Gigging/Function band Multi FX users - Help!

Travisthedog

After a few years in the wilderness my new band is Looking a feeling good but as I am in uncharted waters of playing lead/rhythm and singing I’m finding that the usual river dance across the pedal board is one step too far for me plus adjusting my one delay pedal between don’t you forget about me and then uprising etc is also a fookin pain in the arse.

I have tried a few multifx over the years on previous bands but as I was only playing guitar they just seemed like too much effort to set up patches and the like, but having seen our bassist and his little HX stomp fly between octave bass for sledgehammer to muses bass sound in uprising, I’m thinking I have to possibly go down this route and just suck it up with the programming part of it 

What I would really like is any vocalist/guitarists to tell me what they are using and how they use it and whether it makes life easy from the point of view of going from performance to performance.

Id likely keep my drive pedal but for all the other sounds, it needs to be stuff I can simply click and it’s there ready to go 

I know I’m a bit behind the times with this but it seems to matter now whereas it never used to!!

thanks 

Travisthedog

And it needs to be absolutely 100% idiot proof 

CarpeDiem

I’m not a singer, but I play lead and rhythm. I’ve tried various Line 6 multi fx units and never really got on with them. I now use a Boss MS-3, with drive pedals in two of the loops. I’ve pre-programmed the footswitches so I can easily switch from clean/slight crunch/heavy crunch/lead (with boost). For certain songs which use specific effects, I’ve pre/programmed separate patches, some where I can toggle between two settings. This works for me as it means I have fewer chances to make a mistake by stepping on the wrong switch. 

monquixote

They are great, but don't go silly

People get into the idea that they need to have 4 patches for every single song. 

I used to gig with a multi FX with 4 patches total.

It's really nice to be able to set up that the delay comes on when you hit your lead boost etc. 

You can also have very similar sounds on each patch, you don't need to go nuts, or just don't use patches at all and stick within a scene and use a bit of automation so multiple pedals change at once. 

Musicwolf

On the occasions where I have subjected audiences to unnecessary pain and suffering, i.e. I've sung, I've adopted the following;

2 patches (i.e. rhythm and lead) and I've used the expression pedal to move between the two.  With the Kemper this meant setting the expression to 'morph' and with my Helix and have two amp paths (one rhythm the other lead) and I bring in the second path with the expression pedal as a volume pedal.

One nice big pedal that you can even rest your foot on.

TheBigDipper

The Boss MS-3 is pretty good for its age and tech. As a starter MFX/switcher it's not a bad shout.

I'm personally running a Boss ES-5, with three drives and one MFX (half an H90) before the preamp and the other half of the H90 after it. I'm using MIDI from the ES-5  to load presets on the H90 and one of the drives (a Kernom Ridge). I sing most of the songs, am the only guitarist (we're a trio) and just don't have time to tap dance any more. 

I'd also suggest trying an HX FX if you're sticking with your amp, but I think the MS-3 is a better bet unless you actually intend to start using more exotic effects than the ones you already own. 

LionAquaLooper

Was just talking about this in another thread.  But I've found fly rigs to be extremely easy to use, completely idiot proof as you said, easy to tweak on the "fly", and won't break the bank.  Granted you don't get 100+ FX models in there, but that's the beauty of it.  Mine is a Nux Cerberus but there are loads of such fly rigs out there for cheaper.  The Cerberus is one of the few where you can save patches though. 

robinbowes

The trick is not to go silly.

Replicate what you have now but with the changes on one switch.

I used a Helix when I was gigging. I wasn’t singing (well, just backing) but I also ran the PA, so the Helix was great as it was plug and play and had all the sounds I needed.

I’ve also in the past used a Gigrig switcher with 10 pedals, which also worked well, but was a lot more to carry as I needed an amp as well as the (large, heavy) pedal board.

HTH.

Roland

The trick here is simplifying what Drew called the workflow: making it very simple to operate between and during songs. How complicated it is behind the scenes depends on how much complexity you can cope with. 

