Hi All,
Apologies for the somewhat strange subject line. I’ve been trying to get in on
the pedal conversation thread but, I’ve had some problems with my subscription.
Thanks to Peter, that’s all sorted now. Andy, I wanted to come back to you
regarding your query about the Looper Pedal. I’ll just paste my original
response to you which, of course unfortunately never went out on the list.
The idea of a looper pedal is really cool but, I found with the R300 I had, it
was very difficult to precisely manipulate it. The R3 may well be a lot more
basic in the way you manipulate it. I seem to remember the R3 has one
footswitch whereas the R300 had two. The R300 also had a lot of other
functions such as a built in drum pattern generator and the ability to record
whole songs on it. There is also the R30 I think which is somewhere in between
with its functionality. The trouble is that with these pedals, there is a
circle of LED's where one rotates round the circle and when hitting the 12
o'clock position indicates to the player exactly when the loop begins. Unless
you can see that, you must be absolutely precise with your manipulation of the
foot switch and you’re playing. Unless you're doing it live, I use Reaper for
recording any backing I want which, is much easier.
There has been some discussion regarding pedal boards. Personally, as someone
who has played live, I find pedal boards are a nightmare. The problem is
ensuring that you press the correct pedal and, that you only press that pedal.
I used to use the effects on my amp and where necessary, just use one or two
additional pedals where necessary. Unless you have the sight of course, to be
able to easily tap the right footswitch. As someone has already pointed out,
the more physical devices you have in a chain, the more potential there is for
crackles or buzzes or even cable breaks and power supply problems. If you do
need to use a pedal board, then the next issue is that many boards now are
multi effects processors and are mainly screen driven so manipulation is
extremely hard. What I’ve found in terms of accessibility, some of the
slightly earlier Line 6 POD type units have a lot more physical controls and
can be interrogated by just using the hardware controls. In addition, Boss
have their ME80 board which has a great many of the stand alone Boss pedals and
it has a very basic layout very much like all the pedals side by side. It is
very accessible and sounds pretty good. Certainly good enough for general
playing though, if you are recording with it, some of the sounds are quite
basic. I hope that some of my own experience might help you Andy but please
give me a shout if you want anything else.
On the point of people collaborating on music projects over the internet, this
is going to be very very haphazard. As has already been said, no matter what
you use, there will always be some latency caused through both the recording
software and the broadband signal. My suggestion would be that someone creates
the basic track. You could send this to various contributors and they can sing
along with the track and record their performance sending the recorded vocal to
the person who is going to compile the whole performance. They can then edit,
mix and master it. You could do the same with instruments as well.
Anyway all, sorry for the lengthy email. I hope you are all well and that this
whole lock down situation isn’t causing too much upset for you. I’ve been
using the time a bit to work on some new material, along with our guitarist,
for our band, The Dead Sea Divers. We’re working on our second EP but are a
bit stair crazy as we obviously can not get into the studio at the moment. I
hope it’s not against guidelines but, if you have a chance, check out our music
on any of the main streaming services. Ask for The Dead Sea Divers or ask for
the Gingerbread House EP. There are four of us and we’re all of a somewhat,
more mature age! Haha! The rest of the guys are all fully sighted with myself
being the only blind person.
Best wishes All!
From: vibe-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:vibe-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<vibe-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:vibe-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> > On Behalf Of
Andy C
Sent: 17 April 2020 14:25
To: vibe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:vibe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [vibe] Re: Fx pedals
Wow Chris! A lot of that sounds like a foreign language to me. I can’t get past
the first two pedals without asking so how do they give harmony and string fx.
I must try and hear them in action. My intention is not to be a performer in
public, but a player just for my own enjoyment and maybe the odd friend who
might find enjoyment in some accompaniment to their singing.
One of the difficulties I find is when trying to learn about fx is that rarely
does a player just use a single pedal to demonstrate exactly how it sounds. So
often they say I’m running this through…, Which is usually a peddleboard of
some description with other fx in the chain. Oh well, more digging around on
YouTube I guess. Just one final thing though Chris, what does an actual pedal
board look like? Is it some kind of framework where the pedals patching to one
another from short cables? Do all the pedal sit in a long line side by side?
