[survey] What are your favourite pedals ?

Hi all,

after the amp and the string poll I think we should have another one:

YOUR FAVOURITE PEDALS

and maybe the also

The greatest disappointment you discovered with some pedals.


at 1st - my disappointments:

- Never ever buy anything from BEHRINGER, its rubbish.
- I've noticed that the power supplies of EHX pedals, which aren't standard 12V, are quite weak and tend to break, this is
sometimes not funny.
- EHX Double Muff - only white noise
- DOD Flanger -

And now to my favourite list:

Distortion/ Overdrive:
EHX Big Muff
DOD Juice Box
Yerasov 9000V (Distortion/Overdrive)
Tech21 XXL
VOX Satchurator
Ibanez Tubescreamer TS9DX
DOD Mystic Blues
EHX Germanium OD

Compressor:
EHX White Finger

Other:
EHX Echo
EHX Knockout
EHX POG
MXR Phaser90

I have to admit I have to stay out from instrument flea markets. Otherwise there would be probably more.

H.

I haven't bought any new pedals for ages, and the ones I've got now, with the exception of the PS-5, are ones I bought a very, very long time ago....

Boss OD-1 Overdrive - wonderfully warm, creamy smooth overdrive
Boss DD-3 Delay - a good all purpose delay, probably outdated these days, but I flogged this one to death as I had had to use a Copicat up till I got this!!
Boss CH-1 Chorus - warmest chorus I've ever used
Ibanez TS808 - another good overdrive
Boss PS-5 Pitch Shifter - crazy, crazy effects but very versatile when you take the time to learn how to drive it - not a simple pedal to use properly!
Boss NF-2 Noise gate - essential bit of kit as I had 2 pedalboards which created a gale of hiss and hum...
Boss Ph-1r Phaser and
Boss BF-2 Flanger - for that Police sound in the early 80's!
Crowther Hot cake - NZ built distortion; utterly fabulous!

There were many, many others, but these have stood the test of time and are still, to this day, gig-worthy. The other thing about FX is that over the years as a performer, I waxed and waned about them; I either loved 'em to bits, or hated them and went for the 'organic' guitar - amp sound; we guitarists are a funny breed, eh!!

Now you've gone and done it

I've got 108 of these things lying around the house , and now because of this I'll have to start playing testing them all.

This may take some time, I'll be back .....

DAN.

DuoFuzz wrote:...This may take some time, I'll be back...

I'll alert the media.

I have a Russian Big Muff and a Boss DS-1, but being a bassist they don't help me much. My custom built bass fuzz pedal, on the other hand... that one is a true monster. It's called the Transistor Dentata, and you've never heard a fatter bass fuzz tone.

Being a bassist first, here is what I love to use:

-Ross Compressor
-Boss CE-2B Bass Chorus
-Boss MT-2 Metalzone
-Electro Harmonix BassBalls
-MXR EVH Phase90
-Roland AD-50 Double beat (whah and fuzz pedal) kick ass pedal....
-Boss DD-2 Delay
-Boss ODB3 Bass Overdrive
-Boss OC-2 Octaver
-Boss PH-1 Phaser
-Boss NS-2 noise supressor
-Holygrail Reverb

I play around with others but these are my babies....

P.

My favourites include -

MXR Dyna Comp - adds some honk to dirty and clean stuff
Dunlop Fuzz Face (Aqua JH-1 variant)
My home made resistance pedal - ungrounded 250 k potentiometer, basically, put before fuzz pedal
MXR Phase 45 (old script type)
LovePedal Pickle Vibe - GREAT pedal, simple, nice emulation of Univibe
Zoom G2.1u noise gate - cheap but works fine
Electroharmonix Memory Man with Harazai
Radial Tonebone classic - made in Canada, eh. 12 AT7 tube for distortion - two channels
Tokai "Overdrive" Tubescreamer clone from the 70's

it's funny........a rare play date occasion came up..........i took my prestige 250 and my seymour duncan convertible 100, and they sounded SO good, that i did NOT miss even ONE of the 30 asst'd pedals i left at home.


anybody wanna trade pedals......i got a list........mostly dirt and phasers........holler.....don't holler......i'm breezy.............