If you want song specific delay times then you either need song specific patches, or you need to tap in the tempo as the drummer counts you in. (You also need a drummer with a) a good sense of timing who b) doesn’t drift.) I’ve done both depending on the drummer. 

Travisthedog

General consensus then - easiest MFX for live use ?

I know - like “what’s the best overdrive?”

thomasw88

I'd go for a Boss DD500 or Strymon Timeline, and a couple of drive pedals.   If you absolutely need modulation then get a Strymon Mobius. Likewise with a  wah... 

Lets be honest, that'll cover just about everything you'll ever do.  Setup up patches on the DD500/Mobius.  You'll have a patxh with Tremolo/Chorus, and maybe one with flanger/chorus or tremolo or something else.  In my covers band I cover everything with that combo..      You can turn the drives on/off as you need.  You're a driive nut so even if you do get a multi effects you'll still have a bunch of drives hanging off the end of it..

Multi effects wise. The easiest is actually the Boss GX100 which I'm selling. easy to program and sounds good.  Doesn't sound as good as DD500/Mobius/drives but its not far off.

I gigged an HX effects in one band for about a year. It was ok, but I was constantly tweaking .and never really happy with it. The snapshots never seemed to quite work in a band situation for me anyway.  I've had a HX stomp which was a nightmare for me in a band situation, not enough buttons and too much to remember. Also had  a fractal FX8 which sounded amazing at home and shit in a band situation, and the Boss GT1000 (full fat and core)  (great sounding, and the routing was fantastic, but a bit of a mare to setup sounds.  Also had various other multi effects over the years.  Genuinely the GX100 is the easiest to use/setup and is nearly there but as I said it's not quite as good as individual pedals.

LionAquaLooper

Travisthedog said:

General consensus then - easiest MFX for live use ?

I know - like “what’s the best overdrive?”

Gotta be the HX Effects for me. The scribble scripts and touch switches are game changers. 

sev112

You lot are far too good in this approach for me

when I was asked to do a solo, I used to just turn up, and kept the same tone from start to finish  
(I used to use a Joyo American and a reverb pedal, And then just turn the reverb right up on Wicked Game during the encore ) 

Travisthedog

@thomasw88 - how does the boss behave into an amp. Can you 4CM it?

thomasw88

Travisthedog said:

@thomasw88 - how does the boss behave into an amp. Can you 4CM it?

It’s decent and works with 4cm. The preamps are actually really nice and you can turn the cab sim off and use them as a drive pedal.   Can also switch amp channels with it although I’ve not done that, but there is a jack out for that. The effects are all fine, delays are decent, modulations all good, reverbs nice.    Not as nice as the 500 pedals but perfectly usable.  The touch screen is really good and easy to use.

the gt1000 is more flexible with outputs, multiple effects loop but it’s harder to use.  

Travisthedog

That’s my weekend taken care of then with endless YouTube videos of the boss 

Roland

Travisthedog said:

General consensus then - easiest MFX for live use ?

I know - like “what’s the best overdrive?”

Depends on whether you want flexibility to switch things in and out on a whim, or keep the performance simple by stepping through pre-configured settings for Intro, Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Solo, Next song.

I still think the main driver here is whether you want song specific settings, such as delay tempo. If you’re happy with one long and one short delay (until someone decides to put something else on the setlist) then just get a second delay pedal.

monquixote

I think Boss effects are better but Line6 UI if nicer.

I've had both and you can't really go wrong.

vasselmeyer

I like the Boss Multifx. I use a full-fat GT-1000 but none of my patches are particularly complex. I have replicated it using the MS-3 for gigs & rehearsals when I can't be arsed with the GT-1000 and IEMs or I'm using someone else's amp.

On the MS-3 you can get 8 sounds per bank (the patch and a CURNUM assignment) so I tend to use buttons 1-4 as verse, chorus, solo & "other". I can change the entire sound with one push if I want to. If you want to use it in "pedalboard" mode, each patch can give five sounds and the switch can act like a single pedal.

