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What pedals are y'all rockin?
Alright, first post. Let's do it.
I have seen this post from 3 years ago asking about guitar pedals and the like. But that's old, and I wanna start a new discussion post. With that out of the way...
What are the pedals y'all rockin? What's your setup? Do you have any pedals currently in your possession or those you are gunning for? Also, if you have any stories about pedals, which ones are your favourites or smth else, I would love to hear! I figure we've already had the discussion about buying your dream guitar so anything about dream pedals are cool too!
I have a bunch of pretty unremarkable pedals that many others will have like an MXR Carbon Copy and MXR Fuzz, Electro-Harmonix Canyon, T.C. Polytune 2 Mini, an Ibanez CF7, a Boss Tremolo and the Keeley Compressor Pro, but those are all pretty common.
The one rarity I have is the Alter Ego Damnation, which I received a few years back as a gift.
The pedal's pretty funny, it's a limited run of 1692 made (salem witch trials year) and has some pretty funny aesthetics - knobs are labelled Agony (Level), Wrath (Gain), Curse (Treble), Doom (Bass). The Agony and Wrath knobs are numbered "1 2 3 4 5 6 6 6 9 10"
That said, for as metal as it looks, and with the caveat that I'm like extremely not into metal, I would assume this pedal's tone is a bit too noisy and gritty for very virtuosic shredding type metal players who probably want a cleaner form of gain, but I could imagine in metal's endless list of subgenres there's something where this thing would fit. That's not to say that it's not versatile, it'll depend a lot on what type of pickups and how exactly you're playing into it for sure, but to me the way people online describe it doesn't quite match up with my experience of it. I used it while covering I'm Not Okay by MCR once for example and it was great for that. I think I would be super happy using it for like kinda pop punk stuff and adjacent styles too. As far as I can see online it's pretty unpopular but I'm quite glad to have it.
I think you should be proud for loving something that hasn't quite caught on in the mainstream. That 666 joke is funny ash, and it sounds like the Damnation would work so well in any situation where you need that warm chug or snarl.
This is my current set-up, listed top to bottom in signal order.
Horrothia Teeth: This is a low-gain overdrive created by a one-man operation in the UK. I generally dislike or do not prefer overdrives, as I feel the whole market of overdrive/distortion pedals are oversaturated. You have many Tube Screamer clones, plenty of Boss DS-1 successors to choose from, MXR does their stuff. You'll generally get around the same sound, which is... boring to me. I own a monome norns shield, and have used that as a (very noisy) multi-fx ""pedal"". Running a programme called Pedalboard, and throwing on an Overdrive algorithm completely changed my mind about boost pedals, ODs, distortions and fuzz. When wielded right, digital distortion is nothing to fuck around with.
That's why I have the Teeth. It's a distinct, discrete solution to 'transparency' and nudging your signal towards breakup. I have listened to countless demos of it, and I prefer it to its spiritual successor — the Triage. The footswitch is an absolute fidgeter's dream. The Breath switch adds a nice hump of clarity to the distorted signal, and is one of the rare times I agree with a parameter's name. It is an overdrive, but it's first to act as a pre-amplifier. I got it over the Triage cause it's way more flexible.
Electronic Audio Experiments x Obstructures 0xEAE Fuzz: I also do not care much about fuzz. Besides an original Fuzz Face or the broken Shin-Ei Fuzz Wahs Jesus and Mary Chain used throughout Psychocandy, I don't really care about them. They do their job, and I don't hate the existence of em. They just aren't loud.
This fucker is loud. Prob not the loudest fuzz in the world, but it's meant to do one thing and that is decimate your signal. 80dB on tap, harmonic (and slight subharmonic) modulation, a high pass to open up the bass frequencies. This is a simple pedal, but it is dangerous. Got it to just fuck my shit up. Also the second in a collaboration betwen EAE and Obstructures, a design collective that make aluminium guitars and related ideas. They are legit.
AC Noises AMA V.2: I almost sold this pedal. I almost did. Then I decided to do it as a dare. That dare didn't work, and I have it. I am never selling it again. One of two pedals bought new, the other being the 0xEAE Fuzz.
It is a p good reverb, but the shining star is that self-oscillates like nobody's business and it has a trail and decay like no one. It's not a clone of anything to my knowledge, and it's not meant to be an accurate reflection. This is an artificial reverb w an internal bitcrusher to introduce digital aliasing, and self-oscillation as an alternative to infinite decay. It is behind some of the songs I've recorded for my own project.
