Pedal geeks i need u (help jjjusten make decisions about awesome pedals for his store)

Before I get into this, I want to say that I don't really care much for so-called "transparent" drive pedals. I want tone coloration. I want the pedal to be noticed when it's engaged. If I want a clean boost, I'll either turn my amp or my guitar up.

In the past little while, I've been really into two absolutely classic drive pedals: the Ibanez TS808 Tube Screamer and the Boss BD-2 Blues Driver.

The Tube Screamer was picked up because I found that many of the drive boxes I've liked in the past have been labeled as either Tube Screamer clones, or Tube Screamer-inspired pedals. And that thing is just super dope. I guess there are variations within each generation of the pedal, but I'm totally fine with how this one sounds.

The BD-2 is actually a reacquisition for me, as it's the Waza version. When I first bought a Waza Blues Driver a couple years ago, I did so simply based on the fact that I knew Robert Smith used one of the originals frequently throughout the 90s and I was chasing his tone. At that point, the only other drive pedal I'd ever owned was an MXR Prime Distortion, which I did not like (it's essentially MXR's version of the DS-1). I knew absolutely dick about drive pedals and was playing through a bass practice amp, so no amount of awesome pedals would really do much for how mushy that amp made me sound. Fast forward to now and I've got a better understanding of what my needs and expectations for drive boxes are and an amp that I very much love and the Blues Driver came back onto my radar as an article of interest. Saw the Waza one in the used case at Guitar Center and didn't even think twice. I remember, in my initial experience with the pedal, I did not find the difference between the "Standard" and "Custom" modes offered by the Waza version to be that distinct from each other. Again, running into a crap amp, I have no idea what I expected. Now, the difference between them is clear as day (and the "Custom" mode is the money one). Overall, it's a much more diverse pedal than I remember. It can do everything from a clean, transparent boost, to a totally dynamic crunch. I can honestly say now that it's one of my favorite drive pedals.

All that, and I'm still super into that MXR Custom Shop Shin-Juku Drive. That thing is kind of my ideal type of drive pedal. Super dark, super smooth. Just lovely.

My two favorite distortions (excluding od/Fuzz/amp sims despite the deeeeeply blurry lines there) at the moment are the Caroline Wave Cannon MK II and the criminally under praised DOD Gunslinger.

Oh shit, and the Greenhouse Nobrainer. And the Greer Southland (yeah they call it an overdrive, whatever). And the Old Blood Noise Endeavors Fault.

That's it. For now. Probably.

I love a Blues Driver. Been using it a lot for evil mandolin.

But must reapectfully quibble on this:

I don't really care much for so-called "transparent" drive pedals. I want tone coloration. I want the pedal to be noticed when it's engaged. If I want a clean boost, I'll either turn my amp or my guitar up.

For me the point of clean boost - I generally use an EH LPB-1 - is that I can do it with my feet. I am a live performance guy. I can't very well walk over to the amp midsong, turn it up to play a solo, then walk back and turn it back down when the solo is over. And yes I know the knob is there on the guitar but I lack the coordination to turn it up exactly the right amount, then turn it down exactly the right amount, all while still playing.

Overdrives add distortion when they add volume - I need the aviliry to turn a clean sound up, but have it remain clean.

avirly = ability

Though it might mean something like partying with Avril Lavigne.

Plus clean boosts can drive pedals like fuzzes and muffs into very cool sonic territory. Gotta have that boost!

I like a comp for that too. boost + sustaiiiiiiiiin

this looks sweet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i3UzU-4PGc

Hologram Dream Sequence sequencer/arpeggiator/pitch shifter/etc

― na (NA), Monday, October 17, 2016 5:33 PM

what do ppl make of these? was just looking at an infinite jets on cl. weird pedals are good but i can't fully get on board w/ these for some reason. maybe just the results don't justify the price but lets slap some retro grafx on it the kids love that nowadays

Dude, I just got the Xotic EP Booster and that thing is fucking sweet. It's not really transparent, but it has a very mild tone coloration and it sounds so full. It is such a simple, but damn fine pedal. The internal EQ switch really fattens up the low end, making for a very dark, murky tone that's just huge. I'm having a hard time not using it as an "always on" pedal.

why not just use it as an "always on" pedal then?

I don't know. For some reason, I have this belief that relying too much on one pedal is "cheating" or something. . . ?

However, I have always had at least one "always on" reverb, so I don't know why I would view a drive pedal any differently.

Something something purist, or whatever.

I resist having anything "always on" for equally amorphous and abstract reasons, I suspect.

One sometimes has this notion that if it's taking up space on the board, then it needs a reason to be there - a reason to stomp on it or leave it in-stomped-upon. If sonic variety is the goal, and board real estate is scarce, you want everything there to change the sound if you step on it.

