex-brother in law having to do everything by the front of his amp for this reason. As I would be using the reverb in the loop and everything else in the front, a more elegant solution was needed, call forth the Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2 Plus. This nifty little box acts as a 9V hub, short patch cables run to each pedal. It has 8 jacks, of which I'm only using 3. It also has a very clever alternate power mode, where certain nodes can be turned to ACA power for use with old Japanese Boss pedals, 2 jacks can be used together to power larger Line 6 gear like Pods and Floor Pods and it even has a "sag" mode to replicate a dying battery which apparently made some old fuzz pedals sound sweeter - very clever stuff that I'm unlikely to ever use! In short it's not cheap but it's rugged, neat and very easy to use.

Not deterred at half 4 on a Friday afternoon, they had all the gear set up for me and left me to it to click and clunk around, got me all the cables I needed and even gave me a nice discount. I couldn't ask for more, top service.

So that is my rig built; the sort of setup I've aspired to own for years is finally complete and I can't think why I didn't do it sooner. Plugging the lot in to that wonderful Carvin Legacy was a dream come true. I've spent years fannying on with modeling amps, or tube amps without all the pedals I really wanted and needed to get the sound I had in my head. I'm now there, finally. Think Steve Vai's "Erotic Nightmares" and you're pretty close.