Electric guitar pedal advice required please....
Discussion
Hi all,....
A friend of mine on another (music) forum has posted this plea for advice, hopefully the PH massive might have some useful info.........
"I have a need again... to pick your brains... James wants a peddle for his
guitar our local shop does some by Zoom does anyone know of this brand or
should we be looking at something else??
They have 2 zoom ones at the moment, one of the ones we are looking at is
£59 & does 33 sounds, the second is more £79 & I believe does more sounds &
has a wow/volume peddle as well they had a few others in the window but
neither (well actually non of them) meant anything to me except they are
more money again.
Any help &/or advice appreciated esp in regard to questions to ask, we will
go back Friday sometime as they shut early today!!!!:-(((
Thanks in advance,
Alan, (aka Wacky)
A friend of mine on another (music) forum has posted this plea for advice, hopefully the PH massive might have some useful info.........
"I have a need again... to pick your brains... James wants a peddle for his
guitar our local shop does some by Zoom does anyone know of this brand or
should we be looking at something else??
They have 2 zoom ones at the moment, one of the ones we are looking at is
£59 & does 33 sounds, the second is more £79 & I believe does more sounds &
has a wow/volume peddle as well they had a few others in the window but
neither (well actually non of them) meant anything to me except they are
more money again.
Any help &/or advice appreciated esp in regard to questions to ask, we will
go back Friday sometime as they shut early today!!!!:-(((
Thanks in advance,
Alan, (aka Wacky)
Oh blimey!
How much is your mate looking to spend? I have a £400 board that does absolutely everything and suffers from virtually no noise. Utterly fantastic but somewhat pricey!
In general I recommend BOSS pedals. Not so much in variety of sound but in quality, low levels of unwanted noise and durability. BOSS pedals have METAL cases so when you accidentally STAND on the pedal which WILL happen they survive it unscathed. Otherwise they break and goodbye £80.
How much is your mate looking to spend? I have a £400 board that does absolutely everything and suffers from virtually no noise. Utterly fantastic but somewhat pricey!
In general I recommend BOSS pedals. Not so much in variety of sound but in quality, low levels of unwanted noise and durability. BOSS pedals have METAL cases so when you accidentally STAND on the pedal which WILL happen they survive it unscathed. Otherwise they break and goodbye £80.
Aye, i've got an ancient Zoom 505 I think. Zoom's been around for quite a while, generally fairly well regarded. I'd say the expression peddle is worth it, you can set it up to do some good wah wah sounds which may well mean you won't be forking out for another peddle as quickly.
Cheers,
Rob.
Cheers,
Rob.
I think yoru mate is looking at the 505 (without expression pedal) and the 606 (has the expression pedal)
The zoom stuff is pretty good for entry level kit (as reflected in the price). You get a fair number of sounds for your money and is a cheap way to get some more noises or get better distortion from a cheapy transistor amp.
edited to add I would agree with Don about the separate Boss units, more expensive but worth it.
Before too long I'm sure a rackmount fx unit will be calling....
>> Edited by bga on Wednesday 29th December 18:46
The zoom stuff is pretty good for entry level kit (as reflected in the price). You get a fair number of sounds for your money and is a cheap way to get some more noises or get better distortion from a cheapy transistor amp.
edited to add I would agree with Don about the separate Boss units, more expensive but worth it.
Before too long I'm sure a rackmount fx unit will be calling....
>> Edited by bga on Wednesday 29th December 18:46
Wacky Racer said:
Hi all,....
A friend of mine on another (music) forum has posted this plea for advice, hopefully the PH massive might have some useful info.........
"I have a need again... to pick your brains... James wants a peddle for his
guitar our local shop does some by Zoom does anyone know of this brand or
should we be looking at something else??
They have 2 zoom ones at the moment, one of the ones we are looking at is
£59 & does 33 sounds, the second is more £79 & I believe does more sounds &
has a wow/volume peddle as well they had a few others in the window but
neither (well actually non of them) meant anything to me except they are
more money again.
Any help &/or advice appreciated esp in regard to questions to ask, we will
go back Friday sometime as they shut early today!!!!:-(((
Thanks in advance,
Alan, (aka Wacky)
What you want is the Boss ME5 Multi Effects pedal.
