Guitar effects pedals

Tom-eg

What guitar pedals do you use most? Which are your favourites(brand wise and effectwise)? Also when it comes to recording which pedals are friendly for recording in that they record well and blend with everything else easily?

studiorat

Small Stone, Memory Man, Tube Screamer, Guytone OD-1, Sans Amp, WEM Copicat, and that Korg filter thing CS-2???. Boss bass over drive for vocals.
I love the sound of stuff through the copicat too, even with the delay turned off.
It's not really a pedal, but it has a pedal!!!

danjokill

Tom-eg wrote: »

What guitar pedals do you use most? Which are your favourites(brand wise and effectwise)? Also when it comes to recording which pedals are friendly for recording in that they record well and blend with everything else easily?

On this issue of recording ....... I like to take a DI down stream of any pedals. Using the thru as the feed to the pedal chain and the amp. This DI I record down to a separate track. It opens up options at mixdown as you have a clean feed of the guitar player performance. This can then be used with an Ampfarm or re-amped or what ever effect you have hardware or software.

The problem with only having the effected guitar recorded will be if you don't like the sound afterwards you're stuck with it.

squibs

Will probably be excommunicated for this, but I use a Boss GT6 floor processor. It's hugely configurable, and I can dial up a specific tone with a full effects chain very quickly. The amp models sound good and it sits well in a mix. Best of all, it's got sp/dif so I have a digital path from the input jack to the soundcard.

If I had time/money, I might faff about with different tube amps and stomp boxes. Probably not though - my Fender combo is gathering dust and I sold my cry baby and discrete effects. I do occasionally hook the GT6 up to a Marshall practice amp and mic that.

PaulBrewer

squibs wrote: »

Will probably be excommunicated for this, but I use a Boss GT6 floor processor. .

Oh Yes you will!

Have you ever compared a signal straight from your guitar to your amp against a non effected signal (all FX off) through the GT6 ?

The low quality digital conversion destroys your tone.

A/B that against the Line 6 POD Xt and you'll hear a whole heap more tone http://line6.com/podxtlive/

Even though I'm the 3nd worst guitar player in the world (after Dolores O'Riordan and John from Reverend and the Makers) I use

[url]HTTP://www.tcelectronic.com/G-System.asp[/url]

The Tube Screamer and MXR Distortion + Clone from

http://www.buildyourownclone.com/index1.html

That's some savage racket comes out of that!


Regarding PODs my close personal friend Bob Clearmountain has this to say....

"Here's a new one: NO PODS IN THE RECORDING STUDIO!!!! Normally, I don't like to comment on how to record stuff, the general rule being "there are no rules". In this case, I'm making an exception as I've recently had to try to deal with guitar tracks recorded through The Pod (from Line 6). These are the most unmixable sounds I've ever encountered. I'd say they're probably fine for demos, but quite often demo tracks appear on final master recordings, then end up on my mixing table! Don't get me wrong, Line 6 makes some great products - I use Amp Farm all the time. I think the Pod is really for blasting your Strat, Les Paul or whatever through headphones so your mom/girlfriend/wife/bus driver doesn't get annoyed. PLEASE beg, borrow or steal a goddamn guitar amp!!

...and whatever you do, DON'T fall asleep next to one!"

danjokill

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Oh Yes you will!

Have you ever compared a signal straight from your guitar to your amp against a non effected signal (all FX off) through the GT6 ?

The low quality digital conversion destroys your tone.

A/B that against the Line 6 POD Xt and you'll hear a whole heap more tone http://line6.com/podxtlive/

Even though I'm the 3nd worst guitar player in the world (after Dolores O'Riordan and John from Reverend and the Makers) I use

[url]HTTP://www.tcelectronic.com/G-System.asp[/url]

The Tube Screamer and MXR Distortion + Clone from

http://www.buildyourownclone.com/index1.html

That's some savage racket comes out of that!


Regarding PODs my close personal friend Bob Clearmountain has this to say....

"Here's a new one: NO PODS IN THE RECORDING STUDIO!!!! Normally, I don't like to comment on how to record stuff, the general rule being "there are no rules". In this case, I'm making an exception as I've recently had to try to deal with guitar tracks recorded through The Pod (from Line 6). These are the most unmixable sounds I've ever encountered. I'd say they're probably fine for demos, but quite often demo tracks appear on final master recordings, then end up on my mixing table! Don't get me wrong, Line 6 makes some great products - I use Amp Farm all the time. I think the Pod is really for blasting your Strat, Les Paul or whatever through headphones so your mom/girlfriend/wife/bus driver doesn't get annoyed. PLEASE beg, borrow or steal a goddamn guitar amp!!

...and whatever you do, DON'T fall asleep next to one!"

This is very true. I us to have a digitech pedalboard years ago it has since been binned ....... and it use to suck the life out of the guitar when all FX were off. Even the bypass on any of these things ain't true and the tone of your guitar go's out the window.

squibs

Sigh

Have you ever compared a signal straight from your guitar to your amp against a non effected signal (all FX off) through the GT6 ?

