Advice needed - which pedals to start with

Hi guys,

So, I'm the happy owner of a new Tribute Comanche because my lovely wife got me a voucher for the local music shop as an early Christmas present. The Comanche was my number one priority, but after that I'm not sure what to do. There's a couple of hundred bucks left on the voucher (about $300 once the guitar I have on consignment sells), so I'm thinking about getting a proper pedal or two. I've got a Zoom G2.1U multi-effects unit at the moment and it does a decent job, but individual pedals will let me to craft my sound better.

I'll be able to get one, maybe two pedals so I'd like some advice - if you were limited to two pedals, what would they be?
I'll pre-empt the discussion by saying that the Hardwire supernatural ambient verb has caught my eye (http://proguitarshop.com/hardwire-supernatural-reverb.html), so I'm leaning toward that plus a fuzz.

What do you reckon?

not enough info about the sounds you are looking for. my favorite reverbs now are the wet reverb, and the tc hall of fame. depends a lot on what amp you want to use.

Ah, yes, sorry - the first thing is that at the moment I don't have an amp. Over the past 4 years I've gone through 3 overseas moves and there's another one coming up in about 6 months, so I can't justify the cost of shipping something so heavy. Otherwise, the amp would be the first thing on my list. I also record at home in a room that's not well treated for sound and I do everything myself (engineer, play, produce and mix) so partly for convenience and partly to be nice to the neighbours I plug straight in to my audio interface and use amp simulations.

Maybe that's answered my question, then, without an amp to plug into pedals might be pointless.

As far as the sound question goes, I'm probably looking for something along classic rock lines; I'm not really looking for metal or funk sounds.

How about a good compressor? I use a Carl Martin most of the time, for guitar and bass. I costs as much as a couple of effects pedals, but is worth every penny IMO.

Ken

How about a good compressor? I use a Carl Martin most of the time, for guitar and bass. I costs as much as a couple of effects pedals, but is worth every penny IMO.

Ken

if he is using amp sims in the computer, he is better off going straight in. a great compressor is a very good thing to have, but i think in his case he is better off getting the purest signal to the a/d.

Thanks, guys
The Zoom has a few cabinet simulations, but I've never been 100% happy with how they sound, which is part of the reason for the move to pedals.

A couple of questions, then -
1) Is an amp really necessary? Have you, or anyone you know, ever gotten a decent sound by going guitar -> pedals/FX -> mixing board/PA/interface? With a preamp and/or DI box as necessary, but no amp or amp sim.
2) Can you get a decent sound by miking a practice (5-20W) amp? I've got an 80W Peavy back in Australia but never really used it properly cos it'd rattle the windows so easily.

Thanks, guys
The Zoom has a few cabinet simulations, but I've never been 100% happy with how they sound, which is part of the reason for the move to pedals.

A couple of questions, then -
1) Is an amp really necessary? Have you, or anyone you know, ever gotten a decent sound by going guitar -> pedals/FX -> mixing board/PA/interface? With a preamp and/or DI box as necessary, but no amp or amp sim.
2) Can you get a decent sound by miking a practice (5-20W) amp? I've got an 80W Peavy back in Australia but never really used it properly cos it'd rattle the windows so easily.

I get a great sound..though not quite the girth in tone a 4-12 cab can give...with a GT trio preamp /Lexicon MX-400 / protools. That's the bare bones set up that allows me to jam /record no matter what time of day, and changing the monitor vol. won't change my tone going to tape...or hard disk.
An old 5 watt magnatone cranked ain't a bad option for semi-low level recording set-up...those things can sound pretty good,so yes it's possible . Sometimes I hear a really good modelling tone from someones set-up and wonder why I have a couple racks of gear, most the time I'm glad I can put together a rig with real tubes and cord capacitance etc.
The hurdles I have to overcome are addressed then with more traditional fixes ( i.e...turning N by NW to find that quiet spot if I have an unshielded SC ax in hand.
The preamp - mixer - protools route can be rewarding ...but as any set-up , gain structure has to be carefully addressed to really find the sweet spots that work with your guitar and floor FX.
My signal chain is ( beyond the bare bones )
Guitar - wah - splitter/buffer (sometimes a splitter...occassionally just a re-issue UniVibe)- fuzzface-
mixer - 31 band EQ - HHB radius tube comp. -lexicon MX400 - protools / monitors . The compressor has a gate so that will close , but the lexicon is still being seen by protools , so that gives me clean reverband delay tails without unwanted buzzes from the fuzzface and OD channels . I have a couple Dig.delays in the aux sends on the mixer that come back to separate channels on the mixer, they can then be eq'd a bit to roll off the highs or whatever suits your taste that day.

hope this helps some..(and makes sense.)
Elwood

i would get this. you can go direct or into a cab, and sounds great.

[youtube]dFpmAMzKv_E[/youtube]

Thanks Elwood and Louis, that helps a lot

I've come across the Ethos during my internet research, it sounds like a great unit. Really versatile, I love that it has an effects loop between the pre and the amp stages and functions as a buffer, too.

