Guitar Pedals

MrKnickerbocker

MrKnickerbocker

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Hey guitarists, I'm starting to gig out more (mostly rock, not metal) and looking to build a pedal board. Currently using a ProCo RAT 2 as my primary distortion, looking into an MXR M300 to beef up my reverb, and probably a Mooer Acoustikar so I don't have to carry around my acoustic guitar to every gig.

What are some of your favorite/must use pedals? Why do you like them?
 
The only actual "pedal" I own is a wah which comes in handy every now and then. I like how it adds that extra bit of gain and mids that can make a lead sound sing, in addition to the expressive wah effect itself. In terms of effects in general, delay is a staple for my lead playing, I especially love stereo delay as it adds an extra dimension to the sound. For cleans, I tend to use reverb rather than delay, and top it off with a pitch shift, which acts similar to a chorus but I find it doesn't affect the raw guitar signal as much. Basically I make one track a few cents higher or lower than the other, makes the cleans shimmer.
 
I built my board (including the board !) for playing in the house not gigging. I have a volume pedal into a cry baby wah. Then into my overdrive/distortions which are a Danelectro Daddy O for crunch, a Marshall Jackhammer for some beefy drive and then a Boss turbo distortion for nice saturated lead tones. I sometimes stack these drives which works well.
From here I have a Boss ME 70 multi effects that I use for univibe, chorus etc and also as a noise gate and boost if required. This all goes into a Strymon Timeline (delays) and a Strymon Big sky (reverb) which goes to the amps in stereo. The Strymon pedals are absolutely immense.... Some amazing sounds out of them and IMO all the delay and reverb you will ever need.
Sorry for the long reply.... I haven't posted in a while!
Here's a pic.
https://instagram.com/p/BQV9nXvjmCO/
 
This is my pedal board:



The output of the Boss LS-2 goes into the input of my Boss Katana Head. I use a factory digital delay within the amp.

And yes, I prefer the Boss Bass flanger. I think it sounds better that both the Boss BF-3 flanger or the MXR EVH 117 flanger.

That's all I need for the time being.
 
Saapanael said:
The only actual "pedal" I own is a wah which comes in handy every now and then. I like how it adds that extra bit of gain and mids that can make a lead sound sing, in addition to the expressive wah effect itself. In terms of effects in general, delay is a staple for my lead playing, I especially love stereo delay as it adds an extra dimension to the sound. For cleans, I tend to use reverb rather than delay, and top it off with a pitch shift, which acts similar to a chorus but I find it doesn't affect the raw guitar signal as much. Basically I make one track a few cents higher or lower than the other, makes the cleans shimmer.
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I'm looking into getting a nice reverb pedal and I've honestly found that a bit of 'verb does most of what I need, even for leads. Can you speak to the importance of delay? I'm honestly not sure I need any since I don't play any hefty lead guitar stuff in any of my projects.

TheMeat said:
The Strymon pedals are absolutely immense.... Some amazing sounds out of them and IMO all the delay and reverb you will ever need.
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I've heard the Big Sky is amazing, but damn is it too rich for my blood. Also, that board you built is amazing!
 
MrKnickerbocker said:
Can you speak to the importance of delay? I'm honestly not sure I need any since I don't play any hefty lead guitar stuff in any of my projects.
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While it can be used for really cool rhythmical stuff like Buckethead's Big Sur Moon, my main use for delay is making the lead sound bigger and smoother. Not only does it give the lead a "large space" feeling but also glues the notes together, makes for a more sustained sound. It's a preference thing, there are many who never use delay. I much prefer it to reverb on distorted sounds.
 
MrKnickerbocker said:
I'm looking into getting a nice reverb pedal and I've honestly found that a bit of 'verb does most of what I need, even for leads. Can you speak to the importance of delay? I'm honestly not sure I need any since I don't play any hefty lead guitar stuff in any of my projects.
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Reverb sounds nice on it's own, but it is really troublesome to work with in a mix live. It just makes the guitar take up more space, sound indistinct and cut less. Delay set to a really short time gives you the same kind of effect, but without the drawbacks because you have a very controlled effect.
 
Dave Murray uses a delay effect all the time in his setup, including the rhythm parts.

However, his guitar track is not fully isolated here, a bit of Adrian's and Janick's tracks can be heard as well.
 
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I'd say that delay is more flexible, short times to emulate reverb, longer times for depth and dreaminess etc., so yes.
 
Must-have pedals on a board for me: tuner (Boss TU-2 works great); at least 2 overdrives (Maxon OD-808 for classic-rock crunch, Ibanez Super Metal for heavy distortion); boost (I use a Danelectro "Transparent Overdrive"). I also use Ibanez chorus and flanger, and have been swapping in and out between other pedals like tremolo, analog delay, and treble boost. Didn't used to use a lot of wah, but I do now, and have been enjoying using a parked wah sound on some leads; would like to add a Q-Zone sometime to be able to quickly switch to that sound and have it set without having to hit the wah pedal and then adjust it to the setting I want. My pedalboard is small, though (8 standard pedals max), and given the size of some stages, I want to keep it that way.

For my Maiden tribute band gig, I use a rackmount multi-FX unit - a Pod HD Pro for now, which doubles as a preamp, but down the road I plan on upgrading to the full DM setup (Marshall JMP-1 preamp with TC G-Major or G-Force effects unit).

I tried using a pedalboard, but switching sounds in the middle of a complex Maiden song just wasn't working -- if I had to hit more than one switch (say, boost and wah to go into a lead) I might miss a note or several.

With the Pod HD and foot controller, I can set up banks of 4 patches based on the song (one standard bank for most songs, with basic rhythm patch, 2 lead patches with long and short delay settings, and clean; then other banks with specialty patches like the Powerslave lead tone or a wah lead). Now that I'm getting used to it and getting a little spoiled by all the effect options and quick switching (like being able to program 2 different delay settings, and have each one instantly on tap without having to bend down and twist a knob), I may get another for my cover-band work.
 
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That's what I use for the time being:

These pedals go into my Boss Katana Head (for distorted sounds):

Pedal_board.jpg


These pedals go into my Roland JC-40 FX loop (for clean stereo sounds):

 
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AlexS said:
With the Pod HD and foot controller, I can set up banks of 4 patches based on the song (one standard bank for most songs, with basic rhythm patch, 2 lead patches with long and short delay settings, and clean; then other banks with specialty patches like the Powerslave lead tone or a wah lead). Now that I'm getting used to it and getting a little spoiled by all the effect options and quick switching (like being able to program 2 different delay settings, and have each one instantly on tap without having to bend down and twist a knob), I may get another for my cover-band work.
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This is basically how I operated in my band and at home (different banks for rocking out to other bands). Works and sounds great. Before I had the Line 6 floorboard I had a stupid amount of pedals. My favourites were the Boss Digital Delay (so versatile) and a Boss Overdrive Distortion pedal that I used backwards (I'd step on it to kind of reduce distortion/beefyness).
 
Gosh, reading threads like this makes me glad I switched over to bass (after 30 yrs playing guitar).

All us four-stringers need is the tone knob on our basses, plus a little compression here and there! :p :edmetal:
 
Not completely. Don't know if you're talking strictly bass, but I've found that when recording cleans with the electric, higher notes will peak really loud compared to the rest so I pull down the tone knob by about a third and it makes for a more consistent, more compressed signal.
 
Tone knobs on bass are even more useful than on guitar.
 
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