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Tagged: pedals
- This topic has 13 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 11 months ago by DC.
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April 25, 2020 at 5:39 am #170589
Hi! I’d love to venture to the land of pedals but I really don’t know what or how to get started. I mostly play clean through my amp with a touch of reverb. Any suggestions for a pedal newbie? What do you have on your boards? I do have an overdrive/distortion pedal but rarely use it. I’d like to have a small set-up – maybe 6 pedals? Just curious to know what folks are using. Thanks and happy guitar playing!
Annie -
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April 25, 2020 at 8:30 am #170664
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April 25, 2020 at 12:44 pm #170863
As DougE is showing loopers are quite popular Digitech and Boss are popular some of April challenges used loopers DougE also has the optional FSX3 footswich for extra control of the jamman looper and Boss also offer the extra fotswitch for some of their loopers, I started of with a Strobe tuner which I also use to check intonation on guitars,again Boss tuners are popular. I don’t have a board maybe later. YouTube has a series Called The Pedal Show useful for listening to and advice. Andertons also do demos on YouTube.
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April 25, 2020 at 6:55 pm #171159
Ann, One pedal that Brian was using regularly till he got the Kemper was a Boss Blues Driver 2. I have one and a looper Boss rc1 and a couple of others a Boss tuner pedal and a vintage overdrive by JOyo which is not often used and a Trelicopter by Moorer. Pedals are for me something of a distraction. You can to hide behind them a bi in some cases. The old blues masters had none or very few and did most of it by hand! They can also prove to be expensive a good guitar and a quality amp will stnad you in good Stead. JohnStrat
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April 26, 2020 at 3:01 am #171293
Hi Ann as Johnstrat says pedals can be expensive especially the digital ones compared to analogue, big digital pedals sometimes use 18v compared to analogue which are usually 9v and also draw less currant.
Most people start of daisy chaining their power to pedals from one power source but that can cause hum you can buy power boxes some of which have outputs with different voltages -current that have mains isolated supplies to your pedals as a solution and some of these like pedaltrain also have rechargable batteries which also stops you getting hum from poor mains electrics as well hope I am not putting you off but think and research before buying.-
April 26, 2020 at 11:11 am #171532
You are right on power supplies. I’ve got a cheap DC power tank that powers most of my pedals but it is not isolated and recently I started having noise issues when on my distortion channel. Finally traced to my digital looper. Bought a higher quality 1Spot just to power that and it resolved the issue.
-Doug
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April 26, 2020 at 8:24 am #171471
This is mine, I think only two of these pedals were bought new the others and the RC30 looper were bought used for a fraction of the new cost.
..Billy..
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April 26, 2020 at 11:12 am #171533
Nice Billy. I keep thinking I’d like to add a chorus.
-Doug
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April 27, 2020 at 3:03 am #172164
Nice Billy. I keep thinking I’d like to add a chorus.
Thanks Doug, The chorus and vintage delay are the only 2 bought new, dont think I paid any more than £40 for each of them. The pedal board was made by cutting down a bath/shower duck board and hammering on a few bits of wood..
..Billy..
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April 28, 2020 at 6:47 am #172496
I’ve slowly acquired quite a few pedals over the years and have over the last couple upgraded and sold off the ones I don’t use.
The main thing when I moved onto a proper board was to get a decent power supply, if your only on about 4 you can get away with it to a certain extent but moving up to some of the higher end stuff you need to get something decent.
as your looking for a clean sound my first pick is a compressor, especially if your playing at home with a few tweaks you can nice clean sustain.
I’ve an origin Cali 76 which I’d highly recommend but its expensive its the sort of thing you’d get buy once built to last is an understatement.
A more affordable suggestion is the TC Hyper Gravity Mini an excellent piece of kit, the TC toneprint range allows you to beam patches to the pedal to simulate different compressor styles and when you find the one you like you can just stick with it.
My second Pick is a Tremolo pedal
Again I’ve upgraded over the years and have what I regard as a buy once pick in the Supro Tremolo, for a high end pedal its not too bad price wise and can be picked up 2nd hand, I got mine on a clearance deal.
The cheaper alternative which punches above its weight by several tons is the Mooer Trelicopter.
I use a reverb pedal into with my amps spring reverb on to give an ambient fuller and wet sound
I’d listen round the net to a few revues and hit the store when there open see how you get on
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April 28, 2020 at 11:17 am #172533
Hi Ann,
Pictures of my board attached. I’d definitely recommend getting a looper. I have a Boss RC-1, which does a good enough job for me. They are fun to play with and a great practice tool. Another cheap and decent looper is the small ditto looper. Also, I can highly recommend the boss bd2 blues driver (far right in picture). Awesome overdrive pedal. Seems to be pretty popular among this community. A delay pedal is nice to have as well. I have a little tc electronic flashback mini, which I think is great. You can program the type of delay using their toneprint app. The only pedal on my board that I really don’t use much of is the big muff. Just have a hard time getting satisfying tones from it. Also, not necessarily needed, but the second picture shows my power supply. If you get a few pedals you might want to consider one with isolation. Hope this helps!Attachments:
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May 24, 2020 at 6:08 am #174764
Hi everyone,
I was about to start a thread called “Show me your pedalboard” but this seems close enough. As for pedals being a potential distraction, I fully agree. But they can also really help. In my case, a lot of my playing is at night when others in the house are sleeping. I don’t have the luxury of being able to drive an amp hard to get natural overdrive. Pedals into my THR10C amp let me get overdrive or distortions that sound good without waking my family. This would be hard to achieve with a guitar straight into a tube amp.