Ho hum, I must be the only member without an effects box! Well, I do have a broken Boss V wah that defies all attempts to effect a repair! Thats the problem with effects with intergated circuit boards and complex processing chips! And are Boss helpful?? Nah. A new board costs more or less the same price as a new pedal ! Madness. So I might as well gut it and put a custom circuit in for something.

Anybody got an opinion on Morley or George Dennis wah's?

Incidently, a bassist friend of mine had an interesting question. We both grew up being fans of Leslie West and Mountain. My friend is looking for that Felix Papalardi ( bassist with Mountain until 68ish) sound. Apparently he used a box to generate a square wave with his bass. From my point of view, that is simply a clipped sine wave but it would interesting to hear whether someone may have more information on this?

Alrighty then, after much digging around and one pedal related avalanche incident, I'm done. I'll try to keep this short!

Biggest disappointments :
Hohner HFX Chorus/Flanger. Quite rare and unfortunately not working.......yet.
Hughes & Kettner Tube Factor. First time I plugged it in and it blew up! Needs sorting.
Ibanez Smash Box. Wanted heavy distortion, got horrible metallic clanky sonic mess. Try again.
Krank Distortis Maximus. Wanted heavy distortion, got constant background noise and hum. Poop.
Marshall Vibratrem. Too mild, even when flat out ?

My babies! :
Akai G-Drive. Two 6 band EQ's, one before the drive circuit, the other after it. Tricky to set but it does really heavy filth when needed!
Aria Platinum Drive. Mains powered tube monster! Fuzzy scuzzy distortion. Made so cheap it shouldn't work, but it does!
BK Butler Tube Driver. Another high voltage tube pedal. Great tone off this, covers many styles.
Boss CE-1 Chorus. Designed for keyboards and not ideal for guitar, it does have some issue's. In stereo through two amps it's awesome!
Boss CE-2 Chorus. Easy to use and sounds amazing. My first ever pedal and they've become highly collectible in the last decade.
Boss TW-1 T-Wah. Touch sensitive auto wah. Great effect once you get use to picking soft then hard.
Coffin Case Blood Drive. Use it in front of a hot amp to thicken up the sound.
D*A*M Dragonfly. An early version I got cheap from Crap Converters. Amazing fuzz from a germanium and a silicon transistor.
Dallas Arbiter Trem Face. The real deal. It drops the level and sucks tone but I don't care, It's old and rare and it works.
E.H. Small Clone. Lovely fluid chorus. Think Teen Spirit. Always use it with the switch on the deep setting.
Fender Blender. Crazy fuzz with a weird octave overtone effect. Set it mild and it sounds sweet.
Guyatone TD-1. Mains powered tube distortion. Covers everything from mild to wild, nice.
Landmine pedal. Thick creamy distortion. Has no gain control only level, low, mid and high, so It's flat out all the time. Doesn't do mild!
Marshall The Guv'nor. Another do anything distortion. Get one if you can, you will not be disappointed.
Morley Power Wah Fuzz. Huge chrome beast! Good wah, Great fuzz circuit and a volume pedal to boot.
Mu-tron Phasor I. The best phaser I've ever heard. Vintage sounds and top quality construction.
Nady TD-1. Another tube distortion! Highly tweakable and sounds nice. Well built.
Peavy Dirty Dog. Twin channel distortion. I think the circuit was lifted from one of their amps. Very versatile and surprising find.
Pignose Detonator S.P. Sleazy distortion with a crazy level boost button. Set it wrong and it will blow a speaker, seriously!
Shin-Ei FY-2 Fuzz Box. Hairy chested old school fuzz, love it!
Shin-Ei/Kimbara WF-8. Mild wah but wild fuzz with 2 way tone switch.
Shaftesbury Duo-Fuzz/Shin-Ei FY-6. My baby, and is pictured in my avatar. Has similar tone switch to the above. This gives a modern sounding scooped mid fuzz. I saved this after previous owner ripped all the wiring out and turned it into an A/B box (as you do!). A bit battered but simply an amazing rare fuzz. Irreplaceable.
Snarling Dogs Super Bawl Whine-o-Wah. Last but not least, a great sounding wah with loads settings with added comedy names! 3 voices, Voo Doo, White Room and Shaft. A Hormone switch to give a softer tone. It also has the Twinductor Beef Booster switch and it has a preamp volume control. The treadle is a chromed foot complete with toes and best of all, it has a glow in the dark image of a dog on it and it's eyes are the status LED's! What more could you want?

