What pedals do you use?

[László]

The people at church probably just want to steal more of your pedals

The great gods of tone always need gear sacrifices.

 

[Bogner]

I decided today would be a good time to set up the pedals for one amp, the DG30, and one guitar, the DGT. So I set up a chair in front of the pedalboard, plugged in, and got going at a pretty good (for me) recording volume.

I figured I'd do the thing that the guys on That Pedal Show do, you know, mess with all the controls and see what sounds best.

Here's how boring I am:

In the end, I wound up dialing in very small changes. Yes, knobs were turned and switches were switched, but if I took a before and after photo you'd be hard-pressed to see a difference.

It all came down to very small details. I felt it was a worthwhile exercise, but I seem to be pretty consistent. The most important change was dialing in more Germanium diode on my medium gain pedal (thus less silicon diode, they can be blended), cutting less bass, and pulling the high frequencies back a little to accommodate the DGT's tone balance on several of the pedals.

Edit: I also dialed a bit more compression in on the compressor - just for grins, really, it sounds good either setting.

There Is Nothing Wrong With Already Being Dialed In...Even If You May Think You Aren't.

Even With All The Rubbish I Have I Still Stay In A Certain Place On Things With Very Little Deviation.

 

[László]

There Is Nothing Wrong With Already Being Dialed In...Even If You May Think You Aren't.

Even With All The Rubbish I Have I Still Stay In A Certain Place On Things With Very Little Deviation.

I figured it'd be good to further explore what the pedals could do that maybe I'd missed before. So that's what I did.

And wound up pretty close to the starting point! Go figure.

 

[You_Narf]

There Is Nothing Wrong With Already Being Dialed In...Even If You May Think You Aren't.

Even With All The Rubbish I Have I Still Stay In A Certain Place On Things With Very Little Deviation.

Probably my problem as well, I feel like I could always sound better but whenever I listen to the playback, my tone sounds good enough to be happy with. It's when I change a pedal out that something gets screwed up and in my greed I put myself at square one. Regardless, I can't help myself lol

 

[You_Narf]

I figured it'd be good to further explore what the pedals could do that maybe I'd missed before. So that's what I did.

And wound up pretty close to the starting point! Go figure.

For me it's when a shiny new pedal comes out, and it keeps popping up on youtube,
I feel like I gotta have it. Even if I won't actually use it live for months. I have a number of pedals that I bought when they released and although I've opened them and tested them, I never actually put them on a board.

Some of them (but definitely not all) :

https://imgur.com/iLo9ens

Someday they'll be on a pedalboard...
Oh wait..

Someday they'll be on a pegboard that's actually powered and seeing gigs!

 

[Bogner]

I figured it'd be good to further explore what the pedals could do that maybe I'd missed before. So that's what I did.

And wound up pretty close to the starting point! Go figure.

Often Times We Forget We Went Through All Of That In The Beginning When We First Got The Pedal Or Amp, Etc....At Least I Do. I Know Time And Familiarity With Something Can Yield New Fruit But That Doesn't Necessarily Equate To Something I Like, Need, Want And Will Utilize. Regardless...It Is Nice To Revisit At Times Just To Confirm You Were Right The First Time...LOL.. If I Trusted Myself More I Would Revisit Less Because My Revisit's Always Come Out The Same Or Close Enough For Rock And Roll To What I Had Originally.

 

[ruger9]

I decided today would be a good time to set up the pedals for one amp, the DG30, and one guitar, the DGT. So I set up a chair in front of the pedalboard, plugged in, and got going at a pretty good (for me) recording volume.

I figured I'd do the thing that the guys on That Pedal Show do, you know, mess with all the controls and see what sounds best.

Here's how boring I am:

In the end, I wound up dialing in very small changes. Yes, knobs were turned and switches were switched, but if I took a before and after photo you'd be hard-pressed to see a difference.

It all came down to very small details. I felt it was a worthwhile exercise, but I seem to be pretty consistent. The most important change was dialing in more Germanium diode on my medium gain pedal (thus less silicon diode, they can be blended), cutting less bass, and pulling the high frequencies back a little to accommodate the DGT's tone balance on several of the pedals.

Edit: I also dialed a bit more compression in on the compressor - just for grins, really, it sounds good either setting.