They don't make it any more so you'll have to go second hand, but there is a good chance of picking one up on E-Bay.
I've had mine since new,(and no, you're not getting it!), and there is simply nothing like them.
Brian May still has his and the sound speaks for itself.
I used to use separates live and a rack in the studio.
I always thought that it was better to have individual controls rather than buggering about with submenus/memories. Used to play keys though. Ran my Rhodes through a stereo phaser and the clavinet through a really ancient wa-wa. If you ask me, classic effects are the way to go, they may be noisy but they have "The Sound".
Unless you blow a lot of money on "magic box" they are pretty poor things. I ran the Rhodes through a mates Bass "Box of tricks" and it made some great noises but was lacking something. That something was present when I used old stuff.
I've forgotten who made my wa-wa but it was pretty rare and loads better than anything you can get these days. It had an adjuster knob which made it totally silly.
I always thought that it was better to have individual controls rather than buggering about with submenus/memories. Used to play keys though. Ran my Rhodes through a stereo phaser and the clavinet through a really ancient wa-wa. If you ask me, classic effects are the way to go, they may be noisy but they have "The Sound".
Unless you blow a lot of money on "magic box" they are pretty poor things. I ran the Rhodes through a mates Bass "Box of tricks" and it made some great noises but was lacking something. That something was present when I used old stuff.
I've forgotten who made my wa-wa but it was pretty rare and loads better than anything you can get these days. It had an adjuster knob which made it totally silly.
Rackmounts are a bit crap if they don't have lots of analogue knobs on to change parameters. I've got an old digitech (was a good brand back then) which is hopelessely fiddly to change the params on due to being button based.
Whats really scarey is that I havne't looked at guitar kit for 10 years and people here are rattling out things that were current then. Either its not moved on, or everyone else stopped upgrading 10 years ago too
Whats really scarey is that I havne't looked at guitar kit for 10 years and people here are rattling out things that were current then. Either its not moved on, or everyone else stopped upgrading 10 years ago too
To be honest we could all talk about what's best/great/alright all day long. I did music tech at college and so got to use all the latest kit, and the sound quality on even a cheap Zoom is not bad at all. To be honest most people use them as toys, and if it's a first peddle then a cheap multi fx zoom is a good idea. They're hardy enough not to break quickly, do enough stuff that he won't be dissapointed and want another peddle immediately and really are decent enough to use at small gigs. The noise created by them won't be your limiting factor in a lot of day to day situations. If he was a pro then i'm guessing he won't have asked someone to get him one (as a present presumably), so the zoom seems ideal.
As i said though, get the one with the expression peddle, definatley worth it i reckon - especially if it's to play/experiment with.
Cheers,
Rob.
Oh - PS. The bloke i bought my 505 off also gave me this huge wallet of settings he downloaded off the net. Some of them were really awesome, it's amazing what you can do with simple kit if you spend the time mastering it. As opposed to a lot of people who spend a fortune and havn't got a bloody clue what to do with it.
As i said though, get the one with the expression peddle, definatley worth it i reckon - especially if it's to play/experiment with.
Cheers,
Rob.
Oh - PS. The bloke i bought my 505 off also gave me this huge wallet of settings he downloaded off the net. Some of them were really awesome, it's amazing what you can do with simple kit if you spend the time mastering it. As opposed to a lot of people who spend a fortune and havn't got a bloody clue what to do with it.
These are all good points guys, but if you want a professional setup to gig with then the ME5 is unbeatable.
Now let's be honest about this; when someone advertises an instrument or an amp, or indeed any bit of kit and says "has not been gigged", then that actually means hasn't been thrown into the back of a Transit and everything humped on top of it, hasn't been kicked across the stage in a fit of temper coz there's a loose connection somewhere, hasn't been thrown up on coz you were too pissed at rehearsals, etc.
The thing about the ME5 is that you can do all those things to it and it won't turn a hair.
What's more, it's midi compatable, so you can set up all your changes on the disc and the midi does the lot without you moving a foot, that's very handy.
AND!!, it has a twenty five watt preamp with headphone socket, so you can practice away without disrupting the rest of the house.
