Pedals

[mario_farufyno]

Harry, you are the guy who turned me on to ZVex Fuzzes... the Mastotron is in my Christmas wishlist.

[jacko]

I've been using pedals for years. In my current rock band I always have a little grind from one Bass Soul food with another soul food there to add some snarly distortion for a Chris Wolstenholme feel. I add chorus to quite a lot of our own material (cos that's what they want to hear) and have an envelope filter for the very few occasions that I need a bit of 'wop-wop'. Just added an echo/trem but so far we've not found anything to use it on - during lockdown it's been a blessing having something to occupy the mind.  Here's a pic of my current board. The J-Clamp is hiding my DI and the tuner is on there for rehearsal rooms where I'm not using my rack with the Mesa amp and Korg tuner.

Graeme

[mario_farufyno]

Graeme, talk a little about the delay, a effect that I love but always have a hard time to find a good way to use them.

[jazzyvee]

I can never get delays on my guitar board to sound right so took it off. They either sound like a rockabilly slapback or the repeats are off the beat. So there must be a tip for getting them set right. I'm all ears

[jacko]

Mario. So far I've just been playing with the delay to see what I can do with it but we don't currently have any songs  it would fit into. There is a rumour the guitarists have been listening to pink floyd during lockdown so there's a chance they may write something that needs it or get the band to learn 'One of these days'.  The tremeloe button is more likely to be useful in places where the chorus doesn't sound quite right but I still need that 'wobbly' effect. There's a 'swell' function if I hold the button down that sounds a bit like an organ sound that one of the guitarists thinks should be used at the climax of every song!  I'm quite lucky in my current band - they love the bass to be doing something away from the root AND want it to be heard on stage. Not once have I been told to turn it down or play fewer notes.

Graeme

[lbpesq]

I find that a delay set at a minimal delay can fatten up the sound of single note leads.

Bill, tgo

[edwin]

I love pedals, although my current gig doesn't call for many of them. These days I have a Micro-Tron (still deciding between III and IV), a Thick Air (sounds amazing with my Starfire), a Future Impact synth pedal and a Turbo Tuner ST-300. I'm looking for a good delay-reverb pedal. My gold standard for that is Lexicon. I used an MPX G2 for a long time and it was great, if a little cumbersome to program. Excellent envelope filter, once you tweak it right, perfect octaver/pitch shifter with low latency, amazing delays and reverbs, with the ability to put additional effects in the feedback loops, tap tempo, etc., and that great Lexicon tone. Finally, it became somewhat unreliable and no one really wants to work on them. Maybe I'll resurrect it.


I tried a Fractal FX8 for a while, but it's noisy and does some not so nice things to the tone. Probably not so much of a problem if you are using amps and speakers instead of IEMs. It is quite versatile and the programming is cool.


I used an Eventide Eclipse for a while, but the sounds didn't really grab me. The reverbs were sort of cold sounding and many of the effects weren't very useful. I really wanted to like it. Also, for some reason, which seems to be very common, there was no spillover for reverbs and delays.


I've got a bunch of other pedals I'd like to resurrect, including Brad Sarno's Earth Drive. Definitely check his stuff out: https://www.sarnomusicsolutions.com His Classic Tube Preamp is another take on the Fender Showman/Twin arrangement and sounds great (I have serial number Demo-A). His Revelation preamp is the pinnacle for pedal steel and his various load boxes are cool, too. At some point, I want to try to V8-G octal tube preamp.


Here's my old rack, prior to the MPX-G2. It had a monster pedal board accessed by the patchbay with a Mutron, Whammy, various distortion pedals, and a Morley Power Wah/Volume.


My latest device is a Backbeat (https://getbackbeat.com). No more cabinets on stage for me! A total game changer.

[edwin]

I can never get delays on my guitar board to sound right so took it off. They either sound like a rockabilly slapback or the repeats are off the beat. So there must be a tip for getting them set right. I'm all ears

You need a delay pedal with tap tempo, as well as modulation.

[jacko]

I can never get delays on my guitar board to sound right so took it off. They either sound like a rockabilly slapback or the repeats are off the beat. So there must be a tip for getting them set right. I'm all ears

You need a delay pedal with tap tempo, as well as modulation.

The NUX Atlantic on my board has a Tap function. Works quite well.

Graeme 

[pauldo]

... I'm quite lucky in my current band - they love the bass to be doing something away from the root AND want it to be heard on stage. Not once have I been told to turn it down or play fewer notes.

Graeme

Relish this moment in time!
 

[Pete si]

Hi, Mario. Thanks for the explanation. I understand now what you are doing. Your English is excellent btw.

[jacko]

I've just realised (after re-reading Mario's post) that my NUX pedal is a Delay/REVERB (not tremeloe as I first stated). Doh!!

Graeme

[mario_farufyno]

Great insights about delays, guys. Thanks (and what a impressive rack, Edwin).

[jazzyvee]

Hey Edwin, that is s serious rack set-up you have there. What type of gigs were you using that rack for?

[el8ed]

Eventide H9 Max … so much fun! 
Waiting for the Expression pedal to come in.
Then I probably NEED    a second one.


Cheers!