TheBigDipper

Travisthedog said:

General consensus then - easiest MFX for live use ?

I know - like “what’s the best overdrive?”

Back to workflow analysis, I think. That will inform your choice. My advice would be this... don't try and pick based on the features you think you might like in the future, it will only muddle your thinking. Focus on what you need to do right now.

I'll try and explain what I do - as I seem to have found something that works for me, and it might work for you, @Travisthedog ; I'm the guitarist/singer in an originals-only trio, singing most of the songs and have very little time "off mic" to look down and pick a specific footswitch to change my sounds.

We play 10-20 songs per gig (depending on the slot/time available). and none of us are trying to replicate well-known sounds from well-known songs. 

In performance, I've got two presets per song defined on the ES-5. One is my main sound for the song and the other usually a solo sound. We pick the setlist in advance and I order the presets on the ES-5 so everything flows in sequence. 

Because the ES-5 has 5 footswitches and is organised into banks, I load the presets for the first song into FS1 and FS2 of the first bank. I load song 2 into FS3/4 and then song 3 into FS1/2 of the next bank, etc. FS5 (on the bottom right of the switcher) is used to change presets and nothing else. In the preset loaded in FS1, it selects the next preset (which is the FS2 solo sound). In the preset loaded in FS2 (the solo sound) it selects the previous preset (the main sound). 

So, playing the song, I don't need to look down because the only footswitch I use in mid song is FS5. I also set the ES-5 up so switches activate on release, not on press, so I can find the switch early, press-and-hold, then release exactly on time to change presets. Before that, I used a similar approach but used an external footswitch (a Boss FS-6) where one button selected the next preset and the other the previous one. That could be defined on a global basis (which was easier to program) but took up floor space I often didn't have onstage and i needed to know which button I wanted to press every time. 

When the song is finished, I either press FS3 to load the preset for the next song or press the "Next bank" switch and then FS1 to select the preset in FS1. 

I don't actually have that many sounds. Lots of my presets are identical - a clean amp with nothing on the H90 and a tiny bit of hair in the tone from a drive pedal that I set and forget, just open the loop it's on when I want that tone. But I don't try and remember what tone I use for what song when I'm actually performing - I just set up multiple copies of that combination in the order that they need to be in. I'll just name them "Songtitle V" for the verse preset and "Songtitle S" for the solo preset. 

If I need to change a sound at the venue (maybe something gets lost in the band mix in that room), I change the effects pedal settings but never need to change the switcher presets. If my clean sound needs a bit more mids from the mild overdrive pedal, that's where I'll change things, just the once,  and every preset using it will pick that up. 

Hope this helps. The HX FX or the MS-3 can both support my approach - I just prefer to have external effects (with MIDI, where possible) rather than the built-in ones on the unit. I owned an HX FX for 18 months and it was OK but not inspiring. I'm  very happy with what I have now and suspect you'd be fine with the MS-3 or an HX FX if your workflow is likely to be similar to mine. 

As an aside - if you play in the sort of covers band where you change the set order mid-gig, then scrabbling around to find the next song is difficult on any switcher where you predefine the setlist. There are iPad apps for managing lyrics and chords, etc. which will send MIDI when you select the song. I know some people will scroll through their iPad, tap on the song and it send MIDI to the switcher to load the correct presets. It's one more thing to go wrong and/or take with you, obv., but it's quicker and looks better than scrabbling on the floor to find your next sound. 

ESBlonde

I’m in 4 or 5 bands/projects at the moment and do the odd depp in between. I have an effects board that must me intuitive, simple and versatile enough for whatever comes up. Sounds programmed for each song ain’t gonna happen!
I use a line6 HX fx as the core but in stomp mode. Flange, chorus, comp, drive, echo and boost. I supplement with a crybaby, two low gain drives and a boss tremolo. I also have a Behringer fuzz tucked on the corner but tend to stack drives. 

I find it gives me enough ‘colours’ to cover a wide variety of material.