Some of the modern stuff might have bang up to date technology, but the build quality is crap, just like cars!!
Now let's be honest about this; when someone advertises an instrument or an amp, or indeed any bit of kit and says "has not been gigged", then that actually means hasn't been thrown into the back of a Transit and everything humped on top of it, hasn't been kicked across the stage in a fit of temper coz there's a loose connection somewhere, hasn't been thrown up on coz you were too pissed at rehearsals, etc.
The thing about the ME5 is that you can do all those things to it and it won't turn a hair.
What's more, it's midi compatable, so you can set up all your changes on the disc and the midi does the lot without you moving a foot, that's very handy.
AND!!, it has a twenty five watt preamp with headphone socket, so you can practice away without disrupting the rest of the house.
Some of the modern stuff might have bang up to date technology, but the build quality is crap, just like cars!!
Yeah digital distortion is pretty vile. Or it was 10 years back
Then again guitars don't really start to sing until you get feedback between the strings and the amp. Unfortunately thats normally at an antisocial level if you live in overcrowded Britain =/
A good valve amp is so much more useful than an fx pedal which will have lots of whizzy effects that you'll never use if you have any taste! Then again its a good deal more money too.
DanH said:
Yeah digital distortion is pretty vile. Or it was 10 years back
Then again guitars don't really start to sing until you get feedback between the strings and the amp. Unfortunately thats normally at an antisocial level if you live in overcrowded Britain =/
A good valve amp is so much more useful than an fx pedal which will have lots of whizzy effects that you'll never use if you have any taste! Then again its a good deal more money too.
Indeed. I had a 40W leslie 147 on my old Hammond. In order to get it sounding great, you had to overdrive the inlet tube which was the majority of the deal, and then get the speaker to overdrive as well. That was really loud.
I always wonder when I hear that some Kev has a 2K rig in his boot, my old hammond was one of the loudest things possible. All at 40W. I regret selling that.
Old stuff always wins the day, which is why it costs a lot more than digiboxes.
I used to have a zoom 9000 about 10 years ago (!). Was good whilst it lasted, although there was always a delay (and brief silence) in switching between effects (IIRC you had to programme in a set of effects into each of 20(?) addresses, then used the pedal board to switch between the addresses). Sadly, it melted its processor after about a year, and was beyond repair. I never bought another one. None of my pedals ever broke.
I've got a vox wah-wah somewhere as well. If your mate wants it, email me.
Just as an afterthought, what's a 1967 AC30 worth these days? (revalved, reverb model, one-model-year-only square badge, case is a bit tatty but original). No it's not for sale. :P
I've got a vox wah-wah somewhere as well. If your mate wants it, email me.
Just as an afterthought, what's a 1967 AC30 worth these days? (revalved, reverb model, one-model-year-only square badge, case is a bit tatty but original). No it's not for sale. :P
Marshalls use 6550 output tubes, if I remember rightly and the bottle shaped ones are the best sounding. If you have a tube shaped one, they have a harsher sound. The tube shaped ones give slightly less output though.
I had a big pile of ECC82A tubes (preamp tubes) and they all sounded different. God knows why but it was god having a stack of different sounds.
The fact is, a guitar isn't a digital instrument and sounds better with "analogue" modification. It's like the difference between a Minimoog and a Korg Monopoly. They are both fat but one is clinical.
I had a big pile of ECC82A tubes (preamp tubes) and they all sounded different. God knows why but it was god having a stack of different sounds.
The fact is, a guitar isn't a digital instrument and sounds better with "analogue" modification. It's like the difference between a Minimoog and a Korg Monopoly. They are both fat but one is clinical.
Gazboy said:
The fact is, a guitar isn't a digital instrument and sounds better with "analogue" modification.
How do you mean?
Analog amps suck because they have hard clipping when you get to the limits of their gain/bandwidth etc. Valves have very soft clipping and it gives you that lovely milky tone, and if you like heavy distortion its a lot more 'musical' than digitial distortion. i.e. you tend to be able to get heavier without descending into harsh noise. Of course this is only relevant when overdriving amps, but that how you get nice crunchy gain/distortion.
There are plenty of digital amps that try to emulate what a valve does, but in the end its not the same. Try a valve amp and you'll never go back.
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