Pedals or no Pedals

[Tone Deaf]

Pedals

You can't turn them on if you don't bring them with you.
Some tunes can use them to sound like the popularized originals.

You can always NOT turn them ON.

 

[aphantomvaper]

Pedals are used here, yes indeed!

 

[kirellah]

Pedals, all of them. All the time. I love how inspiring a new pedal can be.

 

[Sybo]

I heard Jak3af3r describing pedals as a “ rabbit hole” ………..

it’s a deep hole……. Like GAS

 

[kirellah]

I heard Jak3af3r describing pedals as a “ rabbit hole” ………..

it’s a deep hole……. Like GAS

Its a never ending chase, thats for sure. Even when you're "set", there's something else to try. I've slowed down a little, my board is hitting a lot of tones so I'm really happy with it. But I'm always looking at options to interchange stuff.

 

[11top]

Does a Kemper count as a pedal?

Beat me to it. ALL the pedals.

I also use my Headrush a bunch.

 

[jak3af3r]

I heard Jak3af3r describing pedals as a “ rabbit hole” ………..

it’s a deep hole……. Like GAS

Well it can be.

I believe the last pedal I bought was in 2018 after I completed a larger and smaller board with some duplicates.

Personally, the gig determines pedal usage.

Typically, the more people on the gig, the fewer pedals I take because I need to have a sonic zone and stay in that zone to 1) not get in someone else's way and 2) not get covered up by someone else. On this front, I have gigged in a 5 piece with no pedals at all and been just fine.

If I'm doing stuff in a trio, I'll take the bigger board for more available sounds as I have more space to work with.

 

[Sybo]

And there you are…..

 

[Huggy Love]

If the reverb in my Mesa wasn't so one dimensional I wouldn't use any pedals.

The swiss army knife of a multitude of sounds, tones, and effects thru pedals has it's merits, especially in live performance, but the next time you want to experiment, play your guitar clean and overdriven using only your amp, with all the pedals at a bypass setting. Then do the same bypassing the pedal board altogether, plugging straight into your amp. YMMV but every time I've done this I'm reminded of how much better my tone and articulation is by plugging straight in, without the compression and latency of analog pedals.

 

[JasonE]

I forgot to mention in my post that I also have a Kemper Stage and a Fractal FM9. Technically they have a LOT of pedals in them. I have been using the Kemper more than real amps for the past couple of years.

 

[88prs]

Well,,, thanks to this post I dug into my storage and found many vintage pedals from the 70's that still work great!!! woohoo, might have to post them on Reverb! haha $$$$$$$$$$

Also, this made me go get the Vox Handwired Wah,,,, now to order the PRS lot.

 

[László]

There's no right or wrong to this stuff, it's all a matter of preference/need. I like to be prepared for whatever clients need when they call. So a pedalboard is a necessity.

For most of my musical life I was a 'straight into the amp' guy.

For about the last 18 years, however, I've had pedalboards, and have accumulated some favorite items after lots of experimentation.

For a while Pettyjohn made a buffer/preamp called a Lift; I call it a "Nicer-Maker." It comes first in my chain. This thing has studio-grade parts, and allows me to run 30 feet of cable from my workstation to my amps without signal loss. Best of all, it makes all the amps sound even sweeter. I have no idea why - that's just what it was made to do. It's become an integral part of my base tone, and is always on.

I run all pedals into the front of the amp; this includes modulation and delay. I like the coloration the amplifier's preamp section imparts to effects. Dirt pedals are rarely used, but when used they're set to very low distortion. They're used just to add a touch of color from time to time, or push the front end of the amp a little, pretty much the way lots of players use a Klon. Modulation, delay and reverb are used as needed for a given project. I like having a floor tuner instead of a headstock tuner.

I'll generally use a high-pass filter on my EQ pedal to cut the extreme bass without affecting the low-midrange the way amp tone controls do. Cleans up the mud, the bass sounds tighter and the guitar cuts through a mix better. Most recording engineers will do this at the console anyway, but I like to do it before the amp because it helps prevent muddying up what goes into the mic. The EQ pedal is super-high quality, again made with the parts you'd find in a studio EQ. It doesn't screw up the tone.

There are times I'll add a little high frequency push when I want a glassier sound than I can get with the amp controls. It's good to have these tone-shapers, and this is why so many session players bring pedalboards to studios. You can use 'em, or you can bypass 'em, but you're ready to do what the work calls for.

 

[László]

Beat me to it. ALL the pedals.

It's got a LOT of stuff, much of it super-cool stuff, especially lots of effects that sound good in digital, like modulation and delays. But not ALL stuff.

