Keeping it simple...

hotpickups

Is it just me or does everyone go through a phase of trying various pedals ongoingly and then always going back to basics like guitar - amp - guitar volume knob? I’m not talking about modulations etc (even those in moderation though) or even pedals like fuzzes (love my Veteran) but I just feel all these ODs and distortions we don’t really need them if you know how to work or enhance ones own kit/amps? It is fun though buying or trying new gear but for that sound in my head it’s just guitar and a naturally overdriving amp with some delay or reverb. Sometimes I just feel I want to get rid of all the unnecessary stuff and bring it back to basics. Even lose the Veteran? Time will tell

Do others feel that sometimes? Lose this tone search thang and just bloody play

Teetonetal

Searching for tone is a bloody stupid concept. I buy pedals because they are fun. They change the way I play and write. Running after the perfect sound is just a long road to unhappiness. Even when you find it someone then puts an 100 year old sm57 in front of your amp into a shit pa... or worse asks you to Di !

hotpickups

Teetonetal said:

Searching for tone is a bloody stupid concept. I buy pedals because they are fun. They change the way I play and write. Running after the perfect sound is just a long road to unhappiness. Even when you find it someone then puts an 100 year old sm57 in front of your amp into a shit pa... or worse asks you to Di !

Yep totally get your logic @Teetonetal . Which after skipping through the TPS video today (it's what I usually do now) it just seems pointless. Unless you after a certain sound/Modulation or in the market for a new pedal of course. I think I've heard most of the sounds and I'm not that fussed tbh but yep I do get carried away with the buying of new gear and that's got to stop because I'm basically happy with my core sound now and I can't really afford to. Usually end up selling due to over spending and recoiling from it and as mentioned happy with my sound anyway LOL 

Luminous

I know exactly what you mean, I have 2 approaches.
Guitar as sound source into pedal modular madness. or
Tubescreamer---reverb

CarpeDiem

I've tried various Line 6 units, but found I had to re-balance the levels too often at band volume. I now use a wah, overdrive, and boost along with reverb from the amp. I find I'm getting better tone now as I'm using the guitar controls more. I'm aware that there are some excellent amp/effects simulators on the market, but a simpler more visual setup currently works better for me.

tone1

Bit of gain and Reverb and I'm happy 

Lestratcaster

I'm very straightforward with my sound, clean/dirty. One switch for both sounds and that's about it. The only pedals I have on my board are a tuner, a noisegate and a tubescreamer. I'm not a big user of effects as I don't wanna tapdance every chorus or whatever. I'm a straight up chord rhythm guy in most of the bands I've been in. Also if there's a problem in your rig its most likely your pedalboard.

slacker

It really depends on the on application. I bought the archtop in my signature so I could practice at home with an electric string gauge and not plug in. At the moment it's my main guitar and the only difference is that I use an amp live. 

I did many years on acoustic only so I dont have a problem with straight to amp or DI and cleans only. 

However the other project I have uses a lot of sounds I need clean and dirt so there's od and then for certain songs I use a trem or pitchshifter or Mel9 for strings, and reverb and delay for Hank sounds. 

I'll use a board if I need it and not when I dont. Sometimes I'll run a clean boost permanently into the amp or a compressor. 

One thing about boards is that pedals have off switches. I tend to buy pedals and keep them. I bought a Fuzz Factory in 2000. I still have it and barely use it. But if I need fuzz. Same with the Keeley Comp. 

Pedals are tools.

Sassafras

I think today's guitarists are going for simplicity. Just a few bits of kit like Helix into Fractal into Kemper. Really pared to the bone.

hotpickups

slacker said:

It really depends on the on application. I bought the archtop in my signature so I could practice at home with an electric string gauge and not plug in. At the moment it's my main guitar and the only difference is that I use an amp live. 

I did many years on acoustic only so I dont have a problem with straight to amp or DI and cleans only. 

However the other project I have uses a lot of sounds I need clean and dirt so there's od and then for certain songs I use a trem or pitchshifter or Mel9 for strings, and reverb and delay for Hank sounds. 

I'll use a board if I need it and not when I dont. Sometimes I'll run a clean boost permanently into the amp or a compressor. 