Well thats it. There is plenty of Boss, DOD, Zoom and other stuff I could have added but these are the ones I'm most proud of.

DAN.

I'll second that "ho hum"
They only pedal I've ever consistently used is a Boss Chorus CE3.
I also have an Ibanez Delay DL10 (digital echo) but I use it on vocals only so it doesn't count.

Oh, and during a GAS attack last year on eBay, just for fun, I picked up a Danelectro Rocky Road and a Danelectro Shift Daddy. But I only bugger around with them in the music room, usually hooked up to the Dano U2 and the Dano DM25 amp.

All effects these days come from my little Vox DA5 modelling amp which, I've mentioned before elsewhere, is bloody fantastic either on its own or as a preamp for the Roland Cube 100!

Boss SD1, modified with germanium diodes and hifi condensers (Monte Allums kit http://www.monteallums.com/pedal_mods.html#bosssd1). People can't believe it when they hear this pedal : sounds like a vintage valve amp

Boss CS3 compressor, modified with germanium diodes, hifi Burr Brown OP ship for real optical-like compression sound (http://www.monteallums.com/pedal_mods.html#cs3optoPlus)

Boss vintage japan made DD3 Delay

Morley massive Whaa-Vol

I also use an old Alesis Microverb.

But my sound comes from my stereo amp , a Roland Jazz-Chorus 120...

JP

Hyperion wrote:...But my sound comes from my stereo amp , a Roland Jazz-Chorus 120...

I just love that amp!
I used to practice with one years ago when we'd get together at our, then, bass player's music store (talk 'bout being a kid in a candy store!).
My kid's guitar teacher also has one, but the bugger won't part with it!
I like my Roland Cube 100 but this one's definitely on my hit list!

Barry wrote:

Hyperion wrote:...But my sound comes from my stereo amp , a Roland Jazz-Chorus 120...

I just love that amp!

I'll second that - I owned a JC 120 many moons ago and in one of those rock'n'roll moments sold it and bought "the next big thing", which from memory was a Hughes and Kettner something or other; not even roughly as good as the old JC! If the chance comes up when we're settled to acquire one, I believe I shall!!

Hey, Dan, you don't have an old Boss SG-1 you don't want , do you? I made one out of an old NF-1 and I'd love to A/B compare it to a real one? (The Noise gate works the oppsite to an SG1, so the mod wasn't that difficult! well, it can't have been if I could do it!! )

Those dirty dog wahs were a lot of fun, eh - mine was very noisy in the pedal chain - certainly noisier than the old Crybaby - , so I sold it quite quickly!!

The other things I use a lot are a Boss EQ-7 for those scooped mids andprobably most importantly(!), a Korg Pitch Black floor tuner; best I've EVER used without going to a strobe tuner - I recommend them; go and get one! Now!

Hi Corsair,

I've never managed to get hold the Boss Slow Gear, I've haven't even seen one in these parts. Pretty rare pedal these days, and according to the Boss book they stopped making them 27 years ago! It's on the wish list (as well as an NF-1 for that matter :idea: ) .

Yeah, the Whine-o-Wah is a bit noisy. It's probably down to the wiring, have you looked inside them things, it's like a rats nest in there. Then again most FX gear is stuffed with some scary looking tech these days, damned nightmare to try and work on, pure evil .

DAN.

DuoFuzz wrote:...damned nightmare to try and work on, pure evil

See?
That's why I play rhythm and sing, and leave this stuff to lead players!
'Cuz trying to figure it all out is really really hard! ...and hurts my tiny little head.

Only got one. Must be in serious pedal deprivation.

