where have all the effects gone

jcoote

i've heard a few bands recently and no body seems to use effects anymore.. not a chorus pedal in sight ... i personally think effects make the songs much more interesting to play and double the atmosphere in a song... actually saw a guy with a full pedal board and all he used was distortion and clean...

Doctor J

I can't stand effects. I'm definitely of the mindset, if it doesn't need it, don't put it on. Nobody I've seen (local band stuff) does anything creative with effects, they simply lash it on when they run out of ideas. I shudder every time I see a large pedal-board.

jcoote

good man doc ..can always count on u to particpate... u have a valid point there if u are just hittin the pedal to make your crap sound sound better then buy new guitar or amp or something... but if used correctly effects are great.. take dave gilmour ,alex lifeson or tom morello for example i would say the effects really add to there sound.. i would like to think thats how i use mine. so just an amp and axe for the doc yeah??

Doctor J

Yup, and a wah if I'm feeling frisky

You make a good point and, in Morello certainly, you've highlighted one of the few players who've actually made good use of effects, Vernon Reid of Living Colour would be another who has shown a good deal of creativity.

I just tire of the attitude of most local guitarists which seems to be "clean tone must have chorus" etc. It's just so damn predicatable. I like guitarist who gets the most from a dry sound, who has the chops to keep it diverse and interesting through ability and creativity alone, without needing some thick soup over the sound to disguise limited technique.

But that's just me

Oeneus

Personally, I'm well into effects. I get bored very easily and like to experiment with different sounds. Unfortunately I'm not loaded, which is a requirement for effects fanatics.

Just recently got myself a Line 6 DL4 Delay modeller. Greatest pedal ever!

jcoote

unfortunatly i was once one of those guys... my chorus pedal always had a little red light on it .. but i have developed since then and the clean sound would come through more.. still an effects junky mind... heard a bit about living colour recently any stuff u would recomend from an effects usage point of view?

Doctor J

Stain is the album which does it for me. It was their least commercial offering and did miserably when released but it's just a fantastic collection of songs with wonderful playing from everyone concerned. Very creative, and Reid is a phenominal guitarist technically and in his use of effects.

Oeneus

Muse. Any of their albums. Absolution especially. But if you can, try and get a bootleg of one of their gigs last year. He's a freakin' effects genius!

I've never been fond of chorus's. Phasers on the other hand I think add a lot of depth to a guitar sound. I primarily use it for solos.

jcoote

thanx doc i'll look out for that one.. can't really seem to get into muse but maybe from an effects point of view i could enjoy them... oeneus that line6 pedal is really good good choice.. i'm sure a lot of people would cringe when i say i have a boss gt-6 (multi effects not popular with some folk). i like chorus in my distortion gives it a more melodic feel.. maybe a bit 80s though thats not a bad thing...or is it??

Giblet

I've never been into effects myself, as there is so much you can do with just a good guitar and an amp. I would probably try reverb one of these days though. My singer on the other hand uses effects all of the time, but I try to encourage him to be original. I'd kill him if he decided to use chorus for everything clean.

jcoote

yeah reverb is pretty cool.. i use it for that spainish guitar sound and to give a dreamy drifty kinda effect... i can't believe so little people like chorus.. anyone??????????

Oeneus

I never really saw reverb as an effect. I've always had reverb built in to my amps so I always kind of took it for granted, like equalisation. I never like using it beyond the 11 o' clock mark though.

Why does using effects define as being unoriginal?

jcoote

yeah i use reverb a lot on both my amp and pedal dunno maybe its one of the more standard taken for granted effects alright like eq and sometimes gain??? yeah i think i u can use effects and not just like "play your chorus on clean" then its as good as a lot of techniques around.. again just my opinion...