Elwood, do you mind if I ask why you don't use the GT Trio in your full setup? Does the compressor provide a hot enough level into the lexicon?

Sounds like I could go either way, as long as I find the sweet spots, as you say. A question about "dirty" tones, too - if I'm going direct, I should use a distortion pedal rather than an overdrive to avoid pushing the audio interface into harsh digital clipping, but an OD pedal should be fine in the effects loop of the Ethos, right?

Do you think I could get some good sounds just going guitar -> pedals -> audio interface, or does there need to be an amplifier of some sort in there (real or simulated)? I can't find many exceptions to the rule that guitars need to have an amp somewhere in the chain, but it seems that with keyboard/synth players it comes down to personal preference as to whether they record direct or from an amp (this is just my very uninformed observation, I'm very happy to be corrected if it's wrong!)

Thanks Elwood and Louis, that helps a lot



Elwood, do you mind if I ask why you don't use the GT Trio in your full setup? Does the compressor provide a hot enough level into the lexicon?

I do...




the HHB radius 30's have plenty of gain and then some...for mono a HHB "fatman" would serve and sound similar .
I've found that I like giving the lexicon alot of headroom ( never hits the red, the peaks are low yellow ), like a small amp in a big room sound, then adjusting the dry/wet to be about 85-95% dry. So I'm not needing a hot signal into the reverb...just one that is warm and with the peaks softened a touch .
I had to wrap my head around using a rack unit with all these functions ...then only bring it into the mix sometimes less than 5% ...but I heard the sound I'd been looking for . Those MX300 (stereo) and 400's(quad) haave alot of time based FX that I use besides the 'verb. The detune is a nice one , especially if it's just a cent or three difference with a wide stereo spread.

gotta go work/play ...good questions.

Thanks Elwood and Louis, that helps a lot

I've come across the Ethos during my internet research, it sounds like a great unit. Really versatile, I love that it has an effects loop between the pre and the amp stages and functions as a buffer, too.

Elwood, do you mind if I ask why you don't use the GT Trio in your full setup? Does the compressor provide a hot enough level into the lexicon?

Sounds like I could go either way, as long as I find the sweet spots, as you say. A question about "dirty" tones, too - if I'm going direct, I should use a distortion pedal rather than an overdrive to avoid pushing the audio interface into harsh digital clipping, but an OD pedal should be fine in the effects loop of the Ethos, right?

Do you think I could get some good sounds just going guitar -> pedals -> audio interface, or does there need to be an amplifier of some sort in there (real or simulated)? I can't find many exceptions to the rule that guitars need to have an amp somewhere in the chain, but it seems that with keyboard/synth players it comes down to personal preference as to whether they record direct or from an amp (this is just my very uninformed observation, I'm very happy to be corrected if it's wrong!)

distortion and overdrive work differently in how they achieve the sound, but the levels are not an issue. you can set both of them to the same level. they have level controls. the ethos will give you all the od sounds you'll ever want, as well as clean. you'd want a delay and/or reverb in the loop. if using an od pedal, put it front of it.

you want some kind of simulated sound when going direct, pedals alone will give you a very harsh sound. if you are gonna do the amp simulation in the computer, than do the pedal and speaker simulation there as well, and go in just straight. most pedals sound good because they are front of an amp, and some amps take pedals better than others. keyboard is a very different animal.

I do...

Whoops, thanks for that!

distortion and overdrive work differently in how they achieve the sound, but the levels are not an issue.

Ah, cool - I thought that OD pedals got their sound simply by pushing the amp harder, I wasn't sure how much processing happens in the pedal itself.

you want some kind of simulated sound when going direct, pedals alone will give you a very harsh sound

That's exactly the sort of feedback I was after. I know the guitar's evolved as an amplified instrument but I wasn't sure which parts of the chain were still critical now that there's such a huge array of processing options. To continue the keyboard metaphor, guitars are more like a Hammond, that has to be played through an amp to sound good, as opposed to a synth, which is designed to take care of all the processing first.
The ethos is definitely on my wish list now - compact, versatile and I can use it direct with a cab sim or into a real cab when I've finally got the space.

Thanks, guys!

the ethos' direct out is already a cab simulated sound, so you'll be fine there.

Sweet!

I've been looking far and wide across the interwebs as well, from what I can tell a lot of cab sims use EQ to cut the highs and boost/cut here and there to try to emulate the frequency response of an actual cab.

I'm going to start saving for an ethos, but in the meantime I'll keep using amd/cab sims in my DAW; I'll collect pedals as I go and play around with EQ settings, too, just to see what I can do.

I've found all sorts of great resources for building pedals and I'm not too shabby with a soldering iron, so I'm going to get stuck into building, too. I can probably put together a half decent amp sim pedal with a 3-band EQ plus a high and low pass filter. I see a lot of projects in my future