General Music Chat

Ok lads, I knew this day would come:
My trusty ZOOM multi-effects board is bellyUp.

I'll need to replace it, and so I'm soliciting opinion, but before I do here's what the parameters are:

Music style: pretty much general..clean/chorused sounds to full delayed/distorted lead....and everything in between.

Ease of use: I'd like to be able to move into and out of these sounds quickly

Durablilty: It's very possible I'll be gigging with this stuff

Cost: Well, I won't say the skies the limit, but let's say I have support from my...purchasing manager.. to buy what it takes to be fulfilling my musical passions , as it were.

Gutar type?: Strat/Ibanez RG


I've used a all in one for the last 12 years, and so feel outta the loop on stomp boxes..when I last used em, I played through a Memory Man chorus/delay: also MXR was big back then...

So, what say you lads?
All in 1?
Stomp boxes?
Rack?!

cheers & thanks!
Rich

Boss GT-8 or GT-10.

When my GNX3000 goes, it's what I plan to get. They run $500-$600, but think about it:

Stompbox powered case/board $175'ish
+
6 Effects, average $100 per
=
$800+ just to get 6 basic effects, and consider 1 tuner, 1 compressor, 1 gate/limiter and 1 wah pedal, you got two slots left, so dist and chorus. No flanger, phaser, tremolo, delay....

$1100+ for a 12-effect board filled.

The GT-8 is a good pedal. (i've said negative things about it before, but tried it again, and took the time to really play with it)

I've had good sounds with Boss, Zoom, Digitech. I'm using a Korg now and I had trouble with it changing parameters on it's own right after the warranty ran out. I went in and touched up the solder joints and cleaned the pots and it's ok now, but I'd never buy another one. I'd say the best thing would be to listen to a lot of the posters on this forum and when you hear something like you'd like, ask them about it. Also, a lot of the sites for multieffects pedals have sound clips of all the different sounds and effects. And I buy all my stuff through musician's friend now, (I didn't on the Korg) and they have the 45 day warranty and will pay return shipping and everything even if it's because you just don't like the sounds of a certain piece of equipment.

Ok lads, I knew this day would come:

So, what say you lads?
All in 1?
Stomp boxes?
Rack?!

I'm a big fan of rack-mounted stuff (my rig: Mesa Boogie Triaxis, 2:90 power amp, G-Major effects unit), but if you don't have rack-mounted gear, then I don't see a point to adding one rack mounted effects unit into the mix. I believe you either go rack all the way, or you rack nothing. Rack mounted stuff, IMO, is for people (like me) who like to compartmentalize everything and have a desire to keep everything clean, together and portable.

So if you're playing with a head/cab, or a combo, and nothing is racked, then I'd get whatever multi-effects all-in-one foot-based unit sounds good to you. Something like a GT-10. But I'd be really picky; I mean, try out everything and hit HarmonyCentral for reviews. But with a multi-effects unit you at least get the flexibility to add little bits of color and texture to songs when you want to, without having to bust out and get another stomp box. And it's portable as a single, easy to carry unit.

I wouldn't bother with individual stomp boxes because to get real versatility you always end up adding "just one more box" and pretty soon your setup and teardown time start to run hours instead of minutes.

If you do have rack mounted stuff, I would recommend the G-Major, but I'd do some research first. The G-Major is really easy to program and when you run it with a pedal like the Rocktron Midimate, life is a breeze. But there might be a better rack mounted unit by now that has better tones. I'm pretty happy with my G-Major because I don't ask my effects unit to color my tone a whole lot. I've got a Mesa, so I want the Mesa tone to come through, and I only ask my effects unit to give it some depth; to breath a little life into it. If you need more than that, if you're the kind of person who prefers their guitar effects to have more of an impact, like a David Gilmore type of sound, then the G-Major probably won't cut it.

Great replies lads!
I'll be doing some surfing/scoping for sure.


Thanks much!
Rich

Yeah, I love Musician's Friend, too, ratsass. I bought a Dano pedal that was s'posed to sound like a sitar - it was just a crappy ring modulator that I couldn't get a decent sound out of, so I sent it back.

I like the Digitech & the Zoom, both, myself, esp for the ease of manipulating your own sounds on them. The Dig is possibly more road-worthy, though.

I have a very cost effective digitech processor that I use for all my effects, sounds pretty good to me but I don't play guitar and would much rather have a few key pedals instead of just one processor but I'm on the brokish side still so I'll have to make do, good luck though mr piper and happy ST patty's day, even though it was one of the few days where traditional irish didn't get hammered, us americans take it as a good day to get hammered

I'm definitely a multieffects guy myself, mainly from playing in a 3-piece cover band for so long and needing to get lots of completely different sounds throughout the night. But I would have to say that most guitarists who have their own signature sound, do it with separate stomp boxes and some rack mounted effects too! One word of advice about choosing a multieffect unit. Make sure it has separate "up" "down" bank switches. My korg has the type that you press two switches together and it's NOT simultaneaously. You have to step on one and kind of roll off onto the other to go back a bank, and if you don't do it just right, it goes up a bank and then you try to do it right twice and end up just going up the banks until you start over and get where you want to be. Not great for live gigging.

That sounds like a real pain in the patootie, ratsass. Thanks for the info.

Right now?
I'd buy a horse.

Ratdoode, that's funny about the word of caution: My zoom was the old 2020 & it only had one bank UP pedal.
So, to get from Bank1 to Bank0 meant all the way around to 0
I used to not like that so much, so advice duly noted.

R

I'm definitely a multieffects guy myself, mainly from playing in a 3-piece cover band for so long and needing to get lots of completely different sounds throughout the night. But I would have to say that most guitarists who have their own signature sound, do it with separate stomp boxes and some rack mounted effects too! One word of advice about choosing a multieffect unit. Make sure it has separate "up" "down" bank switches. My korg has the type that you press two switches together and it's NOT simultaneaously. You have to step on one and kind of roll off onto the other to go back a bank, and if you don't do it just right, it goes up a bank and then you try to do it right twice and end up just going up the banks until you start over and get where you want to be. Not great for live gigging.

What I really love about my GNX pedal is that I have the bank up/down switches, and operate in "stompbox mode" so I have 5 other on/off switches within each patch to control the clean/od, stompbox, chorus/effect, delay, and tap tempo. I'ts perfect for stage gigging while maintaining a major dynamic with different covers and tones.

One thing I DO like about the Korg I have now is, with each bank of 4 presets, you also have an A/B switch that you can set the modeling overdrive/distortion and/or the cab model and it keeps all the other FX as they are with that preset. So, it's like having 8 presets together before having to use the dreaded "tricky" bank switch. I set all the presets for the first bank for generic sounds ranging from acoustic simulator to clean to crunch to lead. Then I set the b-side of each acordingly. The rest of the banks I set for different band sounds as I need them from Eagles to Van Halen to Creedence and so on. It gets me by until I'm ready to drop some moolah on one of the big dogs.