I've done this many times over the years... and it finally showed me that gear matters very little in getting one's tone. I can get something approximating my tone out of most gear. So I stopped obsessing about it. It helped tame GAS for me, I realize the grass isn't greener on the other side, it's just a slightly different color green.

To be clear: let's not get into a "what creates tone" debate: I'm not talking about a Rickenbacker 12-string into a Fender Champion 600, can sound like a DGT into a DG30. But with reasonable gear, I can always get something close to my tone. Having in the last 3 years been able to buy several of my bucket list guitars and amps, I have realized that whether I'm playing my tele or DGT or LukeIII or Cabronita into my Swart or Hot Cat or Blues Cube Artist, it all sounds pretty much the same. *I* can tell the difference, but no one listening would. So I calmed down about alot of that stuff. I "just play" more now.

 

[You_Narf]

While it's great for anyone to be content with great tone and be happy with their sound (as well as developing the will to resist GAS syndrome), and then there's timed I think it's also great to constantly force yourself to experiment and jump outside the box. I think pedals help us do that well.


Personal example:
I remember buying the WhiteCap dual vibrator and thinking I'd never use it, it wasn't pleasureful to my ears when I first bought it. Lately (with time off from work due to surgery), I've been recording alot posting shorts on YouTube. It's been forcing me - in a good way - to get creative with styles outside my wheelhouse. And even if I use the pedals for my style, I find that pedals can create a whole new sound so it can change your part, change what you do. It's interesting.

Stuff like this:

I would had never come up with such lines if I wasn't experimenting with stuff I tend to steer clear from. So I always encourage pedal use to people who generally lean more towards straight to amp approach. Do the unexpected, do what you think you wouldn't do sorta thing. You make make a "happy accident" that may be incorporated into your core sound. Some new signature sound maybe.

 

[Fiore4me]

Xotic wah
Xotic sp compressor
Wampler fuzztration
Mxr Timmy
Channel switch (boogie Fillmore 50 clean dirty channels)
Mxr phase 90
Keeley 30ms
Wampler latitude tremolo
Mxr carbon copy delay
Flashback 2 mini - delay
Fultone fat boost

Plus a few sitting in closet at the moment.

 

[László]

I've done this many times over the years... and it finally showed me that gear matters very little in getting one's tone. I can get something approximating my tone out of most gear. So I stopped obsessing about it. It helped tame GAS for me, I realize the grass isn't greener on the other side, it's just a slightly different color green.

We don't materially disagree; the devil here is mainly in the details.

My little experiment yesterday was tweaking the dials on gear I'd already chosen after much obsessive trial and error, was familiar with after several years, and had previously dialed in a number of other times.

I wasn't dialing in new or different gear, or comparing this and that pedal, etc. The gear decisions had already been made. So this wasn't about GAS.

On the other hand, I'll agree, we're going to create tones that our brains want to hear, and there are any number of factors that go into that formula for each of us besides gear.

The weight given each ingredient in the formula will, of course, vary from player to player. The gear matters to me, perhaps more than it does with many others, and I'm fine with that. Making my living recording is like living under a self-imposed microscope.

First comes the music and the performance, of course. That's always most important.

But the details and textures play a pretty large role in my creative process, both part-writing and performance, and in the product I deliver to clients when I score a film or an ad. I get inspired by certain tone details, and it matters in that way.

I want each element to be 'ear candy', and tone, detail, etc., make a difference to my clients. Comments I've gotten over the past 33 years tell me that the clients really do hear tones they like and dislike, and sometimes base their decisions as to whose track to go with based on how things sound, the vibe they're looking for, and so on. If I've spent a week on a demo, I want my track to be picked over the competition's for whatever reason, because that's the prize. Anything that gives me an edge, I will gladly take!

 

[Bogner]

I have realized it all sounds pretty much the same.

Now You Tell Me...Where Were You Decades Ago? You Could Have Saved Me A Lot Of Grief, Time And Money.

 

[ruger9]

Now You Tell Me...Where Were You Decades Ago? You Could Have Saved Me A Lot Of Grief, Time And Money.

Myself as well!

 

[You_Narf]

Xotic wah
Xotic sp compressor
Wampler fuzztration
Mxr Timmy
Channel switch (boogie Fillmore 50 clean dirty channels)
Mxr phase 90
Keeley 30ms
Wampler latitude tremolo
Mxr carbon copy delay
Flashback 2 mini - delay
Fultone fat boost

Plus a few sitting in closet at the moment.