Yes I have. It's hard to get a like for like comparison comparing a guitar amp thru combo speakers and a guitar processor through monitors. I happen to like the GT6 tonality. The amp response is a touch more dynamic, especially when playing soft. There's nothing wrong/degraded with the gt6 tone, to my ears.

I just set it up again now as I was starting to doubt myself, splitting the signal so I could A/B. I used a Japanese Fender Stratocaster '62 reissue. The amp was a Fender Ultra Chorus clean channel, verb and chorus off, mid boost off and tone controls centered. Boss GT6 all effects, eq, amp models off, output select to line/phones and output over sp/dif to an egosys wami rack configured for plain oul' 16 bit 44.1KHz thru a technics amp into Tannoy Reveals.

The amp sounds a little more open, but it's got a far higher noise floor. In recording applications, it only really sings when the volume is at 7 or so, and that is annoyingly loud even in a makeshift baffle enclosure, which is why I'll usually use the Marshall practice amp if I want to mic an amp, as I mentioned in an earlier post.

I've played the POD - didn't like it. Same with the Behringer V-AMP and Johnson J Station. I've played a good selection of guitar processors over the years and disliked most of them to varying degrees. The GT-6 uses 24-bit converters which do a pretty good job, it's convenient and it suits me.

PaulBrewer

squibs wrote: »

Sigh



Yes I have. It's hard to get a like for like comparison comparing a guitar amp thru combo speakers and a guitar processor through monitors.

No, I meant try them both through to the one destination .. ie say guitar/ gt6/ console/ monitors and guitar/ console/ monitors.

I'm not saying not use it , just be aware of the effect it has.

I'd revisit the line 6. The presets are way over the top but stomp off all the ridic chorus flanged echoed nonsense and the distortion/amp tones are way superior to my ears. The GT6 has no balls or real bottom end to my ears.
I used to own one too!

PaulBrewer

My core point is that the Boss A2D is way inferior to the Line 6 ones.

Therefore your tone is chawed to bits before it even gets to the modeling.

jtsuited

yeah those boss multis destroy any sort of definition or depth in your sound.

My personal favourites are, the line6 dl4, big muff (there is a trick to using one without making it sound like a mess of fizz), small stone, and rat.

For bass I love the big muff and bass balls (oh electroharmonix how do you come with those names!).

dav nagle

Pod XT pro > Portico > Apogee =I was Surprised to hear a very nice clean sound today and yesterday.

PaulBrewer

dav nagle wrote: »

Pod XT pro > Portico > Apogee =I was Surprised to hear a very nice clean sound today and yesterday.

Go directly into the Apogee and you may hear a nicer one ..... tomorrow and far into the future!

dav nagle

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Go directly into the Apogee and you may hear a nicer one ..... tomorrow and far into the future!

Yes master, consider it done obi one

squibs

Haven't played the pod xt yet as I wanted to try it with a variax guitar to see all its capabilities.

If I can get the time over the next few weeks, I'll do some wav recordings, with and without gt6 and post the results without telling you which is which. If the gt6 converters are as bad as ye believe, ye should be able to distinguish easily. The only condition I would ask is that you use your ears (not spectrum analysis or waveform views) and you decide all on your own (no collaboration by PM).

danjokill

jtsuited wrote: »

yeah those boss multis destroy any sort of definition or depth in your sound.

My personal favourites are, the line6 dl4, big muff (there is a trick to using one without making it sound like a mess of fizz), small stone, and rat.

For bass I love the big muff and bass balls (oh electroharmonix how do you come with those names!).

Big Muff is the greatest invention ever!!!! :cool: :pac:

PaulBrewer

squibs wrote: »

H If the gt6 converters are as bad as ye believe, ye should be able to distinguish easily.

True, but only once they're not pickled by the rest of the recording process so it's not really a valid test.

I'm not slagging you Chief, just letting you know my observations when I A/Bed them and why I think what I think.

Other men may disagree with those observations.

It matters not a jot to me as I got rid of mine years ago!

trackmixstudio

My favourite pedals are an Ibanez ts808 and MXR Wylde overdrive.
I use these to tighten the guitar sound going into a gained amp and they both work wonderfully at this job especially when you seperate them to the left/right guitar tracks in the mix.

I also use a boss chorus or flanger quite a bit because they sound much nicer than applying a virtual effect in the mix. Also the boss dd20 delay gets used if the guitarist needs a delay while tracking.

The best pedal I have is the 6 way channel switcher for my H&K Triamp Mk2 :-)
http://www.hughes-and-kettner.com/products.php?mode=prod&id=1

I recently got a digitech gsp1101 preamp which is very useful. You can patch it in such a way that you can switch between your "real" amp's pre or the gsp's preamp models. The mesa, jcm800 and Soldano models are all really good and get used often in layering guitars.
The eqs and effects on it are top class too.
It is an ingenious bit of kit that has recently been used on tours by such big (metal) names as Megadeth and Carcass (unendorsed but spotted on stage). It even sounds good direct.