I have some studio-grade analog pedals the Kemper can't touch, because they're not effects, they're basically studio analog tools that impart very, very subtle goodness to the tone.

And even some of the digital stuff really wouldn't operate the same with a Kemper. For example, I can tweak and modulate the Eventide H3000 micro pitch shifting algorithm (not to change the main pitch, it uses micro pitch to fatten and add something to a signal) with an expression pedal and my H9s. You have to have the algorithm on the device in order to do that. Only the Eventide gear has that one. It can't be done with a static profile. And this is an often-used studio trick to impart vibe to a signal. It's sensational to have it on a pedalboard if you're used to working with that algorithm on Eventide rack gear in the studio.

Etc.

I've said many times I'd gig with a Kemper if I still played out. This isn't a knock on the Kemper. But I'd drag along my pedalboard to get those certain elements of my tone. We all have our 'personal tone' peccadilloes.

 

[shinksma]

I use pedals. I also enjoy going straight into the amp.

It really depends on what I'm trying to accomplish. If I'm trying to learn, play along with, or noodle in the style of, David Gilmour, I need pedals.

If I'm mucking about and want to lay down a rhythm piece then do some noodling over it, I need a looper pedal, and probably a distortion-type pedal in front of it because amp distortion is really awkward with a looper - unless you use the amp's effects loop.

If I'm just messing around with djenty type stuff on a seven-string, then maybe no pedals straight into one of the Archons Lead Channel is what I want.

When we gig (and we're not just pure acoustic) I typically use a FlyRig for some basic OD and delay effects with amp/cab sim built in, since I will still play acoustically through the same rig.

If I played in a cover band I'd likely have a big pedal board, to faithfully reproduce as many of the tones/effect as possible - even if no-one else cared, it would help me "get in the moment". But we play mostly original material (ranging from light rock'n'roll to acoustic-based stuff) with some trad Celtic stuff thrown in. I have one particular original song that, if I want to play it like I wrote it, needs tremolo, chorus (preferably Boss Dim-C), and reverb. In a pinch I use the vibrato effect and reverb on my FlyRig instead. The rest of my original songs don't generally have specific effects "requirements".

(Edited for clarification of "original song" - I have more than one, lol.)

 

[AP515]

I'm not opposed to pedals but don't use them much. I like my tone the way it is and getting my fingers to do the right things is a higher priority.

 

[Wyzard]

peccadilloes.

I had to swerve to avoid hitting one of those, while heading south on 75 in Miami.

 

[RickP]

And remind yourself who paid to get into that gig, and who got paid.

Bam!

Thats what I’ve learned in decades of stages. Anyone in the audience paid to hear what I do. I’d have just looked back and said “they’re nothing without me, pal, not the other way around.”

Use whatever inspires you… you’re the gladiator in the arena. The longer I’ve done this, the more I disregard the liquid courage crowd.

 

[Bogner]

I think a lot of it comes down to musical style played and tonal approach. I hang on the high gain side so in most instances, I need my core tone coming from an amp. At volume, I have found that a pedal for gain and a clean / cleaner amp for power tends to thin out. Give me a nice high gain tube head and a noise gate and that is my core sound 90% of the time. I may use a pedal to tighten things up, etc.


Now if it is effects (Delay, Reverb, Etc) then I much prefer pedals/racks over what an amp typically provides (at least in the amps I use for the styles I play)....(Roland JC-120 excluded from previous statement).

 

[aamefford]

I remember when our guitar player first got a wah pedal for the garage band back in the 70's, that was like ooooh! I ordered a Hotcake a couple months ago and I don't know why really, sort of a weak moment really. I don't gig anyway but whatever. Not like I needed it at all, just seemed like a good idea at the time. I mean, who doesn't have use for an overdrive right? I sort of keep hearing Joe Bonamassa's words that the amp and the tone buttons and guitar controls are all the effects anyone really needs.
If you are Joe Bonamassa I guess that could be true...
I never use all the effects my amps have built into them as it is, so maybe he's right.

I watched the Joe Bonamassa rig rundown a while back. He uses different amps instead of pedals…. No slight to Joe, great rig, great, great player, and some of the coolest gear around. Plus he seems a pretty cool guy.

Oh, edit for OP content - I use a pod go and/or a little Mesa mkv25 or a fender mustang micro or mini or whatever headphone amp. I’m pretty new to guitar. The pod go totally has too much going on, so mostly straight into the Mesa, or the fender mustang micro with a fairly clean amp model and some reverb and chorus.

 

[davesultra]

Pedals!?, we don’t need no stinkin’ pedals!!!



(Well maybe a wah).