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Pedals and what they sound like


Steven Tari

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Starting on my second CD, I've been looking into new sounds. The first amps I owned had Reverb and Distortion built into them. The only pedal I had was a Wah-Wah. But looking into new sounds started getting me confused. Some same sounds with different names. So doing research I found 1 persons look at pedals I thought was inlightning.

 

There are lots of different types of pedals that can can give the guitar different sounds. Some of the more popular:

 

Distortion pedals: they make the guitar sound noisy and spikey. Similar names to these pedals are "overdrive" and "crunch" pedals. Just about all hard rock and metal guitarists use these pedals to create their sounds.

 

Waa-waa: As you can guess, this is the pedal that you can use (by pumping it up and down like a car's brake pedal) to make the guitar "talk" as if it saying "waa waa waa".

 

Chorus pedal: a chorus pedal makes the guitar sound thicker, as if there were more than one guitar playing at the same time.

 

Flange (or flanger) pedal: a special type of chorus pedal, this gives the guitar a "spaced-out", washed-out type of sound.

 

Delay pedal: this causes the guitar's sound to be delayed by some amount- you can use it to create repeated and echo-like lines (such as in the opening to the song "Welcome to the Jungle")

 

EQ pedal: you can use this to change the tone of the guitar by emphasizing the high parts or the low parts of the guitar sound.

 

Compression pedal: compressing the guitar's sound makes it fatter and have less contrast between soft notes and loud notes. These pedals are more typically used by rhythm guitarists and bassists than lead players.

 

Amp simulation pedals: These can be used to make it sound like you are playing out of a certain type of guitar and amp combination (such as a Fender Strat through a Marshall Stack) when you are using a different guitar and amp combination.

 

Most guitarists own at least one (if not more) of these pedals, and these pedals can be combined (such as combining a distortion pedal with an EQ pedal) to create unique guitar sounds.

 

Finally, there are multi-pedal systems (like the Pod from Line-6) which can recreate many of these pedals sounds and combine them in further ways. (These systems can sometimes be cheaper and easier to set up than buying 6 different types of pedals and having to deal with replacing batteries and plugging in all the wires.)

 

Bottom line: good guitar pedals can cost from $50 to several hundred dollars (for the more complicated pedal systems). You might want to try going to your local music store, picking some pedals withing your budget, and trying them out so see if that's the sound you want.

 

I also found on different web sites were different named pedals were compared and talked about. my favorite is Tone King.com. What are your favorite pedals and what kind of music do you use them for.

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I don't get into pedals too much as I like a natural sound for the most part. I used to use a Dunlop Wah pedal when playing songs like Cream's "White Room" or Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Needle and the Spoon". Sometimes I would leave the Wah pedal in the on position and try for a Schenker sound. Nowadays I use an MXR carbon copy analog delay pedal. When I use it I set the mix so the delay is barely audible, almost dry.

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My three favorite have been the Reverb, Distortion, And Wah-Wah.

I just think any tone sounds parched without reverb. Now I'm thinking of it as a steak (well done connected with no reverb?)... damnit I'm hungry.

 

Reverb is my favorite effect hands down, followed by distortion :)

 

Only pedal I've ever owned is a looper.. Once I get some cash in my pockets I'll be able to try some out, but for now I'm content with the cable :P

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I love to use pedals to get my overdriven sounds. I run my 18 watt pretty clean - like a "Wind Cries Mary" tone and then use pedals to get the dirt. These some are the ones I have used recently...

 

Butler Tube Driver - killer for singing Strat tones, not as good for humbuckers, IMO

Fulltone OCD - excellent all around for both single coil and humbucking pups

Lovepedal Eternity - one of my current favorites, sounds great with all my guitars

Lovepedal COT50 - a great booster. I use it in front of everything else

Tubular Mods TS-9 - my own modded TubeScreamer - best sounding dirt pedal on my board

Lovepedal Dragon Fuzz - only use this to get a Hendrixy fuzz thing - generally more of an overdrive guy

 

I don't use much chorus/flange/delay etc. I'll use a little delay just to fatten things up sometimes. I do use a Lovepedal Pickle Vibe to get a Hendrixy univibe sound, though I am looking into a couple others to replace it.

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I love to use pedals to get my overdriven sounds. I run my 18 watt pretty clean - like a "Wind Cries Mary" tone and then use pedals to get the dirt. These some are the ones I have used recently...

 

Butler Tube Driver - killer for singing Strat tones, not as good for humbuckers, IMO

Fulltone OCD - excellent all around for both single coil and humbucking pups

Lovepedal Eternity - one of my current favorites, sounds great with all my guitars

Lovepedal COT50 - a great booster. I use it in front of everything else

Tubular Mods TS-9 - my own modded TubeScreamer - best sounding dirt pedal on my board

Lovepedal Dragon Fuzz - only use this to get a Hendrixy fuzz thing - generally more of an overdrive guy

 

I don't use much chorus/flange/delay etc. I'll use a little delay just to fatten things up sometimes. I do use a Lovepedal Pickle Vibe to get a Hendrixy univibe sound, though I am looking into a couple others to replace it.

 

Lovepedal are making some great pedals these days

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I've got a BOSS ME80 (multi effects) I sold 4 separate stomp boxes to buy it and have not looked back. I really don't follow the logic that "oh no man, just buy separate ones because you can combine things so much better" etc etc... makes no god dam sense to me.

 

The benefits with a multi effects is that you get some many different sounds which you'd never take a chance on other ways - for instance

 

Octave - drops a note much deeper behind each one you play, it's like a Bass playing perfectly along with you, it adds beef and power to a distorted sound

Harmonizer - the exact tonal opposite to octave, plays a note higher than the one you're playing, a popular old school metal effect, you can change it so it's one note or many notes higher, I could be wrong, but I think you can here it in the first few notes of "hate to feel" by Alice In Chains

Tremalo - has a stop start cutting sound, that pulses on and off, can be sped up to a "tremmer" or can be slowed to sound like you're strumming (without strumming) like in between the eyes by love battery

 

There's also Vibrato and many more

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I've got a BOSS ME80 (multi effects) I sold 4 separate stomp boxes to buy it and have not looked back. I really don't follow the logic that "oh no man, just buy separate ones because you can combine things so much better" etc etc... makes no god dam sense to me.

 

 

Multi effects units are handy in many situations. I have a few of them. But many of them suffer from "ok at all things but great at none" problem. The Boss units are nice but they will never sound like my TC Electronic SCF chorus pedal of an Electro Harmonix POG.

 

Thankfully one size does not fit all and effects systems and stomp boxes are small so you can have lots of them.

 

It's been a while since I pulled this out.

 

2010.jpg

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Lately I've been playing a lot of bass so I've just been using a lot of bass friendly fuzz. My favorite fuzz for bass that I've tried so far is the Devi Ever Soda Meiser.

 

For guitar my main pedals are a smallsound/bigsound **** overdrive, Devi Ever Torns Peaker and/or Zvex Fuzz Factory, and a Strymon El Capistan.

 

But I have a pretty good little pedal arsenal to choose from I just kinda grab whatever I'm feelin like. Usually just a fuzz, overdrive, and maybe a delay.

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