5 Must Have Pedals Options

[gnarkill]

I have been playing guitar now poorly for about 16 years. The last two years, I have spent dedicating my time to getting better. And I think I have improved substantially. I have had a Fender Tube 300w amp for a long time, but it doesn't have any effects on it. About two years ago, I bought the Line 6 Spider IV 75w and got the mKII floor board to go with it.

Since that time, I have been finding and tweaking the tones that I like, figuring out what would work for me and how to sound like my favorite bands. Probably the two main reasons for purchasing the Line 6 Spider IV... Smaller so it wasnt as loud as my 300w, and secondly, all the effects so I could play around.

Now, I am seriously looking at a bunch of different pedals. I have looked at many other options like a POD HD500x or Avid 11, or just plugins for the computer... and I might go that route down the road. But today, I want to look at pedals.

My gear includes:

Schecter Hellraiser C-1 FR
Schecter Damien 6 FR Sustaniac

Fender Rock Pro 300w tube amp
Line 6 Spider IV 75w with the mKII floor board

Boss NS-2 Noise Gate
Boss CS-3 Compression
Digitech Death Metal

Now I ask all of you, what are the 5 must have pedals?

I ask because I want to start getting the basics. I went to the local shop here in Idaho and they gave me a great deal on two used Boss pedals, and the two I was looking at to get my sound a bit tighter and cleaner. Plus, the feedback and sqeaking of the strings were driving me crazy, and the noise gate did the trick. As for the Digitech Death Metal, I dont think it sounds that great... but I got it for free from a friend, so I am not that bummed.

My favorite bands include Trivium, In Flames, Killswitch Engage, Tremonti and so on. I like all rock all the way to metal.

I was thinking of making my next few pedals; Digital delay, pitch shift/harmonizer, tube overdrive, and then a distortion or two. I've been told the Boss DS-1 is great, and its cheap. I've also heard the Uber Metal by Line 6 is awesome. I wanna hear your thoughts on what I should be getting and what you think is a MUST HAVE PEDAL!

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net

Don't miss today's free lick. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

Don't miss today's free blues, jazz & country licks. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

This post has been edited by gnarkill: Oct 15 2015, 09:19 PM

[Mertay]

The selection involves so much with the style you're into, advice is always good but you have to check them out yourself too. First a few questions;

-which amp are you thinking for the fx? both?
-Does your line6 or Fender have an FX loop?
-for distortion, do you want something to work with the clean channel of the amp or do you always use distortion channel?

For example, the boss ds1 isn't a very strong distortion. For metal you either need an overdrive before it or select the overdrive channel of the amp. On clean channel on its own it might not be enough for you, there is boss ds1x if you want serious distortion of the ds1 tone. Check youtube for ds1x demo's though its more expensive.

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net

Don't miss today's free lick. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

Don't miss today's free blues, jazz & country licks. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

[gnarkill]

-which amp are you thinking for the fx? both?
-Does your line6 or Fender have an FX loop?
-for distortion, do you want something to work with the clean channel of the amp or do you always use distortion channel?

I think I would mainly use my Line 6, as it has more versatility. But I plan on playing around with both. Maybe as I add more petals I can turn back to the Fender.

The Line 6 has a 17 second looper. I was thinking about getting one of those that could go for several minutes.

As for distortion, I plan on using a clean channel, and adding the distortion with a pedal. However, right now, my line 6 does well with the heavy distortions, but I would like to start getting actual stomp boxes to get better quality items.

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net

Don't miss today's free lick. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

Don't miss today's free blues, jazz & country licks. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

[Mertay]

FX loop question is forgotten sort of important as stuff like chorus, reverb, delay etc. (modulation fx) specially if the amp has even the slight overdrive the fx loop is the way to go.

I checked 1-2 video's on the Fender Rock Pro, its a pretty nice amp. Thing with analog is you must inverst more but the sound is always rewarding compared to the digital approach. My main advice is not to rush into it, examples like ds1 (legend sound+affordable) isn't too much. There are affordable pedals that sound good for the money, but these are limited to some point.

Since you'll use the amp clean, the ds1x is an option and there is also the ml-2 which is more metal. Check them out, these are mid priced pedals. They're actually digital but very accepted and don't sound processor-like.

The analog way is to buy and overdrive+distortion pedal. You have to boost the dist. pedal to make it sound big. For overdrive, I really like the ibanez jd9 for this job. Should work well with something like a ds1. If you want the overdrive to sound cool with blues, then a ts9dx sort of thing might be better for you. There are so many overdrives but these are the more affordable ones I know.

If you have the budget, check the amptweaker review on Todd's youtube channel. Its definitly expensive compared to our previous examples, but for all analog metal sound its a really good solution too.

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net

Don't miss today's free lick. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

Don't miss today's free blues, jazz & country licks. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

[jstcrsn]

of course every answer you will get is going to be subjective. That being said, according to your styles mentioned - a better amp. One better suited for heavier rock / metal. IMO you are trying to get a heavy tone with pedals and a wrong amp . After that I would look into some computer modeling( possibly free)to get your feet wet - to try to get a better understanding of what they do and what style you need

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net

Don't miss today's free lick. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

Don't miss today's free blues, jazz & country licks. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

[Todd Simpson]

I'd say honestly skip the pedals. As everyone here knows, I"m a HUGE fan of the Avid 11 rack as it's bang for the buck is just unmatched. You can grab one used for less than $300. It's also a full on recording interface with a microphone input and will record dry signal while recording fx signal. Also has an fx loop and works witih pedals in front or in the loop. In short, I'd say get one It's the cost of one or two decent pedals and does soooo much more. For recording, you can just post the rest of your gear aside to be honest and use the 11 rack via usb and work with monitors or headphones. For live stuff. You can run in to the clean channel of your spider. Bam, Guitar Nirvana

I share all my 11 rack presets in my person board here on gmc btw so there are wads of em

here is my 11 recorded via usb with a tube preamp in the fx loop.




