Non-Distortion Pedals: Search and Destroy

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Go on, name your poison. Phasers/Flangers? Delay/Reverb? Chorus and Tremolololololo? What floats your boat?

― kate, Friday, 1 November 2002 20:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Delay, delay, delay - in this case a Frontline delay which I found in Cash Converters when I lived in Belfast in 1998. I would like to buy more delay pedals and have them all on at once but I don't know how putrid that might sound - then on the other hand I could have beautiful notes that went on for ever.

― Damian (Damian), Saturday, 2 November 2002 10:05 (twenty-two years ago)

I wish I had every wah pedal ever made. I liked the Boss Super Shifter but then I inexplicably got tired of it

― dave q, Saturday, 2 November 2002 10:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I held out for years with my super-wonky Peavey Etherialiser, until at the start of our June tour, it inexplicably started belching black smoke, caught on fire, then exploded. I was so, so sad. But then I caved in and got the Boss DD-5 digital delay/sampler. Ooooh, the fun that can be had, sampling yourself and playing over yourself. Or amusing things like "backwards reverb" which is just about the coolest sound ever.

Big fan of the tremolo/pan, as well. Even since I saw Sonic Boom manipulating guitar feedback with this little green box that sent noise shooting from one side of the stage to the other, like interstellar overdrive on acid. Yum.

― kate, Saturday, 2 November 2002 12:30 (twenty-two years ago)

I use an old MXR flanger, a DD-3 (?) delay unit, and a Boss harmonizer (unfortunately the on-off switch doesn't work anymore) in addition to my Boss Hyper Fuzz. They are all wonderful things that have served me so well with live guitar stuff, post-production, and internal mixing board feedback manipulation. It would be nice to get a harmonizer that worked on a real dial where you could select very fine microtones rather than just have to pick between discrete settings. I'm going to go digital soon so maybe it doesn't matter anymore.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Saturday, 2 November 2002 18:37 (twenty-two years ago)

I have a perverse hatred of wah-wah pedals.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Saturday, 2 November 2002 18:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Wah-wah's are the ULTIMATE tho! Seeing as there's effects that act as rheostats for pitch, wave shape and volume, why not equal scope for experimenting with timbral oscillators as well?

― dave q, Saturday, 2 November 2002 20:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Isn't timbre a function of wave shape?

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Saturday, 2 November 2002 21:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, but what I mean is that distortion/overdrive etc sounds like it alters the whole wave shape whereas with crude tone oscillators you can use them to make subtle changes around the edges of the sounds esp. if you're panning them or cross-fading them or whatever

― dave q, Saturday, 2 November 2002 23:41 (twenty-two years ago)

The Lovetone Meatball is a beautiful bitch. All Lovetone pedals are beautiful bitches.

I also like those Z. Vex pedals. The Seek-Wah is nuts. I wanna hear the Ooh-Wah.

For delay, fuck pedals, get a motherfuckin' Echoplex or Roland Space Echo, or WEM Copycat. Digital delay in a BOSS ain't fuckin' shit. Real analogue tape delay is like Al Green and digital BOSS/MXR is Justin Timberlake.

For reverb, Fender rules. ALWAYS better to use amp tremolo and reverb, unless you can afford a SurfBox or separate reverb unit that you can kick around and make atomic bomb noises.

Nevah evah fuhgit, TONE IS IN THE FINGERS. Yngwie Malsteem sounds like Yngwie Malsteem with a LINE 6 and Ibanez or with a Strat and assful of Marshall stax.

― wildcat wendell cooley, Sunday, 3 November 2002 07:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Wah-wah pedals can be used for evil or good, depending on who is using them.

Classic: wow-wow-wow "you can make your guitar sound like a sitar, play it, Prunes!" psychedelia or hazy early Dino Jr sweeping sounds.

Dud: Wacca wacca wacca as beloved of funk, metal and funk-metal (some of the evilest music known to mankind)

Fender reverb = SHITE, SHITE, SHITE!!! The Fender Twin is the WORST amp I've ever played. It sounds like a fucking puddle. When I want a wet sound, I want wet like a swimming pool. Give me my Danelectro slap echo or Vox reverb any day.

― kate, Sunday, 3 November 2002 11:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I like tremelo - the DOD "Vibro Thang" is very nice IMO. I have a coupla speciality pedals which I like as well - the Crowther Audio "Prunes and Custard" is a waveshaper pedal, similar in effect to one of the waveshaper modules on my Serge modular synth. It sounds like hyper extreme fuzz on higher notes, but it makes lower notes and bass guitar sound like a cross between resonant filter sweep and an elastic band. It rules. I also have a Frostwave "resonator", which is a clone of the filter section from the Korg MS20 synthesiser in a little blue pedal box. Really, really good, & it's very effective on guitar as well as synthesiser. A good little studio effect too.

http://www.frostwave.com/index.html

― N0RM4N PH4Y, Sunday, 3 November 2002 13:37 (twenty-two years ago)

dave: Right, got you. One thing is that is that timbre or wave shape can't be plotted on a simple linear axis like pitch or volume so it's hard to control the same way.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Sunday, 3 November 2002 23:35 (twenty-two years ago)

all i need is my reverb and i'm happy as larry

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Monday, 4 November 2002 06:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Tape delay, flanger, phaser, pitch-shift, harmonizer, ring-midulation, auto-wah, vocoder, talkbox, it's all tools of the trade, baby! :D

― Nickalicious, Monday, 4 November 2002 16:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Norm, that Frostwave must be a bad little fucker if it even remotely filters like an MS-20. Check the Mutronics Mutator(not a pedal but a rack unit fx) and the Sherman Filterbank as well. If I had the dough to afford it, I would live inside the Mutronics Mutator and a vintage Helios console with Pultecs and UREI compressors.

