Am I weird - I don't like effects

Flanging_Fred

Horses for courses innit?  The use of fx (or guitars, amps or anything else really) entirely depends on the environment and context.  For instance, I find in my covers band, when I want to use modulation effects, I have to turn them up quite high for them to be effective in the mix at gig volume.  At home those same settings sound crap and far too 'in your face'.  ( note @ICBM 's comment on Boss dirt pedals BTW, I find that to be very true). 

At a jazz/blues type jam session it just sound wrong to have much more than a "make louder for solos" type pedal.  So just go with what feels right to you.

With one caviat.

If you're playing in a room with hard floors, walls and ceilings, I don't care if you're the biggest fuckin' Hank Marvin fan in the world, turn down your BLOODY REVERB PEDAL!

EricTheWeary

I'm sort of developing the idea that effects fall into being either A)for the player or for the audience.Those in A being the subtle variations that help you be 'in the zone' and those in B being the ones other people can tell you are using. Across 90 minutes of playing on a gig I think it's nice to throw in a couple of category B moments just to perk up everyone's ears.

ICBM

Flanging_Fred said:

With one caviat.

If you're playing in a room with hard floors, walls and ceilings, I don't care if you're the biggest fuckin' Hank Marvin fan in the world, turn down your BLOODY REVERB PEDAL!

That reminds me of a gig I did years ago in a college dining hall - the whole mix was drowning in reverb, so I kept turning it down and down until there was none on anything, but it made no difference - awful ringing reverb that made it hard to hear anything clearly. Thinking it must be somehow something wrong with the PA reverb unit feeding back, I turned it off - still just as bad. It was the room. Dreadful gig...

Maynehead

Am I weird for having never played live with any reverb at all? 

Flanging_Fred

Maynehead said:

Am I weird for having never played live with any reverb at all? 

No. It's all gravy.

Sporky

ICBM said:

That reminds me of a gig I did years ago in a college dining hall - the whole mix was drowning in reverb, so I kept turning it down and down until there was none on anything, but it made no difference - awful ringing reverb that made it hard to hear anything clearly. Thinking it must be somehow something wrong with the PA reverb unit feeding back, I turned it off - still just as bad. It was the room. Dreadful gig...

I did an installation one in a room that had such a strong set of modes that if you whistled at about 400Hz  in one of the corners it would ring for 20 seconds.

Any other frequency and anywhere else and it was a normal - if slightly live - room, but that one frequency in that one corner went nuts.

monquixote

I'm not really an FX guy. 

I've tried to be, but it just doesn't really work for me. 

I will say that there is a vast difference between really high quality fx and what you get on most low/mid priced modelling amps.

Drew_TNBD

I'm a big effects guy. Truth be told, I play my amp and my effects more than my guitar!

RocknRollDave

ICBM said:

Flanging_Fred said:

With one caviat.

If you're playing in a room with hard floors, walls and ceilings, I don't care if you're the biggest fuckin' Hank Marvin fan in the world, turn down your BLOODY REVERB PEDAL!

That reminds me of a gig I did years ago in a college dining hall - the whole mix was drowning in reverb, so I kept turning it down and down until there was none on anything, but it made no difference - awful ringing reverb that made it hard to hear anything clearly. Thinking it must be somehow something wrong with the PA reverb unit feeding back, I turned it off - still just as bad. It was the room. Dreadful gig...

Have played a few like that, unfortunately. Go to turn down the reverb on your amp cos somehow it has got knocked and is on full, like a shoegazing band playing in a cavern.....only to find the reverb is actually turned completely off and it is just the room's natural reverb.

Being a wedding band, we find a lot of venues have marble or stone floors and/ or walls and basically couldn't have been designed worse, from an acoustic point of view.

english_bob

Sporky said:
I did an installation one in a room that had such a strong set of modes that if you whistled at about 400Hz  in one of the corners it would ring for 20 seconds.

Any other frequency and anywhere else and it was a normal - if slightly live - room, but that one frequency in that one corner went nuts.

Your job sounds fascinating. I'd love to follow you around for a day. I appreciate that the feeling might not be mutual.