Washburn Bad Dog. Use it with a modern Marshall transistor amp with loads of built-in digital effects. Good enough for home practice

I use mainly all rack effects. But I do have a EHX Metal Muff that I really like. I also have a Digitech RP80 that I noodle around with when sitting on the couch watching TV, plug in ear buds to it.

Incidently, a bassist friend of mine had an interesting question. We both grew up being fans of Leslie West and Mountain. My friend is looking for that Felix Papalardi ( bassist with Mountain until 68ish) sound. Apparently he used a box to generate a square wave with his bass. From my point of view, that is simply a clipped sine wave but it would interesting to hear whether someone may have more information on this?[/quote]

On my VOX Tonelab LE there's a modulation which is called FILTRON.
I've tried it with a bass, could be the sound you looking for.
Otherwise I would recommend a closer look into EHX bass pedals.
They have quite a nice range of really strange pedals.

H.

Hi,

I've added recently two pedals which are brilliant:

EHX POG - - 12 string sound, organ sound and more...

OOHLALA X-RAY - I't the best overdrive/distortion/booster I've ever touched.
XRAY

I FINALLY GOT A BOSS CE-2 (FOR $60) AN "87 MIJ. IN 30 YEARS OF PLAYING, I HAD NEVER TRIED ONE. "UN-FRIKKEN-BELIEVABLE!"

FAB-O PEDAL!

I'M SELLING (I'VE SOLD) OFF (MOST OF) MY COLLECTION. KEEPING THE CE-2 AND A BARBER DIRECT DRIVE. ALL ELSE ARE REDUNDANT.

I have only the Boss Chorus CE-2 in stompbox, and a pair of custom treble boosters inspired on Brian May´s original and the Dallas Arbiter Range Master, made by a good friend of mine.All of this just for use at home with my combo - a B-52 ST6012 - ,and recently I´ve purchased from a friend a Boss GT-6 multi-effects unit.I only played a bit with some of the factory presets, but turning some knobs can take from it very solid sounds !!But Damn !!! It´s pretty tricky for me that massive bunch of parameters !!

Cheers ! :

KNM

I used to play the 'chase lots of individual pedals around the floor' game, twenty odd years ago I used a DOD distortion pedal (black, had a extra knob for delay, Hard Rock Distortion?), a cheap chorus (plastic case, not too sturdy but worked fine, and a matching analogue delay) all jury rigged to a single power supply. A JHS wah wah and a De Armmond volume pedal completed the set. They all died after about eight years sterling service (the wah wah survived, sold it about ten years ago) though the volume pedal is still part of my rig. In 98 I got my hands on a digitech GSP-21 Pro rack mounted unit, and though it took me a couple of years to work out how to program the patches, it was brilliant. It too went on it's merry way about four years ago (sold it ebay to a guy in Jockistan, he'd had one previously and loved it). Made do with just the two channels on my amp (a Marshall 100watt transistor GR100CD, still going strong and signed by Saint Jim Marshall himself back in 2003!), for a year or two then I bagged my current set up (all from fleabay), a BOSS ME-50 multi effects unit and a Marshall Mode Four 350watt head, so on the floor in fron of me I have the Mode Four's six button foot controller, the Boss ME-50 above it and the DeArmmond Volume pedal (I use the expression pedal on the Boss as a wah mostly) to the left all snuggling up together! Now, just looking forward to getting something like a Roland PK-5 Bass pedal board to go along side thenm and world domination is within my grasp...

I am considering building a new pedal for myself.

The so-called "Large Beaver" (I would get the triangle iteration, not the ram's head) from BYOC. They even have a Canadian distributor, here: http://www.axeandyoushallreceive.com/

For a review of the L. B., check this out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37RfgSdn53w

Ian

P.S. Caucajun - BYOC has a CE-2 clone too... all that noise yer makin' is pushin' me to get one of those kits too.