It took me years to find that I prefer the Timmy Drive more than any other drive and it too me even longer to learn that the Jackson Audio Optimist (which is the Klon, Timmy and seperate EQ) was the perfect Timmy variation for me.

That was the end of a search that I became very proud of.

Xotic pedals are nice. I have their volume pedal for swells and it's built like a wah, confuses alot of people who see it as they ask "Why do you have 2 wahs on your board???"

 

[vchizzle]

I get pretty married to my band live pedalboard. I’ve had a 95Q wah on there because it allows for quick release since it’s spring loaded. I’ve had a Cantrell since its release that I prefer but the 95q is more functional live. I’ve also had an Xotic AC booster on there for probably 2 decades. I love that pedal because I like the separate bass and treble controls. I tend to use it as my mild OD pedal. I use an Eventide H9 for all my verbs and delays. Mostly like that since I don’t need to bend over all the time if searching for new sounds, although I mostly just use a handful of presets. I use the old Eventide modulation to handle all my mod sounds before the head. I should probably mention the massive Moog ring modulator for when I wanna get freaky and make spaceship noise chaos. There’s a few more, but those are the mainstays. I control my channel switching and midi program controls with the Boss es8.

All that said, I sometimes feel locked in and uncreative since I have everything programmed presets per song. I have a small board that I like to use outside the band or if we’re just writing and screwing around. Also for stuff with totally different style amps that I have. I have an Xotic RC booster+ that I use to boost. A hidden jem with an old Abasi Pathos. Fantastic warm overdrive that’s super flexible! It doesn’t just do the Abasi thing. Huge fan of Earthquakes Devices Dispatch Master and the depths. Fulltone Supa-trem, EVH phase 90. I feel more free and creative using the small board most of the time. The band board just allows for me to turn a bunch on/off without tap dancing all over.

 

[László]

I get pretty married to my band live pedalboard. I’ve had a 95Q wah on there because it allows for quick release since it’s spring loaded. I’ve had a Cantrell since its release that I prefer but the 95q is more functional live. I’ve also had an Xotic AC booster on there for probably 2 decades. I love that pedal because I like the separate bass and treble controls. I tend to use it as my mild OD pedal. I use an Eventide H9 for all my verbs and delays. Mostly like that since I don’t need to bend over all the time if searching for new sounds, although I mostly just use a handful of presets. I use the old Eventide modulation to handle all my mod sounds before the head. I should probably mention the massive Moog ring modulator for when I wanna get freaky and make spaceship noise chaos. There’s a few more, but those are the mainstays. I control my channel switching and midi program controls with the Boss es8.

All that said, I sometimes feel locked in and uncreative since I have everything programmed presets per song. I have a small board that I like to use outside the band or if we’re just writing and screwing around. Also for stuff with totally different style amps that I have. I have an Xotic RC booster+ that I use to boost. A hidden jem with an old Abasi Pathos. Fantastic warm overdrive that’s super flexible! It doesn’t just do the Abasi thing. Huge fan of Earthquakes Devices Dispatch Master and the depths. Fulltone Supa-trem, EVH phase 90. I feel more free and creative using the small board most of the time. The band board just allows for me to turn a bunch on/off without tap dancing all over.

That's so gig worthy - those pedals are great to work with (and hey, not many players have the Moogerfooger Ring Modulator, which has its own badassery going on!).

 

[László]

My Smallest Pedalboard (Practice/Bedroom use)

My Medium Pedalboard
(Studio and church on Sundays)

My Large Pedalboard
(Arena/Stadium and Travel Pedalboard)

No tap dancing required

These are so cool.

I feel like a piker now with only one board. You've all got more guitars, pedals, and amps than I do! I am going to have to slink away in shame.

 

[You_Narf]

These are so cool.

I feel like a piker now with only one board. You've all got more guitars, pedals, and amps than I do! I am going to have to slink away in shame.

It's all good, it's not the gear but the mind behind the gear. And you're a brilliant mind!!!

 

[László]

It's all good, it's not the gear but the mind behind the gear. And you're a brilliant mind!!!

I've lost my mind, all I have left is the gear!

 

[bodia]

I like this one.....

 

[László]

I like this one.....

Well, I have The Hammer Of The Gods, might as well check out the pedal!