Sassafras

Sporky said:

ICBM said:

That reminds me of a gig I did years ago in a college dining hall - the whole mix was drowning in reverb, so I kept turning it down and down until there was none on anything, but it made no difference - awful ringing reverb that made it hard to hear anything clearly. Thinking it must be somehow something wrong with the PA reverb unit feeding back, I turned it off - still just as bad. It was the room. Dreadful gig...

I did an installation one in a room that had such a strong set of modes that if you whistled at about 400Hz  in one of the corners it would ring for 20 seconds.

Any other frequency and anywhere else and it was a normal - if slightly live - room, but that one frequency in that one corner went nuts.

That's what ruined a Roger Whittaker gig for me.

Sporky

english_bob said:

Your job sounds fascinating. I'd love to follow you around for a day. I appreciate that the feeling might not be mutual.

Would you help carry stuff?

Most days don't bring up anything quite as good as that, but there have been some really interesting spaces.

The absolute weirdest one was a corporate boardroom that had been built in (judging by the decor) the early eighties. It had a big oval desk, and over the desk the ceiling arched up by about a foot or so in a curve that aped the shape of the central part of the desk.

If you sat across the table from someone you could each hear each other perfectly normally. Nothing odd at all; a nicely damped room, not too much external noise, all good.

Stand up and lean forwards so that your head was under the arched ceiling and everything went really, really odd. The arch wasn't far off a perfect parabolic reflector, and the centre of the table was polished hardwood, so you got these incredible (and I mean that literally) echoes going on - fluttering and shimmering and chattering. It was amazing - at first I assumed it was a joke they'd set up with mics and speakers and DSP, but it really was just the acoustics. If you dropped a coin onto the middle bit of the table it sounded like thunder and it went on for a good ten seconds.

I was quite sad when I solved it so it didn't do that any more. It was like demolishing a modern wonder of the world.

A lot of modern buildings have awful acoustics because architects seem to be very into exposed polished concrete (it has good thermal characteristics) and glass and steel. It looks nice in photos but it's grim to work in, and if there isn't sufficient acoustic treatment you tend to see a lot of people going ill with stress.

DesVegas

I personally am ALL about the effects, especially phasers .. love that swoosh .. and that into a delay ... beautiful .. then kick in a tonebender .. hnnnnnngggg!! THEN put all of that through a variable speed square wave tremolo to make it all pulse slow, then fast, then slow again.

EricTheWeary

The Guildhall in Coventry.Large, high roofed building with very few sift furnishings. at the back of the stage was a tapestry probably 8' tall and twice as long but in a huge glass case. The reverb made it difficult to hear your original note. Mare.

RocknRollDave said:

ICBM said:

Flanging_Fred said:

With one caviat.

If you're playing in a room with hard floors, walls and ceilings, I don't care if you're the biggest fuckin' Hank Marvin fan in the world, turn down your BLOODY REVERB PEDAL!

That reminds me of a gig I did years ago in a college dining hall - the whole mix was drowning in reverb, so I kept turning it down and down until there was none on anything, but it made no difference - awful ringing reverb that made it hard to hear anything clearly. Thinking it must be somehow something wrong with the PA reverb unit feeding back, I turned it off - still just as bad. It was the room. Dreadful gig...

Have played a few like that, unfortunately. Go to turn down the reverb on your amp cos somehow it has got knocked and is on full, like a shoegazing band playing in a cavern.....only to find the reverb is actually turned completely off and it is just the room's natural reverb.

Being a wedding band, we find a lot of venues have marble or stone floors and/ or walls and basically couldn't have been designed worse, from an acoustic point of view.

Sporky

Thing is, a lot of those spaces are really good acoustically - but for choral work, not for bands. Solo harp or cello or similar can work too, but anything complex and it's mush. They were designed (or rather the general arrangement emerged) specifically for vocals.

WarpedSounds

Bit weird to declare this in an FX group

WarpedSounds

DesVegas said:

I personally am ALL about the effects, especially phasers .. love that swoosh .. and that into a delay ... beautiful .. then kick in a tonebender .. hnnnnnngggg!! THEN put all of that through a variable speed square wave tremolo to make it all pulse slow, then fast, then slow again.

You'll do fer me, cocker

BintyTwanger77

Yesterday, played straight into the amp, no effects, bit of reverb on the amp, it was fantastic. Played for way longer than I usually do.

Don't know why I do this to myself.