Blimey, I feel a little inadequate as I only use two peals in my set up. The overdrive is from the amp-an '70s/80s Acoustic Sound Control Co. G100T (running at 50watts) with a Danelectro Daddy-O overdrive pedal only set to add a bit more drive for solos,especially when using my strat, and a jim dunlop wah (for obvious reasons) I ususally use the spring reverb on the amp but if I'm feeling really fruity, I have a Boss SE50 multi effects for delays,chorus etc- it's old but does the job fine. I've got the roland FC100 mkII foot controller that allows realtime patch and parameter changes. i also have a Boss DS1 (on loan to a mate) a boss stereo chorus pedal(CH2?) and a Boss delay/pitch shifter that is my most disappointing pedal although I didn't spend much time with it as I got the SE50 soon after. These are the only pedals I've ever bought!
Oh and a dodgy compressor from Maplins.

Cheers

Ian

Pedals?
What pedals?

Racing wrote:Pedals?
What pedals?

"We don need no steenkin' pedals!"

I have a Toggle peddel & use the preset sounds in my ROLAND CUBE 60. Saves alot of mess. Can get a crunch of a Messa Rectifier or the crisp of a Fender Twin.

When I was younger I played through a BOSS METALZONE. Was good for the Heavy Stuff but crap for Blues, & a Blues player I have become.
Cheers,
Richie..

Boss GE-7 Equalizer

Hardwire Metal Distortion

I've discovered that some electroharmonix pedals are quite good.

Basic stuff like: Electroharmonix holy grail to give some spring to my really basic tube amps. A good analog delay has become something that I use - I have a cheapo delay pedal but am looking for an EH Memory Man.

electro harmonix memory toy, Behringer VD400 analog delay ( best analog delay pedal I ever played with!)....£19! get one if you have not already
and a cheap n nasty Behringer X-V-Amp with expression pedal....has a couple of really nice modelled amps and a workable noise gate.


that is all.

Guyatone od1 valve overdrive pedal
Tech 21 killer wah
E&H Small stone & Small Clone
shaller Tremlo pedal + volume + yoy yoy wah wah pedals
Dod milkbox compressor
E&H big muff
Marshall Gouvner pedal
They be the ones I use for my pedal board..
Though have to say i can't remember what else i have tucked away..

H.B.E. Doomsday Device..........the name says it all.
Rocktron Silver Dragon........i use this for everything the doomsday doesnt do.
Ibanez Weeping Demon.......much better to my ears than any crybaby.

Changed since last year. 
Boss GE-7 equalizer
BBE Sonic Stomp
Line 6 Echo Park

I've chopped & changed my pedals over the years, but there are two that have been there for over 25 years & counting:

Arion SCH-1 Stereo Chorus
Yamaha DDS-20M Digital Delay


I've also been playing around with distortion boxes recently & am getting quite pleasant (aka, nasty! ) results from a tiny little Mooer Black Secret (ProCo Rat clone)

Nady TD-1 tube distortion, RAK ph-2 phaser (boss clone) Behringer vd something analog delay, recent addition of a Vox Vt15
has done away with the need for any other pedals now, ticks all my boxes!

Not too many dislikes at this end, (just 1) and remained a Boss fan for many years:

CH-1 Too mild for my taste, not enough umph..

Besides the processors, current favorite (for the 20 years ): Boss DF-2 Super Distortion Feedbacker, fun pedal for sonic effects/tone.

Also have:
FT-2 Dynamic Filter
CS-3 Compression Sustainer
SD-1 Super Overdrive
HM-2 Heavy Metal
CE-5 Chorus Ensemble
PH-3 Phase Shifter
BF-3 Flanger
DM-3 Analog Delay
Digitech RP-90 Modeling Processor
Digitech RP-255 Modeling Processor

Looking to make something quadrophonic with the two stereo processors.. gonna need help with that!

For the last three years I've been using a Line 6 Pod HD400.  It has almost every type of effect I could ever want... which is kind of cool, but I find that I mostly use it as a stompbox with one amp model (Fender Blackface), chorus, delay, and a couple variations on clean vs a little pre-amp vs tube screamer for overdrive.  Everything else pretty much goes unused!  The amp I play through is a Crate FXT65, and I will sometimes add the onboard flange if I want something to sound really wet!