One thing about boards is that pedals have off switches. I tend to buy pedals and keep them. I bought a Fuzz Factory in 2000. I still have it and barely use it. But if I need fuzz. Same with the Keeley Comp. 

Pedals are tools.

They are indeed tools. Sometimes one has to sell some to buy new ones. Always kills me when I have to do that. So maybe I don't accumulate in future lol

skunkwerx

I've kind of almost got my board sorted... kind of. 

Its guitar into tu-3, into oc-3, into tone city angel wing, into katana 50. 

For clean I have a clean channel on the amp with some delay and reverb from its built in effects, and i'll use the angel wing if I want, or back the amps delay and reverb off if its too much. 

For dirt I use the amps footswitch to go to my distortion channel which is maxed, and I'll use the oc-3 for certain sounds with that. 

In hindsight I should have got the katana 100 to have 4 channels to play with, and that would have done me nicely. 

1 clean as a whistle channel with optional angel wing chorus. 

1 clean with tonnes of reverb and delay, 

1 rhythm metal channel, all the distortion and slightly scooped. 

1 lead ish channel, again most of the distortion and more mids but with reverb. 

I could buy a katana 100, which would be preferable. 

Or I could buy a distortion pedal and a reverb pedal, and just use the katana 50's 2 channels on clean. But that route involves more pedals and the need for an isolated power supply. No doubt it also involves pedal noise issues and more hassle than just buying the more flexible amp! But the more pedals sounds like more fun, should it all work haha! + it makes for something more cool to look at..

As always, the journey continues!  

slacker

hotpickups said:

slacker said:

It really depends on the on application. I bought the archtop in my signature so I could practice at home with an electric string gauge and not plug in. At the moment it's my main guitar and the only difference is that I use an amp live. 

I did many years on acoustic only so I dont have a problem with straight to amp or DI and cleans only. 

However the other project I have uses a lot of sounds I need clean and dirt so there's od and then for certain songs I use a trem or pitchshifter or Mel9 for strings, and reverb and delay for Hank sounds. 

I'll use a board if I need it and not when I dont. Sometimes I'll run a clean boost permanently into the amp or a compressor. 

One thing about boards is that pedals have off switches. I tend to buy pedals and keep them. I bought a Fuzz Factory in 2000. I still have it and barely use it. But if I need fuzz. Same with the Keeley Comp. 

Pedals are tools.

They are indeed tools. Sometimes one has to sell some to buy new ones. Always kills me when I have to do that. So maybe I don't accumulate in future lol

The trick is to buy the right pedal first and keep it. Next is having spent 200 on a wah pedal not using it all the time. I've got most pedals covered but mainly use overdrive and delay. 

Ive lost count of how many overdrives I went through when I first started playing electric guitar. Now I have 4 but each works in a slightly different way with enough variety to combat boredom. I just change the pedal out for a week and end up changing back. 

xDottore

I have two boards; the first is the one I mostly use as I am trying to play super clean and precise (necessary for Congolese guitar which I am studying), so this is just a Sonic Stomp clone, chorus (usually off), delay and that's it. 

Then there's the Arsing About Board, which has all sorts of fun things on it and which I keep swapping about and re-arranging. Overdrives, compressors, Strymon Deco and Flint, choruses, a CT5 delay pedal (which is just mad) etc. Fun but not really 'necessary' for much of my playing. I'm not much on distortion so that doesn’t feature much on my board though I have a Vick Audio pedal coming in soon.

shaunm

@hotpickups I am like you in that I sell pedals to buy pedals. I'd love to have draws full of different stomp boxes but I just can't justify doing that. If I'm not using it, I don't need it. 

I will say that before I went into the studio to do our last album I bought quite a few pedals just to have tones on hand. They have nearly all been sold now other than my "keepers". 