Tomkat Pedals & Electronics Cloudy: I've wanted this pedal for sooooo long and now I have it! It's a clone of the Mutable Instruments Clouds, an infamous Eurorack module known for being a textural stereo granular processor. The Cloudy is a faithful recreation of the module, all the way down to the loop lengths. On top of Clouds's standard modes, the Cloudy's firmware comes the aptly named Parasite alternative firmware, which introduces a dedicated reverb mode, a resonator, more parameters to tweak and small mods to vanilla Clouds firmware. I absolutely cannot wait to play it.
Empress Effects ZOIA: Without it, I don't think I would've created the sounds I wanted for so so long. It is... impossible to show how brilliantly executed this beast of a multi-fx pedal is. Modelled after Eurorack modules, the approach to creating presets, or patches in ZOIA terminology, is much like connected a patch cable to another module. I simply can't explain it nor show my undying love to it, and after a long period of neglecting just how....
powerful it is in spite of its limitations, I'm never selling it. I've considered even getting another one, but I'm not made of money. I highly recommend digging through PatchStorage. Or this! :3
Pedals I rly wanna get
chase bliss MOOD MKII: yes.
Electronic Audio Experiments Longsword: This is the only all-around distortion pedal I've been thirsting for a long time. I am down a-bysmal for this pedal. It is just a Swiss army knife of distortion tones, boosting and really... I don't need another distortion pedal.
Earthbound Audio Throat Locust: SIKE! I wanna get this one too. This one is a clone of the Boss HM-2, a p regard distortion for heavy metal that's led to the Swedish "chainsaw" sound. Since I think it was used within the Scandinavian metal scene, prob black metal but I'm not sure. What I do know is the HM-2 was also used by my bloody valentine, who are notorious for their use of fuzz in their ephemeral tones. Not only is this a clone, but it does the sound better and with a better EQ.
Veri-Tone Arcturus: Underrated pre-amp inspired by the recording console used by the Beatles to record the single version of "Revolution". It break up so pleasingly, and it also is dead simple to understand. Quite flexible too, but vintage like a mf.
Electronic Audio Experiments Model feT: The Sunn Model T is a beast. It is a standard for doom or sludge metal, and it sounds so cool. I've heard plenty of T pre-amp clones within the pedal scene, and if you want one that's as close as possible to the overall aesthetic, go with the Kuro Custom Exegol — that nails the absolute core sound... but is p muddy. Too muddy for my taste.
The Model feT is more like an overdrive or a custom-tuned version of the pre-amp circuit. It lacks the Presence knob the original T had, and the Exegol has (due to mostly technical limitations). What it lacks for in burnt blackness, it makes up for by trading that with the top-end growl that is practically dead-on with an original Model T. I want it for that muddy clean, and that amazing doom sound.
I've been gunning for a Hologram Microcosm for a few years now, but never seem to be able to pull the trigger. I have a few different granular effects VSTs that essentially do the same thing (Other Desert Cities and Graindad) plus Mutable Instruments Beads and a couple granular algos loaded onto an NTS-1. I can't justify buying yet another granular effects processor.
But goddamn if I don't still want it.
My Boss RV-6 has been the best pedal I've owned though because it was inexpensive (by pedal standards), incredibly simple, and does its job well. That makes it a great workhorse in any chain. Plus the shimmer is legit one of the best I've heard.
I've never heard the RV-6. I know of the Digitech RV-7, which has one of the best reverse reverbs I have ever heard. The Polara is just a reskin of the RV-7, but yeah.
I'm not too big on the Microcosm, but it's rly good for what it does. It has some novel algorithms, and the 60 second looper is enough to make me consider it but, yeah. I don't want it. I used to, then I realised... nah.
That struggle is real tho
Yah, and that's the part that always pushes me away - it's really good at what it does but what it does is, it sounds like itself. I love sound design and I see people put all kinds of interesting noises into the Microcosm. But rather than compliment the sound, it just kinda turns everything into the Microcosm. Even though it sounds really good to me, it will only ever be that one thing. Whenever I think about pulling the trigger, that fact alone stops me.
I think this is a good way to put it, and why I've been on the fence about selling it as I slowly continue to experiment with it and try to dig deeper. Immediately felt the same way about Eathquaker Devices' Rainbow Machine after borrowing one. It has it's sound and not a sound I'm looking for. Even with something like the "astral" setting on the Astral Destiny, which I think is so lovely, I just couldn't imagine using it on more than one song because it's such a specific sound.
Yeah. Personally, I would say no.