Doctor J

Not the using of the effect but rather the way the effect is used, the generic clean+chorus is a particular thorn (growing up in the late 80's is probably behind it )

jcoote

yeah sorry i phrased that wrong.. the clean chorus thing is done to death but with distortion it sounds cool .. what other effects do u use oeneus... chorus flanger and phaser at the right speeds is **** hot anyone with a multi should try that out

musician.ie

I think a lot of it is fashion. The early 80s were awash with new wave/goth bands drenched in a combination of reverb and chorus/flanger - it was a must have sound.

The pure tone seems to be in vogue right now. I think it's a backlash against technology - too many guitarists think a line 6 variax and a pod is a substitute for talent. I probably fall into that category myself a little

Doctor J

Personally, I think it's the idea that "I have these effects, well I better use them" and throwing effects on because they're there rather than "this part would sound amazing with some subtle phasing"

Gratuitous use, I believe, is what I'm getting at.

jcoote

its nice to have both talent and effects (not sayin i have or anything). yeah i think i like effects cos the clean tone is the in thing.. nobody is doin the weird physcadelic sounds or the gentle little touches here and there.. thats kinda my style. i like listenen to the clean stuff just not playin it

jcoote

subtle phrasing a thing rarely used these days.. well not enough anyway

John

Not really an effect but tasteful use of ebow makes me weak at the knees. Reverb is always nice for fleshing out a sound. However, the only reverb I use at the moment is natural reverb thanks to the frickin' huge practice space I use. Frickin' huge! Link but sadly no pictures from the inside

bassey

i'm planning on getting a bass multi-effects soon-ish, i've never used effects before so i'm just gonna play around with it mostly

Karl Hungus

Doctor J wrote:

Yup, and a wah if I'm feeling frisky

You make a good point and, in Morello certainly, you've highlighted one of the few players who've actually made good use of effects, Vernon Reid of Living Colour would be another who has shown a good deal of creativity.

I just tire of the attitude of most local guitarists which seems to be "clean tone must have chorus" etc. It's just so damn predicatable. I like guitarist who gets the most from a dry sound, who has the chops to keep it diverse and interesting through ability and creativity alone, without needing some thick soup over the sound to disguise limited technique.

But that's just me

It's certainly not just you, I'm far down the path of no effects, and right now I'm looking at the sizeable footswitch for my Nomad, and I think to myself, what else do I need?

The obvious answer is that I need the amp and guitar also, but that's just being pedantic.

-=al=-

i have a decent pedalboard, and i mostly use the effects for the tone and shaping the sound, Eq is nearly always on with a light delay and chorus for cleans i do alot of changing witht he volume and tone knobs and pickups im a tone freak and like everything to be perfect in the sound i make i dont just use effects for the sake of using them, i put them to good use

david

Slow phase for solos is really cool with distortion (ie Muse - Hysteria)
Phase and delay (and perhaps octave harmony) sound brilliant for cleans. I guess I'm very influenced by Matt Bellamys and Tom Morellos effects usage

jcoote

eddie van halen used phaser (think he used an dunlop mxr) for his solos.. brilliant for the tapping techniques and morello is the greatest whammy man of all time even now with audioslave.. dimebag used to use 2 whammy's (???) anybody know of any examples of this in panteras work??? (did he ever use the 2 together like thats what i mean).. off topic hows the whammy working out for u freakonaleashx???

david

I imagine that dimebag used one whammy for harmonies and another for octave up pitchshifting. 'Becoming' uses one octave up for the intro and harmony for the solo AFAIK. The whammy works fine, the 9v input is kinda dodgy but it works, I'll probably replace the socket.

Nidge

Doc you say you don't like Chorus, and that you DO like Wah, but Wah is bastardized even more than Chorus, someone i know absolutely hates Wah unless Hendrix is named in the same sentence. Although i agree i am not fond of this effects instead of talent idea, i am not fond of the effects use of bands like Stereophonics, i just saw a live performance from them. The singer is the only one playing guitar and he has Delay, Reverb and some very harsh distortion on too. It's so obvious that he is compensating for the otherwise empty sound, it sounded terrible.

