Thanks Steve – interesting stuff. Since first posting I’ve been listening to a
lot of YouTube channels trying to learn more about the different pedals and
what they bring in terms of colour to the sound.
I ware a top of the range pair of hearing aids that are really excellent in
returning many lost sounds to my hearing, but it seems that I am still pretty
much unable to hear very much difference when it comes to overdrive and tube
screamers.
not that I’m into heavy metal or grunge, more blues and pop, but still
interested in discovering new, rich, sweet tones.
i’m only playing through a Marshall DSL five amp, which actually delivers
really nice tones itself, on both the clean and overdrive channels. What I’ve
not been sure of is whether a tubescreamer would compliment The overdrive
channel in the amp.
Anyway on to loopers: The Boss RC-3 that I’ve been considering has many
channels for storing loops but I don’t know how accessible it is in terms of
choosing where to store and then retrieving a loopp. I think it also has some
percussion for backing tracks, but again don’t know if that is accessible.
I am in the duffers age group myself, and I don’t know how far I will go with
this, I’m not a good player by any stretch, but I just enjoy it. There is
probably a rock God in me somewhere wanting to burst out, but whether I get to
the point of having enough confidence/skill to even jam with somebody else I
don’t know, so a loop station will have to do for now.
Andy Collins
Sent from my iPhone
On 20 Apr 2020, at 7:30 pm, Steve Hyde-Dryden (Redacted sender Stevehdryden
for DMARC) <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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 <vibe-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Andy
C
Sent: 17 April 2020 14:25
To: 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> 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, which to my
ears is juse pure black magic.
Final thought, TC Helicon's Voice Live 2 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> 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