Here is the current incarnation of my board:
The board itself is homemade from some pine and hook&loop tape from the hardware store. The pedals are, starting from bottom right:
“Buffer”: the small white always on pedal is a homemade buffer, based on the JHS Little Black Buffer. I added this recently and found it really helps restore high frequency signal loss caused by having lots of pedals, particularly true bypass pedals. All the extra switches and cables turn the signal path into a tone control (loosely speaking) and the effect compared to plugging straight into the amp is like rolling back a tone control. Useful if you have a lot of pedals, but not essential first up.
Next is a Nux tuner pedal. Handy for tuning, and also good for disconnecting your signal from the amp. Not essential though as clip-on tuners work great and are very cheap.
Next is my Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy. It’s an Orange Squeezer compressor clone that I built from a kit. Compressors can be hard to understand, and hard to use well but they can really add a lot to the guitar tone. I use two. The orange squeezer runs before the drive pedals. I find it hard to describe the effect. It isn’t transparent like a Ross compressor. It adds it’s own juicy texture. I mostly use it along with a light overdrive for my “cleanish tone”. But once again, probably a poor choice for a first pedal.
From there, the signal goes to the top-right row, into the Caline Pure Sky. This a Timmy clone and a great sounding low gain overdrive. The tone controls are powerful and this pedal can sound good for rhythm playing, adding a nice amount of bite without losing clarity and articulation. Depending on what sound you are looking for, something like this might be a good first pedal. For me though, it will soon be sold as the next pedal has almost totally replaced it for me.
#5, the green, yellow, and white pedal is another one that I built recently. It’s a Barber Compact Direct Drive clone, as there is no way I could afford the original in Australia. This is a vintage British amp voiced overdrive, think Marshall in a box. It can do everything from barely there light overdrive to a roaring plexi amp driven to the point of meltdown. On a low gain setting, combined with the orange squeezer it has become my default tone. Cleanish, but a hint of breakup on chords or when playing hard, beautiful response to guitar volume. And it makes fingerpicked passages shimmer and sparkle. I don’t even know how it does that, but I love it. A good low to medium gain overdrive pedal is probably the first pedal I would recommend to someone interested in playing electric blues. It needn’t be this pedal. It could be a Timmy, the Boss Blues Driver, a tubescreamer or any of the others in this style. You won’t really know which one works for you until you try some.
Next to it is the red and white BYOC OD-2. Another kit pedal I built a few years ago. It’s basically two pedals in one box. A modified tubescreamer and a clean boost. Until I built #5 this was my main drive pedal. I almost never use it now, but I love the clean boost.
Next is a DIY phaser, based on a MXR Phase 45. There are times I love that subtle phasing sound, mostly when playing rock with higher gain but for blues it’s probably not an essential pedal. I don’t even use it that much, but I do love building pedals 🙂
After that is a Hotone Xtomp mini. This is a digital modelling pedal that lets you explore a lot (a 100? more?) of effects. You connect to an app via bluetooth, select the effect you want and load it into the pedal. It can be a great way to explore the different options without committing to buying (and selling) a lot of pedals. The Barber Direct Drive patch on here is how I knew I wanted to build that pedal.
Finally I have a cheap looper. Great practice tool. Listening to my attempts to learn something is a great way to get a more objective view of my progress.
I don’t know what amp you have, but another option is to consider something like the Boss Katana amps. For about the same price as 1 or 2 pedals you get an entire amp with a great reputation. It has a huge range of Boss effect pedals (digital simulations at least) that would also let you explore this world.
Out of my pedal board, if I could pick just one pedal, it would be the Barber CDD. 2 pedals and I would choose the CDD and Lemon Squeezy. Three and I would add the buffer.
Right, enough typing. Time to do some practice 🙂
DC
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May 24, 2020 at 10:38 am #174783
“I mostly play clean through my amp with a touch of reverb”
In this case I would recommend you get a compressor pedal. I have a Boss CS-3, alternatively I also have a Boss ME-70 (multi effect) that has compressor effect too. It does a lot for a clean tone especially from a single-coil pickup.
Peter
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May 25, 2020 at 5:41 am #174838
A transparent compressor like a Ross or Dynacomp style is a good option for playing clean. Dialed in just right and everything shimmers and pops. I have a second compressor that is always on as part of the onboard effects on my THR. It’s set to a very light compression, adding just a hint of sustain but retaining a nice sharp attack. I forget it’s there until I turn it off.
I don’t have a chorus pedal because they are much harder to build than overdrives. But it’s probably next on my list.
DC
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