Doctor J

Nope, I say I'd use wah if I was feeling frisky, which ain't often. My point is that guitarists often feel obliged to use effects for the sake of using them... which is bad IMO.

jcoote

once again its just what your into.. i don't like the guitar sounds of today or acoustic rock stuff but if i did the lack of effects wouldn't bother me in the slightist... i like prog rock and funk and that kinda guitar sound so effects are fairly widely used and i need them to recreate the sound i like

feylya

I can't live without effects any more.

If you look at my main distortion on the ME-50, about 5 or 6 of the effects "sections" are on. About 3 or 4 of them for my "clean" sound which has to include chorus and reverb. But that's just me

jcoote

anyone use a flanger.. haven't heard one mentioned... i use a guitar synth kinda sounds like a dance music effect.. different to say the least

feylya

Mmm, flanger. Yes, I use it on occasion. Bad Horsie and King Nothing require it.

jcoote

ah yes.. my mate bought one just for the intro to cowboys from hell .. crazy bastard.. delay and a noise gate are great together too

Nidge

people seem to not like multeffects pedals. But i mean when somebody only has one pedal they end up using it in every fecking song when they frist get it, that can be fecking annoying until they build up a collection or combination of some sort. I don't think there is any reason to bash multi effects, if they are used as tastefully as singular pedals there should be no problem. I have one, and so far i have not felt the need to effect everything.

jcoote

i hear ya nidge.. multi effects are great for that reason they give a good choice especially on clean tones.. if u get a chorus pedal everything is chorus chorus chorus with multi u have chorus,phaser,flanger,eq,acousric etc etc etc.. its the way to go.. why do people knock them

It wasn't me!

Once it's done tastefully everything has its place as far as I'm concerned. The one pedal I never turn off, and is the most useful thing I've got, is my Noise Suppressor. Couldn't do without it to be honest.

John

jcoote wrote:

anyone use a flanger.. haven't heard one mentioned... i use a guitar synth kinda sounds like a dance music effect.. different to say the least

I use a light flange on my bass. On ebow guitar I use the gate function on the Boss BF-3 to get a staccato effect, sounds really cool with the ebow.

eoin5

Has anyone tried to play slap bass through an acoustic simulator? I was messing about with my microcube with a bass and I tried it for the craic, puts the punch back into your sound if your strings are old, then I tried the delay on at the same time and played some precussive type stuff and that sound cool too. Effects are fun!

Stroller_burn

Yeah loads of Muse song have effects. Probably more on Absolution then any other album.

disgruntled

What about delay? with a bit of creativity you do really cool stuff like violining and of course Brian May sorta stuff, like his guitar solo on Brighton rock. I must admit I was only introduced to this one recently but its amazing and worth checking out.

feylya

Delay + distortion + neck pickup = bluffers heaven

Oeneus

I just got myself a Line 6 Delay DL4 modeller recently. Have any of you heard the Sweep Echo on it? It's the greatest thing I've ever heard!

disgruntled

feylya wrote:

Delay + distortion + neck pickup = bluffers heaven

All to often thats all its used for but you can do so much more with it.

feylya

I prefer delay to reverb tbh.

Haven't used that pedal Oeneus but I saw Aziz Ibrahim making great use of two of them recently.

eoin5

feylya wrote:

Delay + distortion + neck pickup = bluffers heaven

I wouldnt call David Gilmore a bluffer, would you?

John

eoin5 wrote:

I wouldnt call David Gilmore a bluffer, would you?

I would but not to his face.

feylya

eoin5 wrote:

I wouldnt call David Gilmore a bluffer, would you?

No, but that's not my point.

Been using chorus recently to thicken up my distortion. Have to use it in the right places or else it sounds terrible.

jcoote

overkill is a musicians worst enemy ..there's nothing worse than sing the wrong sound in the wrong place... feylya has it sussed when needed use the chorus and it rocks!!! as for reverb and dist thru the neck pickup ...sweet!!! listen to shine on by floyd... but not while your on drugs cos it doubles the pleasure ... so i've been told :rolleyes: