Pedal geeks i need u (help jjjusten make decisions about awesome pedals for his store)

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My main beef with EH is twofold:

1) Like jjjusten said, their stuff is not built to last.

2) A lot of their pedals sound alright, but they don't allow for much customization. It's like they have a preset with no option to tinker around. One example would be the Small Clone chorus. Totally classic sound, but the ability to only switch between two depth settings feels very cheap.

Besides that the actual aesthetics of their stuff is more often than not pretty damn ugly.

I was really close to ordering a Sub'n'Up, because, in contrast to other TC stuff, the TonePrint thing proposed a bit of a different story in that case. Maybe someday.

Gigged with this a couple of weeks ago:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4166/34290676386_966e77c9bb_z.jpg

Not planning any major changes... it's all heads down and getting to work from here on.

BTW, the best thing I ever did was to forgo buying another box and redirect those funds into great-quality cabling. I splurged on Evidence Audio's monorail signal cable and the signal improvement was better than anything else I've done. Will not go back.

Yeah, I recently had my two Voodoo Lab boxes full, plus two more pedals running off One Spots and as soon as I got rid of those two extras and got everything back to just running on the Voodoo Labs, it was like night and day. It's such a cliche, but especially with power and cables, you get what you pay for.

So, I totally loved the idea of the Moog delay and the way it sounded on its own. However, I just could not reconcile its really muffled repeats with existing songs. And, to contradict myself, I was really just flat out annoyed at how dynamic it was. It would seemingly react to the smallest nuances in my playing. I would spend inordinate amounts of time sitting on the floor next to my amp dialing in just that exact sweet spot, only to have it disappear as soon as I started incorporating loops. I'm not a robot, obviously, so in my inability to play things exactly the same every time was the downfall of the Moog Minifooger MF Delay. Maybe it just wasn't intended primarily for guitars? Did my amp (Vox AC15, always through the "Normal" channel; never that pissing awful "Top Boost" nonsense) have something to do with it?? Alas, I ultimately decided to abuse Guitar Center's return policy once again and I got a new Malekko 616 Analog Delay. It's shiny and has modulation controls! So far, so good. We'll see where it goes from here.

Oh yeah, also got rid of that awfully metallic letdown the Carbon Copy Bright and switched out some drive and other such boxes.

Current pedal chain configuration:
Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner->
Bogner laGrange Overdrive->
Bogner Wessex Overdrive->
Boss TR-2 Tremolo->
ZVex Distortron Distortion->
Wampler Paisley Drive->
Fulltone Full-Drive 2 Mosfet Overdrive->
Boss BF-2 Flanger->
Boss CE-2w Analog Waza Craft Chorus->
TC Electronic Flashback Digital Delay->
Boss DD-7 Digital Delay / Boss Fs-5U->
Malekko 616 Analog Delay->
MXR M169 Carbon Copy Analog Delay->
Jim Dunlop EP103 Echoplex Delay / MXR M199 Tap->
Boss RV-6 Digital Reverb->
MXR M300 Digital Reverb->
TC Electronic Hall of Fame Mini Digital Reverb->
Boss RC-1 Loop Station

Ahhh. . . yeah.

never that pissing awful "Top Boost" nonsense) have something to do with it??

:(

tbf top boost doesn't usually get on super-well with pedals

That's the crux of why I dislike it so.

i really like some of the effects on my RC-30 loop pedal. particularly the bend down. Are there any quality pedals that do that type of thing as its main function? i guess it's similar to the octave pedal discussion but i particularly like the way you can make it wobble like a tape by turning it on and off really quick

If I'm understanding you correctly, yes, you can set the Boss PS-6 Harmonist up to do all kinds of bendy stuff in the S.Bend mode.

tbf top boost doesn't usually get on super-well with pedals

Working great here with my AC30. Hurm.

indeed. when i was fortunate enough to be running an AC30 I usually ran pedals through the normal channel but a lot would depend on how your rig is set up.

In my amp, even when there's nothing plugged into the top boost, as soon as you turn the volume knob for that channel up, it immediately starts to hiss and just gets louder the further you go.

An admittedly very long pedal chain definitely increases this.

that seems fixable. might be as simple as replacing a preamp tube.

(ask me how i know this lol)

The amp is less than six months old though?

That still sounds like a tune problem to me.

Cmon phone, by now I have typed "tube" approx 10000 times more than "tune" get your shit together.

Gut feeling is that it's a preamp tube issue.

Hrmph. Well, does the level of the master knob have any bearing on this? Because I always keep the master at 10 and adjust the normal channel knob accordingly. Also, where does the tone cut knob play into this? I usually keep that straight up at noon.

Also, I picked up the Digitech Luxe pedal and I have to say, it's a pretty cool idea. It basically is the "Detune" setting in its own box. The more pedals I experience, the more I arrive at the opinion that "Mix" knobs are pretty much unnecessary. On the Luxe, for example, there's only two knobs, one of which is a mix knob. Comparing with my Boss modulation pedals (CE-2w chorus and BF-2 flanger), when you step on them, they're on. There's no option for the "amount" of the effect, it's just on. I like that much more. In any case, the mix knob on the Luxe is maxed out by default. The other knob controls the amount of detune that happens. If you go all the way in either direction, it turns pretty warbly, but at less extreme settings, it's a really great, slightly shimmery tone. Not really a chorus in the classic sense, but chorus is the closest thing to what the Luxe does. A really cool pedal, and a great sound.

Not to be a pedant, but by definition chorus requires a mix knob - without it, it's a vibrato. This is true of lots of other things as well - if there's no mix knob, that's because the wet dry has been preset for you, and what's the fun in that.

Anti mix knob talk is absolute madness, I'm planting my flag.

Also if you have your master at ten, you will have more noise. Basically you are amplifying the existing noise floor, whatever that happens to be.

i'd be happy if every pedal came with a mix knob tbqh

Sheesh, okay, mix knobs are fine, I guess.

I liked the Digitech Luxe so much that I decided to check out another Digitech pedal: the Mosaic.

It's advertised as a twelve string emulator, which it doesn't really do. I mean, what pedal can do that? It's just not a sound that you can replicate digitally. It does, however, sound a lot like the one octave dual setting on the Electro-Harmonix Pitch Fork. It tracks incredibly, handling chords extremely well. It's obviously a one trick pedal, but if you're going to make a pedal of that nature, make sure it's done right.

I promise I'm not trying to just naysay your opinions, but the Mosaic 12 string simulation is...really impressive actually? The fact that it does octaves on the low strings and detunes on the high strings is something nothing else has achieved. Also, its ability to somehow still do the octave on upper register low strings while defining the same note played in the lower register on the 2 high strings is some sort of DSP voodoo that has baffled me and a bunch of my pedal builder pals.

While I will definitely defer to you as the pedal authority, I'm just basing my thoughts off what I was previously familiar with in regards to similar sounds. And that's the Electro-Harmonix Pitch Fork's single octave setting.

The Mosaic definitely has a more natural feel to its overall timbre than the Pitch Fork, which did start to sound like just a digital harshness after a while (which is why I ultimately got rid of it).

These have recently captured my interest - they're based in France so I've never heard them. Of course, that's never stopped me before.

http://anasounds.com/en/

I picked up the Sub n Up today. It sounded great in the store, like just what I'm looking for. I hope it works as well at home.

Very interested to hear about the TonePrint options on that one. Do expound when you get a minute.

I've only used the "poly" setting so far. I have a weird reluctance about using "toneprints" designed by other people but I recognize its irrationality and will probably get over it. (I also have a very cheap out of date smartphone, which might be the bigger obstacle. Maybe it will work via laptop?)

Well, pretty much all pedal sounds are "designed by other people," right?

Yeah, which is why I tried to avoid them for a while and tried to program as much as I could with MaxMSP, but I'm embracing them again.

That said, "downloading patches that shape your tone according to the exact specs of various famous guitarists" goes a little further than "doubling what you play at the octave as transparently as possible".

Oh yeah, totes. I have never wanted or needed one of them "I wanna sound just like Zakk" or whoever pedals.

I want to get a whammy pedal to use with synths/software. Have there been any significant advances over/boutique alternatives to the Digitech, or is that still the whammy to beat?

Were I to get a whammy I'd get the Digitech Whammy Ricochet.

The Boss PS-6 Harmonist was capable of Whammy-ish pitch-bending stuff in the "S.Bend" mode. It was cool, because you could control the rate of how the pitch would rise and fall when you pressed/released the footswitch. You could make it rise to your set pitch really slow or fast and then set the fall to a completely different speed. I did a song a while back where I made liberal use of this sound and the feedback created by sending the TC Electronic Echobrain delay into self-oscillation: https://austinato.bandcamp.com/track/untitled-53

Definitely a fun thing to goof around with, though I'm not sure how practical it actually is.

Since I haven't done one of these in a while, here we are currently:
http://i.imgur.com/6JXRNBk.jpg

So, right to left, we have:

Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner ->
Bogner laGrange Overdrive ->
Fulltone Plimsoul Overdrive/Distortion ->
Wampler Paisley Drive Overdrive ->
Fulltone Full-Drive 2 MOSFET Overdrive ->
Boss TR-2 Tremolo ->
Digitech Luxe ->
Boss CE-2w Waza Craft Analog Chorus ->
(in front) Boss RC-1 Loop Station
Wampler Faux Tape Echo v.2 Delay ->
Boss DD-7 Digital Delay / Boss FS-5U ->
MXR Carbon Copy Analog Delay ->
Jim Dunlop EP-103 Echoplex Delay / MXR M44 Tap ->
Wampler Faux Spring Reverb ->
MXR M300 Digital Reverb ->
Boss RV-6 Digital Reverb

I can't remember if I updated the situation with my second guitar on here, so anyway: there it is, a Squier Jaguar in Surf Green. I loved that Squier Jazzmaster, but it just sounded too similar to my Telecaster. The whole idea of having a second guitar for me was to have access to some different tone ideas, and that Jazzmaster was kind of interchangeable with my Telecaster. So, I traded it towards one of the newer Squier Custom Modded Jags. Great guitar, though, that J Mascis Jazzmaster. Would definitely recommend it to anybody looking for a cheaper offset guitar with great classic tones. The Jaguar is, of course, much brighter, which is what I was looking for.

A couple things about some of those new (to me) pedals:
The Fulltone Plimsoul is a very nice pedal. Blows the OCD away, in my opinion.

The Wampler Spring Reverb is so, so great. After dealing with the Boss FRV-1 `63 Fender Reverb, fighting with the Spring modes on the Boss RV-6, the MXR and the TC Hall of Fame, I started feeling like maybe a classic spring reverb was just not my flavor. The Wampler take on that sound is a lot different than any of the others. It's a much fuller, rounder tone than I was accustomed to for a spring reverb. It's become my preferred reverb for basic rhythm playing. Super great.

The more I play on the laGrange, the more I learn about it. And it is such a diverse pedal. I've had it for about six months now and not only has it become my one "always on" pedal, I'm convinced that it was made specifically for single coil pickups.

I finally said goodbye to the TC Hall of Fame. It just had too much brightness to it. As much I loved the Church and LoFi modes, even with the tone know all the way anti-clockwise, there was just some residual high end nonsense, no matter what. I finally just said enough is enough and ordered the Earthquaker Afterneath, after over a year of coveting it via YouTube and Instagram. So, I'm still awaiting its arrival, but I'm really looking forward to sitting down and twiddling some knobs very soon.

Were I to get a whammy I'd get the Digitech Whammy Ricochet

Too clean of a sound! Skip the Ricochet.

In other news I wrote a patch for the OWL that summons the police to my door because of noise complaints and is also effective at filtering their futile knocks at the door.

Thanks guys, I ended up getting a classic whammy on ebay, looking forward to running some sounds through it.

So, the Afterneath is awesome. I think the first thing about it that struck me is that it's essentially a classic Plate reverb, with a couple of extra (very cool) parameters. The "Drag" knob was kind of a mystery to me from just watching/listening to YouTube demos of the pedal, but it is really just a control of the time of the delays — which are kind of in a fixed dual/subdivision mode. It self-oscillates, which I didn't know it would do (though not sure if I will actually use this). The knobs are super interactive with each other, altering the way the other knobs will act with the slightest change in one. In fact, I don't think I've ever had another pedal with multiple knobs be as reactive with such small nuances of change like the Afterneath does. It's like any other Earthquaker Devices box with multiple knobs, in that it invites twiddling and treating the pedal as an instrument itself.

It can get really long, almost impractical, decay lengths. For this reason, I'm a little disappointed it's not buffered bypass. Being able to put it into like a "trails" mode would be ideal, as it's not really a sensible "always on" pedal. Otherwise, super great stuff and it's really gotten me excited about reverb again, because I had gotten a little bored with the more traditional modes on the Boss RV-6 and the MXR M300.

I have like 50 new pedals coming in this week. I will do my best to report back.

if you guys had to pick one pedal, what would it be?

This is a question I have never had to ask myself so I refuse to answer.

tuner ftw

korg miku obv

Blues Driver vs Tuner

Probably a delay of some sort.