Pedals - Need Recommendations

[CVS]

I am looking for 2 pedals

1. A pedal that will provide more relatively clean sustain when I am soloing using a single coil pickup (example PRS 513) through the clean channel of an amp.
2. A pedal that will make the peizo in my HB II sound even more acoustic that it presently does when playing through a PA system. The sound right now is pretty darn good, but looking for an even more authentic acoustic sound. Not sure this is possible.

Thoughts & recommendations appreciated.

 

[Boogie]

I am looking for 2 pedals

1. A pedal that will provide more relatively clean sustain when I am soloing using a single coil pickup (example PRS 513) through the clean channel of an amp.
2. A pedal that will make the peizo in my HB II sound even more acoustic that it presently does when playing through a PA system. The sound right now is pretty darn good, but looking for an even more authentic acoustic sound. Not sure this is possible.

Thoughts & recommendations appreciated.

Hmm...clean sustain for single coil solos? I'd go with a compressor, though I rarely use one. The Carl Martin models impress me the most.

For acoustic realism, consider a DI box, like a Countryman or one of the more fancy models with EQ. If you have on-board EQ, a simple DI works for me.

 

[László]

For clean sustain I use a Suhr KokoBoost (I have the Reloaded version, they're both great), set low. Very, very light compression to the signal, nice sparkle and detail. Worth a try. Yes, you can use it to push an amp into distortion. I don't. I like what it does to the clean signal. I keep my guitar set a bit lower with it, too.

http://www.suhr.com/suhr-guitar-pedals/koko-boost/

For a more realistic acoustic sound, in terms of hardware (there is good software that does this, too), the box of choice is the Fishman Aura. It's a pedal and DI in one, that is designed to simulate a miked-up guitar, and I think so far it's the most successful of the products that try to do this.

http://www.fishman.com/products/filter/series:aura

 

[Whitecat]

Take a look at the new Bodyrez pedal from TC Electronic for your HBII...

 

[Egads]

I agree with the compressor suggestion. There are lots of good ones out there. Definitely try before you buy, if you've not spent much time with one. You can wreck your tone pretty easily with extreme settings. I have a Maxon optical compressor that sounds fantastic in almost all settings, and a Red Witch Grace, which is a little more obvious. Both are only two knob pedals, so they are pretty easy to figure out.

For the piezo, are you using a good DI? I really like my LR Baggs Para DI, and Les's suggestion of the Aura is great, too. Good stuff.

 

[ozboy]

I have the Carl Martin compressor and it's my favorite pedal. Needs mains power, bout the only drawback. I don't use pedals that much though. Does a great job on sustain.

 

[CVS]

Thanks to all for the suggestions. Now comes the fun part - actually demoing and buying.

 

[prsrocker1988]

I'm a longtime fan of the Wampler Ego Compressor for #1. It has 101 options while retaining the MXR sized form factor.

 

[Kred]

I like the Seymour Duncan Vice Grip soft-knee compressor. It has a blend knob to keep the attack, and a 3 band EQ to balance the tone.

 

[playerZ]

For clean sustain I use a Suhr KokoBoost (I have the Reloaded version, they're both great), set low. Very, very light compression to the signal, nice sparkle and detail. Worth a try. Yes, you can use it to push an amp into distortion. I don't. I like what it does to the clean signal. I keep my guitar set a bit lower with it, too.

http://www.suhr.com/suhr-guitar-pedals/koko-boost/

For a more realistic acoustic sound, in terms of hardware (there is good software that does this, too), the box of choice is the Fishman Aura. It's a pedal and DI in one, that is designed to simulate a miked-up guitar, and I think so far it's the most successful of the products that try to do this.

http://www.fishman.com/products/filter/series:aura

I use the Fishman Auro too, the sound that comes out is amazing in my opinion!

 

[CVS]

I'm a longtime fan of the Wampler Ego Compressor for #1. It has 101 options while retaining the MXR sized form factor.

Thanks - I will check it out!

 

[László]

I have a Suhr Koji Comp compressor coming today. I liked Pete Thorn's demo of it, so I ordered one (the KokoBoost isn't a compressor, though it does add a little bit of girth and sparkle). I'll post some info and review it after I've had a chance to run it through its paces.

Based on the Thorn demo, it should be very transparent -- most guitar pedal compressors aren't. It has some EQ settings as well, so it should be interesting to work with.

 

[CVS]

Looking forward to your assessment

 

[László]

Looking forward to your assessment

The pedal came this morning and I went through what it does and how it sounds.

It's transparent, adds no noise, will do very subtle compression or all the way to chick'n pickin' hot compression, but I like it to gently tame my clean tones, so I set it as recommended by the manufacturer for that after trying out a few things. The DG30 amp is very dynamic, so for certain kinds of rhythm and lead tracks, it's great to be able to tame the dynamics a bit with a compressor.

The EQ switches sound great. One's going to accent the high frequencies, one is transparent, one accents the upper midrange. All of the frequencies are very well chosen, and will have their uses. With the DG30 (the amp I'll use it with most) I like it set to be transparent, at least with my McCarty.

