Fun Stuff > BAND
the Guitar Pedal Thread
king dan:
(ok I just noticed that the thread has long passed this subject but what the hell)
In terms of delay...
First off there's two options, analog and digital. I believe the difference has been discussed already.
(analog warm, goopy echoes. digital more like clean cloned repeats)
Secondly, you have to decide what application your pedal is for.
If you're playing live you pretty much HAVE to have a tap tempo (this is a little switch you tap your foot on to sync the beats of the delay with the music),
so you're in time with the rest of the band.
You don't want to be frantically twisting that little tempo knob every five seconds.
If you're recording or jamming or whatever, a cheaper one without a tap can work just fine.
The Lord of Twisty Knob (non tap tempo) Delays is probably:
the boss digital delay. I'm sure some of you use it. It's a good pedal with pretty much exclusively digital sounds.
There are pretty much two contenders for live application pedals in my opinion, the Line 6 Echo Park or DL-4, and the Electro-Harmonix Memory Man with Hazarai series.
The Echo Park is the cheapest of the series (I think 150 USD), it's the size of a regular pedal with killer digital and some decent modeled analog sounds.
It's pretty awesome, but I find it to not have quite enough features, you can only get a few great sound out of it.
Other gripes include that the same stomping part of the pedal that turns it on and off is also the tap tempo, so when turning it on and off you have to really STOMP.
And that's bad cause the pedal is made of plastic. Durability issues? Yes.
The DL-4 is awesome. It's a digital delay with a mindblowingly large amount of models. In addition it has a 14 second looper so you can do harmonies with yourself and whatnot. It's been on two tours with me around the southwest, I've used it on many recordings as well. Sadly, it breaks. A lot. They are 250 USD a pop and I had to buy three during the two and half years they lived on my board. No, I did not throw it into the crowd every night, yes, I had a metal box filled with bubble wrap to protect it. No, I'm not the only one, everyone I know who has one attests that they don't last too long.
After extensive research, the reason they break is simple: they mount the footswitches on the motherboard. So every time you stomp (or gently tap in my case) a switch, you're bending the entire motherboard. Awful.
The great alternative to this pedal is the Electro Harmonix Memory Man with Hazarai. It's a fairly new model (released late 07 I think) and it's around 220 USD. It has a tap tempo (which older memory man stuff doesn't have), a looper, and a "hazarai" button which instantly loads presets, which I find to be a great feature. Knobs include your standards level, repeats, but also a comb style filter you can put on the sound. I'm just starting to explore the tones I can get with this one. I've done about 9 shows with it now and it's chugging along quite nicely. If you go to the electro-harmonix website there is a good (albeit slightly annoying) demo video.
To conclude it's not the same as the DL-4, but it's a lot more reliable so far and it does what I need it to do no questions asked. If Line 6 could make a more stable DL-4, I'd buy it in a heartbeat, but until then the Memory Man is the final word.
Beastmouth:
--- Quote from: imapiratearg on 02 Apr 2008, 08:45 ---One thing I've never been able to grasp is running a overdrive/distortion pedal through an already overdriven amp. I tried it with my overdrive pedal and my solid state amp, but all it really succeeded at doing was make the buzz from my pickups horrendously loud. Does it only work with tube amps, or what?
--- End quote ---
Yeah, overdrive is a tube thing pretty much. When you play through a tube amp, notice how at low volumes you get a nice clean sound and a nice distortion at high volumes. This is a natural effect from putting so much through the tubes. Between the clean sound and the distortion, there is a sweet spot where the signal just starts to break up. This is overdrive. An overdriven amp will add some sustain and a bit of growl, but you can still play nice chords and whatnot.
The problem is, since they're similar to the ear, some folks get overdrive and distortion confused. A distortion pedal (or a fuzz pedal) just takes the clean signal and makes it sound like a burning hot tube amp, basically. Different circuits do this in different ways and some sound better than others. It's an effect that sounds best when you run it into a clean amp so the signal doesn't get muddied up. An overdrive pedal, however, really only works with a tube amp. It makes the signal hotter to jump from clean into the overdrive sweet spot or from that sweet spot into distortion. It sounds very weak in front of any amp that is hard to overdrive (solid state or high watt tube). However, if you put a good overdrive in front of a tube amp and turn all the knobs just right, it gives you a sweet sound that is reminiscent of low-level distortion.
Patrick:
--- Quote from: king dan on 02 Apr 2008, 13:05 ---The Lord of Twisty Knob (non tap tempo) Delays is probably:
the boss digital delay. I'm sure some of you use it. It's a good pedal with pretty much exclusively digital sounds.
--- End quote ---
If you're using the DD-20 like I am, it's got both knob-twisty AND tap tempo. Holy shit do I love that pedal. It's got a 23-second looper function, too. This looper function is fun for doing incredible shit with, such as reconstructing the post-solo guitar armada in Wilco's "Impossible Germany", which I have been spending hours on end soloing to.
king dan:
--- Quote from: Patrick on 02 Apr 2008, 13:55 ---
--- Quote from: king dan on 02 Apr 2008, 13:05 ---The Lord of Twisty Knob (non tap tempo) Delays is probably:
the boss digital delay. I'm sure some of you use it. It's a good pedal with pretty much exclusively digital sounds.
--- End quote ---
If you're using the DD-20 like I am, it's got both knob-twisty AND tap tempo. Holy shit do I love that pedal. It's got a 23-second looper function, too. This looper function is fun for doing incredible shit with, such as reconstructing the post-solo guitar armada in Wilco's "Impossible Germany", which I have been spending hours on end soloing to.
--- End quote ---
The dd-20 has tap tempo?!
I stand corrected.
awesome.
agreed on Impossible Germany. Excellent solo business to be found there.
Patrick:
It does, but surprisingly enough I've never had to use it. There's four memory presets (more than I'll ever need...) and a bunch of different delay options, including stereo pan, analog modeling, tape modeling, modulation, and so on. The looper function (oh god SO FUN) allows overdubbing, hence the guitar armada mentioned.
And like any delay pedal worth buying, playing around with the delay time adjust knob (feedback to max!) is the damn Baskin Robbins of radical. It's like a kaleidoscope of sound, and is really great to fuck around with in the middle of a solo. And then of course there's amazing cascade effects like Tom Morello's riff in "Mic Check".
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