Todd

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net

Don't miss today's free lick. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

Don't miss today's free blues, jazz & country licks. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

This post has been edited by Todd Simpson: Oct 16 2015, 05:40 AM

[Gabriel Leopardi]

I don't think that there are must have pedals, this depends on the style that you play and also your personal taste regarding effects and tone. The bands that you've named use powerful head amps like Mesa Boogie, ENGL, Peavey 5150, EVH 5150 and that's what makes them sound that good. There are no pedals that will give you a real amp tone, even the more expensive Axe Ultra and Kemper aren't as real and real amps with tubes.

What pedal effects to get? This depends on you, if you like using delay, get one, there are many good brands that build it. If you like wah wah, get it, the same with whammy (get a digitech whammy), but don't add pedals into your chain if you won't use them and don't use pedals just because you have them in your guitar chain. The decision should be artistic, creative.

One pedal that is always welcome (at least for me) is some kind of tube screamer (it can be one of the many copies or pedals based on it). This is a great pedal to shape your amp's tone, or to add some extra nice feel and sustain to your solo channel.

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net

Don't miss today's free lick. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

Don't miss today's free blues, jazz & country licks. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

[gnarkill]

One pedal that is always welcome (at least for me) is some kind of tube screamer (it can be one of the many copies or pedals based on it). This is a great pedal to shape your amp's tone, or to add some extra nice feel and sustain to your solo channel.

This was the type of answer I was looking for. I wanna know what you guys like. I was looking at a few cheaper ones like Joyo JF-02 Ultimate Overdrive Pedal, Joyo JF-01 Vintage Overdrive, Behringer TO100 Tube Overdrive and what not. I wanted a cheaper alternative to say, the Ibanez TS9. But I want to know if anyone has any input on these cheaper boxes.

I was also looking at a digital delay for myself, and possibly a pitch shifter/harmonizer. Again, looking on a cheaper route for actual boxes.

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net

Don't miss today's free lick. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

Don't miss today's free blues, jazz & country licks. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

[gnarkill]

Also, was curious about the difference in an overdrive and a tube overdrive.

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net

Don't miss today's free lick. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

Don't miss today's free blues, jazz & country licks. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

[klasaine]

+1 to what everybody else says.

My .02 ... any overdrive or distortion or fuzz pedals are going to sound a lot better going into your Fender 300 tube amp.
There are some decent sounds to be had putting drive in front of a solid state (or modeling) amp but it's almost always better with a tube amp.

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net

Don't miss today's free lick. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

Don't miss today's free blues, jazz & country licks. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

[Todd Simpson]

Ahh. Well in that case, your in luck. At higher gain settings especially, the Joyo pedals are a great way to go. The differences are subtle and go back to what you are looking for from tone. There are a TON of Pedal Shootout videos on youtube done with pretty high quality which get in to the minutiae. But generally, the screamer is used for "clean boost" or at least semi clean boost. Basically using it as a preamp to boost input gain to your amp. This works really well on tube amps but will also work on solid state amps.

Like most things, it may sound different on your amp, so I'd suggest going to a music store and trying as many pedals as possible with an amp as similar to yours as possible. I've owned the Joyo JF02 and found it to sound strikingly similar to most of the other overdrives I've tried when used as a clean boost for high gain tones. For the money it's hard to beat and is built like a tank.

For Delay and Pitch, a decent used unit can be had for around $100, but as with most pedals, soooooooo much of it will come down to your ears so trying out wads of pedals on an amp like yours is still a great idea. I use a board full of boutique stomp boxes built in brazil which is of no help in our case and my eleven rack has it's own fx. The rest are all plugins.

Just for starters though, I'd ask the guy at the music store for some digitech pitch pedals to try, (used always cheaper) and some Boss and MXR delay pedals. There are clones of every pedal in existence so the choices can be burdensome. But it will always come down to your ears. So getting a arm load of pedals and some time in a guitar store where you can just try some of them is a great place to start.

As for Tube/non tube screamers. If a pedal says TUBE overdrive, it had better have an actual TUBE in it or I'd stay away. If it has a tube in it, eventually that tube will need to be replaced so hopefully it's a tube that is still made. Lots to consider.

I"m always trying new things though so recently I bought a KRANK KRANKSHAFT overdrive which I can is quite spiff. It's like a tube screamer on steroids. They are only about $50 in the wild. They have wads of bite.

This was the type of answer I was looking for. I wanna know what you guys like. I was looking at a few cheaper ones like Joyo JF-02 Ultimate Overdrive Pedal, Joyo JF-01 Vintage Overdrive, Behringer TO100 Tube Overdrive and what not. I wanted a cheaper alternative to say, the Ibanez TS9. But I want to know if anyone has any input on these cheaper boxes.

I was also looking at a digital delay for myself, and possibly a pitch shifter/harmonizer. Again, looking on a cheaper route for actual boxes.

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net

Don't miss today's free lick. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

Don't miss today's free blues, jazz & country licks. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!