Musician Forum - Band Discussion Board - BandMix

Those of you whom play guitar.
If you were limited to only three effects to utilize in your playing, what would your 'big three' consist of ?

Wah wah pedal, distortion and some sort of delay pedal.


Not an effect pedal, but a tuner also.

George Im putting together a smaller pedal board than my big one along these lines.

I love Tube Screamers, but I just bought a T-Rex Twin Boost, distortion pedal, its basically two in one, you have two distortion pedals in one. The each have a Gain, Bass, Mid and Treble so you can dial in two sounds on the one pedal, its a buffered true bypass so its very clean sounding.

My main effects already are just distortion, octave, and whammy.
Almost all other effects are used on samples, instead of guitar.

I love me my germanium fuzz face.. that feels like no effects/clean channel to me. (Roger Mayer Axis Fuzz) (Dunlop is ok if there isn't anything better or modded around to use)

I've become attached to a good Univibe, that's like making love through your guitar in deep water or maybe space. (The Sweet Sounds Mojo Vibe is what I use.)

And my latest pick up is a EHX Deluxe Memory man (delay)(the old one).
The one with the 5 knobs and quad chips, not permanently attached to a wall plug. (that's the 90's version.. pew-pew)

And the rest of them including that Harazai is bunk-ola..
The Beheringer VM1 Time Machine is garbage in comparison, but you'd have to play them both to know better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSCT4poGx3E

OCD pedal just to add a little gain and put some hair on the clean channel, Cry Baby wah, and delay. I also have flange and chorus on my board but they literally only get used for 1 song per night.

Can get thru most tunes in our set with clean channel
But need a Q Tron for some tunes that require a Mu Tron sound
For Dirt I have 2 Boss Blues Drivers one has a ton of gain and the other a lil bit
I have a Octave Box on my board too - mostly for when I am stoned.

At this point all I use is a delay ( LINE6 ) and a Wah ( Dunlop )

Considering some more for additional lead tone at low volumes.

Dang Wah is noisy . . . I like the function, but do not like how it colors the overall sound.

I love the way my amp sounds dry . . . I just want to add some effects to that sound, not change the overall tone.

Frustrating at times.

sanshouheil wrote:
I love the way my amp sounds dry . . . I just want to add some effects to that sound, not change the overall tone.

Frustrating at times.

I think thats where a good tone gear-wise starts and ends ... with the amp
The Blues driver imparts its own tone to my rig but its in the ball park
Been lusting over this hand built in the USA pedal for awhile.
http://www.sarnomusicsolutions.com/products/ed.html

You might like the 2nd example of its sound Mr. Sans

Delay, chorus, and BB Preamp

George I use Morley Bad Horsie wahs and they dont seem to color the sound too much to me, that T-Rex Twin Boost is one of the cleanest sounding distortion pedals Ive ever had, plus having two sides allows for a couple of settings.

JW . . . I actually looked at the Morley unit while doing my research as per your previous suggestion.
The Dunlop was an impulse purchase . . .

Delay, overdrive, distortion. (in that order too)

My current board also has a Ibanez Phaser and a tuner, and of course last thing in the chain has to be a volume pedal. I won't play without it any more.

For band practice I usually just use overdrive and volume pedal, sometimes add the distortion.

Been itching for a Tube Screamer for years but never found one I could afford, but the Marshall Bluesbreaker I use has been doing a great job for over 20 years now. Ibanez SD9 distortion has been in action much longer than that, the Arion Analog Delay is around 30 years old too. Volume pedal is a Schaller I've had just as long, squirt in a little contact cleaner every 4 or 5 years and it keeps on going.

George - If you run across one, check out the old Morley Power Wah. The one in a thick chrome case. It works on a light bulb, instead of a volume/tone pot like most, I wore mine out. The circuit board just gave up, traces were ripping up off the board, I wanted to rebuild it but I'd have to completely remake the circuit board itself. The Power Wah name means it also has a power booster. Similar to an overdrive, or maybe the exact same. Either or both available, or clean all in one pedal. Something went bad in mine and fried a coupe of contacts, along with a few resistors, when I started trying to solder in some new parts to rebuild it, most of the contacts started separating from the board. I finally gave it up.

They made a couple of different incarnations, one is just a Wah, one I think just a power booster, one is both. Until you crank the gain way up it's a mostly transparent power boost, great for clean leads. And no noise. Plugs in to AC. But have fun finding one, I passed up one at a pawn shop in Houston around 1990, been regretting it ever since...mine was still working then, so I asked my self, why do I need that thing??? and left it sitting there...

Bad move space cadet...

I have the Ibanez Demon Wah after my Crybaby cried for the last time. (for bass and guitar), and a Boss Overdrivebox which I rarely need. Since my amp is a 200 Watt Fender Mustang modeling amp I can get most of what I need right there. The delay is my favorite and well implemented.

The amp powers a Marshal 4x12 cab which means that even at low volume it pushes enough air to sound really good. There are plenty of clean sounds available too - I keep meaning to try them!

Talbot

A reverb pedal, delay and of these and would be nice...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5osnINfj_48

Rat distortion, reverb, looper.