My goal is to like the sound of the amp so much that nothing is "always on"; every time you stomp on something it gives you something new. That said, I am in a complicated love-hate relationship with my amplifiers. We agree on many things, but reverb is kid of a contentious area right now. So I do sometimes lean on an always-on reverb. But honest, I could quit any time.

i use the xotic ep booster as an always on pedal

BBE Boosta Grande is a nice inexpensive clean boost pedal. I like that one. I think a boost pedal works pretty well with an amp like say most Mesas or say a JCM800 where you are going to get the distortion from the amp and not a pedal. Overdrives and distortions compress the signal quite a bit more where the boost just gives a lift and maybe a bit of high end rise.

It's not unusual in some rigs to have a clean boost at the end of a long pedal board and/or before long cable run as last pedal before an amp, running it as a buffer on the signal.

The just announced Meris Polymoon delay looks amazing.

sorta cross post from the synth zone but this thing

http://www.bastl-instruments.com/instruments/thyme/

remember joysticks? remember cartridges? remember iran-contra?...

https://www.eltamusic.com/console

huh. it's like what devi ever was trying to do but they went ahead and actually made it.

that looks cool but i guarantee if i got it i'd lose half the cartridges immediately

They are just about pick-sized.

i lose my picks all the time!

Have you checked the laundry or perhaps the soundhole of an acoustic? That's where mine end up usually.

nothing cooler in the middle of a show than bending down and replacing the tiny cartridges in your pedal

Also remembering stuff like "Is it left left up that gives me the cool bloopy blippy sound? Or is it right left down? Wait, no, that's the sound that goes zowie blippity bloop."

I see things in the Synth Zone thread with wacky tiny patch bays and a zillion knobs, and have the same thought. This seems like the kind of thing you want if you're committed to one-time unrepeatable experiments, or you're simply a noyz dood. Which is fine if that's what you're into!

Personally when I perform I kinda want to know what is going to come out of the speaker. It's hard enough just to remember what I'm supposed to be playing! Even Kaoss pad type things are a bit much for me.

I guess the difference is the Devi Ever pedal can have discrete circuitry, whereas this must be DSP-based.

Surely the joystick is just like two pots (X axis and Y axis)? Not too complex...

guys, nothing devi ever turns out well

well, she did sell me a Little Big Muff and that worked out fine

currently loving:
- MXR reverb
- Strymon DIG
- Catalinbread Katzenkönig

current objects of curiosity:
- Alexander F.13N neo flanger
- Hudson Broadcast (but there are so many different versions it makes me dizzy)

I'll have those alexanders in hand soon, I'll let you know what I think.

sweet. if you're a dealer i know where to go first :)

PS please convince me I don't need this...

https://images.reverb.com/image/upload/s--15PE5FIW--/a_exif,c_limit,e_unsharp_mask:80,f_auto,fl_progressive,g_south,h_620,q_90,w_620/v1505934546/ildjzavlqgdjkupgfyqx.jpg

- Hudson Broadcast (but there are so many different versions it makes me dizzy)

i like this pedal a lot fwiw

jjj, once you get a chance to play around with that ms-3, I'm curious about how the built-in stuff compares to the standalone boss effects.

Will do - my initial impressions are pretty glowing, but I’ll put in some more time.

After much deliberation, I finally just went against my initial impressions of it and got the Carbon Copy Deluxe today.

It is absolutely fuckin' magic.

it seems pretty cool tbh... it's great to see MXR coming back to prominence

jjj, once you get a chance to play around with that ms-3, I'm curious about how the built-in stuff compares to the standalone boss effects.

― how's life, Thursday, October 19, 2017 5:41 PM (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Will do - my initial impressions are pretty glowing, but I’ll put in some more time.

― jjjusten, Thursday, October 19, 2017 8:48 PM (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Have you had a chance to dive into this at all?

So, when TC Electronic released their budget "Smorgasbord of Tone" line about a year ago, I jumped on the Echobrain Analog Delay, because, well, analog delay for fifty bucks. It was alright, but got into self-oscillation way too easily. Just kind of figured the rest of the lineup would be pretty underwhelming, as well. They just recently announced a sort of "part two" to the line with some interesting "reissues" of classic Boss effects and that made me go back and sort of reassess the original ones from a year ago. I've kind of reached peak "weird reverb" with the Catalinbread Adineko, and the three Earthquakers I have (Levitation, Afterneath, and Ghost Echo) and I was really missing my (now out of production) Wampler Faux Spring Reverb (probably should have kept that one!). Add to that bit of desire for a more conventional reverb a bit of leftover credit at Guitar Center and, well, now I'm the owner of a TC Electronic Skysurfer Reverb. It does a pretty decent, decidedly chimey hall, a pretty standard plate (most of these sound the same to me, even across different brands), and an honest-to-goodness great spring sound. Definitely overall brighter than the Wampler tone I was chasing (TC reverbs are inherently pretty bright, I've learned), but stacks really well with the other "normal" reverb I have (Keeley Abbey Chamber Verb).