And RCA reverb plates (THE best analogue reverb hands down).

― wildcat wendell cooley, Tuesday, 5 November 2002 06:30 (twenty-two years ago)

I meant EMT plate reverb. (THE best studio reverb EVER).

― wildcat wendell cooley, Tuesday, 5 November 2002 06:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Hey, Wildcat, I used to *have* an MS20 (I sold it to get money for Serge modular filter panel) The frostwave unit sounds EXACTLY like the MS20 dual filter, and it's pretty cheap too - if you buy direct from Paul Perry, the Australian guy who makes them it will cost a little less.

― N0RM4N PH4Y, Wednesday, 6 November 2002 00:36 (twenty-two years ago)

like kate i have a dd-5; it's ace. and i have a boss phaser (the sovtek "small stone" phaser is really nice, but i don't have one) and a morley "emerald echo" delay and a wah, but it's not working. nor is my rat. stink.

― c., Wednesday, 6 November 2002 17:55 (twenty-two years ago)

The other week i got the new Boss V-Wah... the modelling one. I got it on sale so it was worth it, wouldn't have bought it otherwise. It is very cool though, the models are pretty good (Bad Horsie, Crybaby, Vox) plus its got a couple of original sounds that are cool, and about 8 distortions. You can wring some really great sounds out of it, and the pedal is nice and smooth; easy to switch on and off. The great thing is it's so tweakable you can do whatever with it.

― Adrian T (adrian), Sunday, 10 November 2002 06:29 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm rather fond of my Eventide Eclipse.

― chris sallis, Saturday, 16 November 2002 11:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Pedal freaks should take a look here, BTW.

http://www.modezero.com/

― N0RM4N PH4Y, Sunday, 17 November 2002 21:37 (twenty-two years ago)

i like the danelectro cool cat chorus for its warmth, the surf/turf and dynacomp compressors for funky/country snap, the dd-5 is cool - especially the tap tempo (most players never use this)- saw dave navarro produce some wild stuff with one. the vibrathang is cool for subtle tremelo/phaser, i tried the danelectro talk-back and sitar swami - prefer the reverse fx on the talkback to the dd5.

over on harmony central ppl seem to dislike the sitar swami but i like its sound- tho' it isnt a sitar.

the boss bass synth - used it with my dd5 and blew my amp - rockin!

― geordie racer, Wednesday, 20 November 2002 09:18 (twenty-two years ago)

i have only a danelectro mini-tremolo. it sounds better with my keyboards than with my guitar. what i really need is a chorus pedal. i fell in love with chorus because it is very eighties but also cos just about everyone i know hates it so i feel sorry for it. its probably another one of those pedals i would only use on my keyboards.

― di smith (lucylurex), Wednesday, 27 November 2002 00:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Moogerfooger, boy-ee!

So, when I'm workin' the guit-fiddle, I like to use the following...

Boss Compressor (makes a Squire Strat sound like a decent geetar)
EH Big Muff (okay, so it's a distortion pedal, whatevah)
Rocktek Stereo Analog Delay (cheap and sweet-sounding!)
Crybaby Wah (had it six years and counting! wacca wacca wacca!!!!)
Digitech Whammy (the OG one, represent!)
EH Holy Grail Reverb (beautiful bottom-of-a-cave shit!)
Heil Talk Box (requires it's own amp: it's a bitch, but well worth it)

I also like to run a signal through the filter section on one of my Crumar synths, that gets some shweet synthy volume swells and filter sweeps.

Plus, I generally split the signal from the delay to go to each of my amps (as I use two little 30 watt Fender amps on different sides of the room instead of one loud amp), which makes for some really cool stereo voiced effects set-ups, especially with ping-pong delay and one amp on clean and the other distorted...woo-hoo!

Unfortunately, I don't play guitar any in my current band...so I get to use most of my effects for my voice! Yeah!

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Wednesday, 27 November 2002 16:53 (twenty-two years ago)

one year passes...

They can have my Boss DM-3 analog delay when they pry it from my cold dead, etc.

My favorite reverb is the built-in one on my '62 Ampeg Reverb-o-rocket II. They really did make them better back then.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Tuesday, 9 December 2003 00:40 (twenty-one years ago)

nine months pass...

Fender reverb = SHITE, SHITE, SHITE!!! The Fender Twin is the WORST amp I've ever played. It sounds like a fucking puddle. -- kate

Yikes, I hope it was a "The Twin" you were playing, not a real Twin Reverb from the 60s or even 70s, or even the proper recent reissues. That "The Twin" thing was horrid, but the real deal is pretty much the standard for amp reverb. And for amps.

― southern lights (southern lights), Friday, 10 September 2004 13:09 (twenty years ago)

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