An interesting thing regarding tone. I've had four amps in the last year. An 18 watt Marshall type, a 5e3, JCM800 and a Fender Supersonic. My band asked me why I keep changing as I sound exactly the same regardless of which amp I'm using. When I listen back to recordings, they are not wrong. Even with a full pedalboard or straight in I sound like me. It's the notes and vibrato etc that gets me my tone. Pedals just do what they are meant to, add an effect to my sound. 

underdog

I'm a simple guy I know, but I've never understood the logic of spending on a good amp to stick an OD pedal in to it. I know I'm wrong in many people's eyes but get you amp as distorted as you want with guitar on 10, and then back off the volume for everything else

shaunm

underdog said:

I'm a simple guy I know, but I've never understood the logic of spending on a good amp to stick an OD pedal in to it. I know I'm wrong in many people's eyes but get you amp as distorted as you want with guitar on 10, and then back off the volume for everything else

I could do this when I used 18 watt amps but now I'm using a 60watt amp it's a little harder to do without drowning out the band as the amp doesn't break up till it's way too loud. 

Im ok with that though, I got rid of the 18 watt amps because I couldn't get a clean tone live and I struggled to cut through in the band as we've two guitarists. 

Live I think it is less important for me to get amp overdrive, I do whatever is easiest for the band. In the studio it's totally different, it's all about getting the right tone and that usually means pushing the amp hard to me.

slacker

underdog said:

I'm a simple guy I know, but I've never understood the logic of spending on a good amp to stick an OD pedal in to it. I know I'm wrong in many people's eyes but get you amp as distorted as you want with guitar on 10, and then back off the volume for everything else

Imho overdrives are a compromise.If you play in a classic rock covers band or an originals band where you dictate how you sound turned down cleans are fine.

If you join a covers band where you are expected to nail the sounds of various styles you need cleans as well as dirt.

I use over drives because I havnt found a multi channel amp that did the cleans and dirt I liked. The closest I found was a bogner goldfinger.

My favourite gain sound is a zvex nano on full with a bad cat unleash for volume. However taking those two and a cab as well as my main amp opposed to using an overdrive on a pedalboard I'm already taking out? Pedal please.

Voxman

I find ny Vox Tonelabs give me everything I need for classic rock and blues. I tend to just use the basic amp model eg the JCM800 is really versatile for zz top, led zep etc, the bassman and jtm45 for blues, plexi for who/free type crunch. I might add a little tube screamer but with a little tape echo delay and spring reverb, those models pretty much cover most of what I do, plus a blackface for clean stuff 

Alnico

I use a Marshall code 25 to give me emulations of whatever amp I feel like and then a Boss GT100.
That sounds like the antithesis of what the OP is talking about but that's not how I use it.
I have a metric ton of effects at hand and that subdues any need for what I think I have to have because it's all there but in reality I don't use a lot in each patch. 
With the GT I don't need a buffer, there's no patch leads (except for one that goes to the footswitch that's assigned to remotely activate the tuner), the volume pedal is also a wah or any parameter change I want it to be and because I've got control over everything I can be as subtle as I like.
The sound quality is amazing and I've got stereo anytime I want it.
And a built in looper.
And it's built like a tank and really easy to navigate with big screens that tell me what's going on.
It's transformed how I look at the whole 'Tone' Thing and how I approach building a sound.

Just because there's a lot on tap doesn't mean I use it all, it's just there for if and when I want it and often each effect I do use is subtle.
There's 200 user patches so I can have 4 with just varying degrees of one effect and each sound is one button press away.

Even if I ran this into a different amp it's still the most useful and neatest effects board I've ever used and I'll never go back to a board full of pedals again, big or small.
I got so sick of patch leads and power supplies and this just solves it all and sounds amazing.

I don't understand the often heard phrase "Option paralysis".
To me it's just "Don't need anything else, it's all here if I want it".

It's helped my playing become far more about enjoying the sound I've got under my strings and way less about tweaking. That sounds backwards but it's true. The GT is dead easy to program and then the patches are set and there to use, just get on with playing and never worry about not having a certain sound or needing a new pedal.

clarkefan

Great post!

Cabicular

Nope
ive always had pedals
i had a tube driver a Yamaha chorus and a boss ps delay which I gigged for years with
various analogue boards until the M13 came out and that with a wah and a couple of expression pedals did me for 6or 7 years
had a brief flirtation with an FX8 before going for a Helix
I really don't like being without my bag of tricks