Couple minor discrepancies: it doesn't stack well with any sort of drive or distortion in spring mode (gets that weird kind of "harmonic buzz" —a phrase I've just now made up to describe this sound— in the reverb decay). This is a bummer because I like the spring mode the best. Also, it engages the effect when the footswitch is depressed and is entering the raised position. Like, where most pedals engage at the lowest point on the footswitch, the Skysurfer engages after you have pressed the footswitch all the way down and it moves back up. Is there a way to alter this? Change the polarity of the footswitch or something?

Otherwise, super reasonably priced no-nonsense reverb box. I dig it.

Is the self-oscillation controllable and/or tuneable? If so then for what I do with them it'd be $50 well spent and a discount solution - I mainly use the idiotbox Dimension X when I want to bring oscillation into play but then that means I can't use the modulated delay it provides.

I mean, yes technically. With the repeat knob you can dial the oscillation in and out. But, it starts to self-oscillate around the 1o'clock point on the knob and just turns into feedback from then on. There is no modulation on the Echobrain, but the repeats are very gritty. Also, it maxes out at 300ms delay time, so even at the longest setting it's still a fairly short interval.

got an ehx canyon and it's pretty intense. you can do a lot of things with it.

i think it'll end up replacing at least a couple of pedals on my board.

i really like the look of those - seems like a hell of a lot of good stuff for not a huge amount of cash

a lot of the sounds are shimmerier/more "pretty" than i usually go for but it's nice to have those options, and the sample/hold and octave modes are really cool

Yeah, the Canyon has had a pretty good showing in all of the "best pedals of 2017" year end lists I've looked at. It's a pretty enticing little box for a delay whore like me, even if it is by Electro-Harmonix.

Over the past little while, I've acquired a lot of new stuff. Too much to recount right here right now. But some of my favorites are:

—Malekko 616 LoFi Delay
Makes your delay repeats sound like 8 bit Nintendo music. While that description may make it sound like the pedal is gimmicky, I've actually been looking for something similar to the low bit rate repeats on the "SFX" mode from the Boss DD-500 ever since I got rid of it. And the 616 totally comes through in that regard. Pairs wonderfully with the Afterneath for a really dreamy sound.

—TC Electronic 3rd Dimension Chorus
I think, when it comes down to it, my favorite chorus sounds are decidedly on the subtle end of the spectrum. And the 3rd Dimension is definitely that. Not so subtle that you can't tell when it's engaged, but definitely not the woozy aspect, even at the most extreme settings. It's TC's version of the old Boss Dimension C pedal from the 80s. Even though I've never played on the Dimension C, I love the 3rd Dimension. It definitely gets that Robert Smith clean tone pretty spot on, which makes it an easy victory for me.

—Xotic SL Drive
I love my EP Booster so much that I bought the SL Drive without hesitation when I saw one in the used case at Guitar Center. It's definitely a more high gain drive pedal, but it has that super thick, heavy lows/mids thing to it, so I love it as well. There are four internal dip switches, so you can really get into some different tones. In the literature for the SL Drive on the Xotic website, it describes the pedal's goal to achieve a "woody" tone. I have to confess, when I first read that, I kind of rolled my eyes. But, after dialing it in to my preferred settings, I kind of get what they were referring to. It's a bit of an airy fairy description, but it works.

And I finally did what I vowed I would never do and got a wah pedal. Granted, it's an auto wah: the Boss AW-3 Dynamic Wah. I mainly use it in the tap tempo mode set at the longest rate for eerie sounds. It's a cool sound when used in that regard.

Also ordered a TC Mini Mimiq Doubler with a gift card I got for christmas. Hasn't arrived yet, but I'm pretty keen to play around with it.

Cool to see that TC has a $50 Dimension C clone. If this means that they're doing top-jack rehouses of Behringer clones of old boss pedals though, is it too much to ask for a $50 Hyper Fuzz?

Yeah, I've seen a lot of people trashing the new TC "budget" stuff, simply based on the fact that it's essentially spruced up Behringer stuff. But honestly, I have two of them now (Skysurfer and 3rd Dimension) and I really feel like they're well done. Certainly built a hell of a lot better than the proper Behringers.

Hey jjjusten, what do you know/what info do you have on Noisemaker Effects? I saw their Nebula delay pedal in the used case at Guitar Center yesterday and I couldn't resist. It's a really different kind of pedal. After really being into the whole idea of Malekko's Lofi analog delay, it's cool to find the Nebula, as it's essentially like a lofi digital delay.

Also, the Mimiq is a subtly awesome pedal. Having a hard time turning it off.

I was a dealer (technically still am) for Noisemaker. The builder is a really nice dude, the pricing just didn’t work very well from a dealer perspective, but I’ve got nothing bad to say about him.

Is a doubler like the Mimiq any good for a synth? And where do you normally put it in your chain?