This reminds me a lot of my old Focusrite Red 3 studio compressor, which was a $3,000 unit back in 1994. It's there when you need it, but it has a transparency. It doesn't sound like you have a compressor on, it simply goes about doing what you ask it to do, from very subtle to squashed, but without hum, noise, and other compression artifacts.

Obviously, you wouldn't use this to compress stereo tracks coming out of the mix buss of an analog console the way I used the Red 3, but it has that kind of subtlety and as I said, it's studio-quiet.

A with my other Suhr pedals, there aren't loud pops switching it in and out. Built from machined, anodized aluminum, it's solid as a rock. I've found with my other Suhr pedals that the anodized aluminum resists scratches, etc., very well. The pedals seem to stay new looking for a long time. So that's kind of nice.

I also found that it sounds good in front of my Fulltone Plimsoul...adds some dynamics taming, but also smooths out the signal quite a bit for solos. I really like that aspect of it, and the pedal can be easily set to add sustain, etc. Yet if you didn't know there was a compressor on, you'd never guess there was, simply by listening to the signal. It just sounded like I found the perfect Plimsoul setting. Lovely!

Can't wait to try it with my HXDA, but had to stop and do some other things.

What else do you need to know?

 

[CVS]

Great write up! Couldn't ask for a more comprehensive look at your new pedal. Glad that you like it as well. I may have to breakdown and get both Suhr pedals. I have a compressor now, but it makes quite a bit of noise when you switch it on, especially noticeable with single coil pick ups activated. I also have to take off the back cover with a screw driver to change dip switch settings, which when I purchased it, did not seem like a big deal, but I am finding myself to be lazy in practice.......

Thanks again

 

[László]

Great write up! Couldn't ask for a more comprehensive look at your new pedal. Glad that you like it as well. I may have to breakdown and get both Suhr pedals. I have a compressor now, but it makes quite a bit of noise when you switch it on, especially noticeable with single coil pick ups activated. I also have to take off the back cover with a screw driver to change dip switch settings, which when I purchased it, did not seem like a big deal, but I am finding myself to be lazy in practice.......

Thanks again

Any compressor will compress noise coming from your guitar and/or other pedals and make that noise appear to be louder, because a compressor is an automatic volume control. It makes soft things louder, and loud things softer. You have to distinguish between noise the compressor itself is making, called self-noise, and noise the compressor is reproducing at a louder volume coming from what's in front of the compressor in the signal chain!

The Koji isn't going to cure noisy pickups or another pedal coming ahead of it in your pedal chain. It doesn't know the difference between a soft note and a hum or buzz.

So if your current compressor is simply taking your single coil noise and reproducing it at a louder volume, that's not noise from the compressor. My rig is dead quiet with no hums or buzzes, but it's good the Koji Comp isn't adding its own self-noise.

However there are crummy sounding compressors that have a lot of self-noise, or that have compression artifacts like stuttering, or very poor coloration, distortion, etc.

The Koji isn't noisy, but if your pickups are making noise, any compressor will make the noise louder unless it has a noise gate, and that is a whole other can of worms, because a gate is very difficult to set up with a guitar if you don't want to mess with the attack of a note.

Noise gates are sometimes called noise suppressors and I don't even use them in the studio. They usually ruin a good signal.

 

[CVS]

My compressor is at the front of my pedal chain and noise is noticeably louder when I have my PRS 513 in single coil mode. I am going to test the noise level of the 513 against a Fender single coil guitar later today. In the meantime I am going to purchase the Koko Boost reload

 

[László]

My compressor is at the front of my pedal chain and noise is noticeably louder when I have my PRS 513 in single coil mode

I guess I didn't make my post clear. You're not going to solve that problem with a new pedal! The noise is coming from your guitar, not from the pedal. The pedal is simply amplifying what's coming from the guitar, and that includes the guitar's pickup noise.

Single coil noise will be increased with any pedal that makes the signal louder. Whether it's a compressor, a boost pedal, or an OD.

It's the increased noise that happens with single coil pickups, or split coil humbuckers, that is the culprit. The noise isn't being caused by your compressor, it's being caused by switching into single coil mode.

A humbucker's two coils are 180 degrees out of phase, which cancels out noise like a balanced audio line. A true single coil pickup can't cancel out noise, and it will pick up stray RFI, EMI, etc.

Just the nature of pickups.

There are single coils that are special "noise cancelling" single coil pickups, but many players don't like the way they sound compared to a true single coil.

All that said, the Koko is a wonderful pedal, and I think most players would really like it!

 

[shboom]

Instead of a pedal, have you ever thought of Top-Wrapping. I've done this with my Mira, and 2 SG's, and the sustain is remarkable.
Check it out here: http://www.gibson.com/News-Lifestyl...ere-s-More-Than-One-Way-To-String-An-Axe.aspx
Why use a pedal when the guitar can do it for you? Just my 2 cents.

 

[CVS]

Interesting idea that I had not thought about & thanks for sharing the article. Both my CU24 and 513 have tremelo / floating bridges. Not quite sure how to do it in this case without professional assistance.