I've moved away from pedals and use Neural DSP plugins/standalone applications almost exclusively now. This is mainly because I moved countries and really needed to be picky about what I brought as we have less space. Was only able to bring one guitar, as well D: I really like the Neural DSP Gojira, Petrucci, Plini, and Nolly. Fortin Nameless is great, too.
Interesting.
I've never bothered, I should check em out.
I've always been a fan of the standard design, so my pedal board is pretty Boss-heavy. I'll mix up the order every once in a while, but currently the setup is:
Pretty much the only thing on my wishlist is a decent isolated power supply, probably the One-Spot Pro CS12. Right now, the whole rig is being powered by a mix of Boss and ancient One-Spot daisy chains, so there's some ground loop hum that the noise gate can't fully remove.
The SY-1 seems interesting... but for me, the Synth-1 from Keeley is my choice
Also this is probably a shot in the dark but if you're mostly BOSS Pedals, have you considered Walrus Audio's line of Aetos power supplies?
My setup is pretty simple. Just a basic Boss looper pedal (RC1) and a Revv G3 for distortion. I run them through a Boss Katana MK 2 so I can get pretty much any sound I need, or even run the Revv as an amp head.
I looked into the Revv G3. Seems like a useful pre-modeller in this chain, in the sense that because of its versatility, you can dial in any personal distortion sound you would like. Doesn't sound half bad too!
Katana was one of my choices of amps before I settled on the JC-120. Still a p cool amp.
I sold all of my pedals, except for my drop pedal, and bought a Line6 Pod Go. This thing is essentially a baby Helix. It's probably not as good as plugins on a computer, but it does way more than I need at this point, is portable, and has an expression pedal that can do wah effects among other things. For recording, it outputs two sets of stereo channels via USB, one for the wet signal and the other for dry.
If you're like me and have limited space while on a budget, and want something that you can experiment with and create new signal chains on, this isn't a bad setup at all.
Interesting!
Have you discovered any pain points within the Pod Go?
I'm not a pro, by any means, so my biggest pain point was feeling a little overwhelmed by having too many options to deal with. This thing seems to have hundreds of virtual pedals that you can combine with amps, speaker cabinets, and effects to produce wildly different tones. It probably took me almost a year before I felt comfortable tinkering with it, without having to look things up or watch YouTube videos every time.
The second point will be figuring out if you want to pair it with an amp (you'll need to make sure your amp isn't modeling IR while this is modeling IR), if you want to buy an FRFR speaker (I ended up buying a Headrush 108), or if you just want to use it with your PC via an audio input device or USB. You could also just use it directly with headphones.
I have a couple setups...
Small "board": Boss GT-1B + EHX Bass Soul Food + EHX Bass Clone + Eden WTDI. Haven't grabbed the 2 EHX pedals yet, but they're coming soon.
Big board: MXR Bass Envelope Filter + Empress Compressor (v1) + EHX Bass MicroSynth + EHX Deluxe Bass Big Muff Pi + EBS ValveDrive (v1) + TC Sub'n'Up + EBS UniChorus + Empress Reverb + Boss DD-500. I also have an EBS WahOne which I don't use anymore, and a TC Sentry I use when needed. And when I have that kind of money, I want to switch the ValveDrive out for a Darkglass Alpha Omega Ultra (the Φoton, or Phooton/Futon as I call it, is too expensive for me right now)
Both with TC PolyTune 3 tuners.
I've been trying out some different pedals as I continue to shape "THE SOUND" (Friends reference).
Hologram Microcosm - still playing around with it. I think Jorb put it well (me paraphrasing) that it tends to take the lead when you're collaborating with it.
I tried out the Chase Bliss Generation Loss Mk II for a bit but realized the sound degradation goals of that pedal aren't really in line with what I'm going for. I really wanted something with a versatile wow and flutter though and found out about kinotone's ribbons pedal with enough lead time to snag one from their most recent batch. It's like a two person outfit out of Minnesota I think. I like the reverb for the option of pre- or post-effect.
I use Earthquaker Devices' Avalanche Run a lot, especially playing with the delay time and repeats - crazy sounds can be found in there. I enjoy the reverse delay on this one too, and really appreciate all the timing division options. Though I could do some really cool live improv stuff with it if it had MIDI. But, I just recently snagged an Empress Effects Echosystem, and I'm looking forward to playing around with it. It seems like a really good pedal for people who love playing with delay.
Had the Red Panda Context V2 for a while and I think it's a great solution for reverb in a pedal. But I sold it for other stuff since I was getting what I needed out of some Quadraverbs.