And how do you manage if you have as you do, eight or 10 pedals on a board, and
you quickly want to find one in the middle with your foot to tchange the sound
of your instrument?
Andy Collins
Sent from my iPhone
On 17 Apr 2020, at 12:57 pm, Chris Norman (Redacted sender chris.norman2 for
DMARC) <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> >
wrote:
OK, so this is a huge can of worms.
There's lots of videos entitled "how to sound like <artistname>", so that you
can watch until your ears bleed. If you're looking for a specific tone, that's
where I'd start.
Alternatively, just try a bunch of stuff, and honestly be prepared to spend
loads of money on stuff you'll eventually get rid of, while you find the sound
that suits you. Remember, even if your guitar sounds like John Petrucci,
doesn't mean you'll play like him, so his sound might not suit you entirely.
You can happily use electric effects on an acoustic, but that might not be what
you're after.
I'll run down what's on my pedal board (which is a basic pedal train model if
you care), that will tell you what I think is important. You might disagree,
certainly others will.
Please bear in mind that I'm an acoustic player who sings, so all of this stuff
is geared towards that end.
From right to left (I'm largely right-footed):
TC Helicon Harmony Singer 2: This gives me excellent tone fx that smooth my
voice out, with a combination of compressor and EQ and stuff that I don't need
to mess with. It also - as the name suggests - gives me harmony.
Electro Harmonix Synth9: This allows me to layer a string sound over my
acoustic. Really bulks out the sound.
Some sort of Boss cheap chorus pedal: This thickens up the sound of the guitar
(and the strings if they're turned on), to make my sound even bigger.
TC Electronic Spark Mini Booster: This makes my guitar that wee bit louder for
solos (that I don't do very often), and stuff. Only really useful if you're
playing with other people, or if your loops ended up too loud.
TC Helicon Mic Mechanic 2: This gives me basic reverb and delay for my voice.
It can be toggled on and off with the single footswitch, and that's about all
it does.
Personally find loopers a great practise tool, but far too volatile for my
liking. One wrong move, and you're creting audible chaos through your speakers.
Even worse, my old TC Electronic Ditto got to a stage where it would happily
record until the cows came home, but it couldn't be stopped. Not what you want
in a live situation.
If I was bothered, I'd put in delay as well. Dotted triplet delays are
beautiful, and pingpongs on vocals are pure magic.
If you like your reverbs, and don't mind the odd pedal running on 12v (most are
on 9v, which is why all of mine run off 1 daisychained lead which I can't
remember the name of), then Strymon do a pedal called the BigSky
<https://www.strymon.net/bigsky/> , which to my ears is juse pure black magic.
Final thought, TC Helicon's Voice Live 2
<https://www.absolutemusic.co.uk/community/entries/tc-helicon-voicelive-2-review>
is a wonderful machine that is completely accessible. I have a sheet listing
the menu structure and all the stuff you need.
More geared towards singer songwriters (and runs on 12V which is annoying), but
a great powerhouse of a pedal none the less. The Voice Live 3 might be worth a
look too, especially because you can assign the footswitches to do different
things, but I'ver personally never used it.
Anyways, sorry for the rambling email, but hope it helps someone.
Take care,
Chris Norman
On Fri, 17 Apr 2020 at 11:15, Andy C <andyc003003@xxxxxxxxx
<mailto:andyc003003@xxxxxxxxx> > wrote:
So far, I’ve just been playing my electric using the clean and overdrive
channels in my Marshall amp. I haven’t invested in any fx pedals. I am now
looking to get started, but I’m not sure which is the most important one to buy
first, other than a looper.
there are so many fx pedals, and so many different manufacturers. I don’t know
the name of the one to research that will help me achieve popular lead guitar
tones? Any suggestions would be much appreciated, so I can then go and do my
research on YouTube.
Andy Collins
Sent from my iPhone
