I've had it with...

[Tubetwang]

pedals...they will all be sold...

Have'nt touched my guitars in three weeks...home re-moddeling crew had invaded my 83 years old house for that long...

Sooo...when my fiance and twelve year old left this morning...i proceded to plug-and-play...

Tele neck pu straight into Express-bright-switch-down-presence-full-into-RWB+PrivateJack.

I was Peter Green for a good hour but...also did my Jeremy Spencer for good measure...

What a great amp!

Noticed all the un-used pedals gathering dust...

[drhulsey]

pedals...they will all be sold...Have'nt touched my guitars in three weeks...home re-moddeling...

It's funny how superfluous pedal become with an Express My rig has gotten a great deal smaller Wah, Chorus, Delay– only things the Express can't do for itself.
I thoroughly believe, you could do without ANY
And yes, remodeling will put the quietous (Kwi-eé-tus– an old hillbilly expression similar to kibosh) on your guitar playing Ten months at my house

[dartanion]

You don't need pedals with a good amp.

You don't need reverb with a good amp.

You don't need rack effects with a good amp.

You do need to play well though

My pedals have been collecting dust for years. The only reason I keep them around is for the rare occasion that I might use them. There is only 2 that would get used and that's a RI Vox Wah and a RI RAT. The Wah is fun for certain things and the RAT does a nice clean boost or dial in Marshall OD tone on a Fender

[mhuss]

I still use pedals because when playing a variety of cover tunes, there's times you need:
a) quiet/rhythm clean
b) loud/lead clean
c) quiet/rhythm distortion
d) loud/lead distortion
Also nice to have:
e) quiet/rhythm crunch
f) loud/lead crunch

With a good single channel amp I can get *perhaps* three of the six categories above.

I could get all of the above with a new-fangled 3 or 4 channel footswitch-controlled amp, but I don't think that's what TT was talking about.

--mark

[Doug H]

Yeah I've had it with electric guitars and amps. I threw all that BS away and am totally acoustic now. And I've had it with this six-string nonsense too. I'm down to one string and it sounds fantastic- so pure... I can't believe I never did this before...

[CaseyJones]

Yeah I've had it with electric guitars and amps. I threw all that BS away and am totally acoustic now. And I've had it with this six-string nonsense too. I'm down to one string and it sounds fantastic- so pure... I can't believe I never did this before...

You're jokin' but...

When I'm shopping for a guitar I almost never plug it in until I'm fairly certain it's "The One". I can usually tell whther or not I have a good one before I even pluck the strings, if it feels right it's in the contest if not it goes right back up on the wall. I'll play a few cowboy chords, part of a blues riff in "A" then shoot up to the 14th fret to see if it "deads out" up there. That eliminates most of the GAS right there, it's not like I don't have 20 outstanding Strats in my closet already.

If the guitar plays o.k. I'll feel for a good resonance from the body and yes I'm talking electric. If it has the right feel and the right resonance I can fix the rest. I'm not going to be bullshitted by a set of hot pickups from the get-go, hot pickups I can get.

If the guitar is a frickin' canoe paddle or a cricket bat no amp on Earth is gonna save it.

On the other hand you can stick a fifty buck pedal in front of a quarter million dollar 'Burst and sound like poo.

A good musician will sound good regardless. It's like an athlete, a linebacker can chase me down and kick my ass even if he's carryin' a 50 pound bag of dogfood! Take away the handicap and he'll get it done quicker.

[Doug H]

Anything can be a handicap or a useful tool. It depends on how you use it. I don't know why on earth anyone would want to use a distortion pedal with a TW amp- kind of contradicts the whole point of the amp. But a dirt pedal can be useful in the right place, in the right context- if it's the right pedal.

Most people who diss pedals across the board either don't use them in the proper context or don't really understand how to use them. I have a big set of tools in my toolbox. The task at hand determines which wrench I'll grab today.

And I agree- a good electric guitar should sound good acoustically as well.

[Lonely Raven]

Casey, I'm surprised how many people *don't* do exactly that. When I'm shopping for a solid body, I typically pick it up and strum a few chords, and if it *feels* right, I'll drag her into the Acoustic room and give her a proper listen.

If I can feel the wood "sing", I know I've got a good one.

When I play acoustic I sometimes find myself spacing out while just letting the sound flow...and I'll catch myself resting my chin on the guitar feeling the vibrations go through my head. If I catch myself doing that on a solid body, that means "buy her NOW! or you'll regret it".

I've got two now that sing to me like that, an all Mohogany Ibanez, and my new(ish) Fender Classic Player 60's Strat. I have another strat that's close...with a neck that I absolutely adore...so eventually I'm going to go on a Strat Body search to match up the right body to make this neck sing...

Anywho, back to pedals.

I keep my Red Witch Medusa Chrous/Trem and Red Witch Moon Phaser. I'm also looking for a Red Witch Fuzz God for my Fender type amps. Beyond that, I don't need anything but a high quality patch chord and some space to crank!

[Doug H]

When I play acoustic I sometimes find myself spacing out while just letting the sound flow...and I'll catch myself resting my chin on the guitar feeling the vibrations go through my head.

I find myself doing that a lot with my electro-acoustic, ever since I installed the Fishman preamp.

[CaseyJones]

Most people who diss pedals across the board either don't use them in the proper context or don't really understand how to use them. I have a big set of tools in my toolbox. The task at hand determines which wrench I'll grab today.

There are several "problems" inherent to pedals IMHO:

One, you're inserting a solid state device into your tube signal path. Yes I know the audiophools will go D/A/D and insert a tube into the analog signal path, the signal path is still solid state with the limitations of solid state and worse for instance digital "clipping" is the nastiest noise out there.

Two, classic pedals are built down to a price not up to a standard. There's an old greeting that goes "May the ground rise to meet you", as a biker that's the last thing I want to see! The traditional pedal bugaboo is that the noise floor rises with every pedal you insert into the signal path and your available bandwidth may be reduced with each additional pedal. The boutique pedal guys understand this, that's the difference between a fifty buck pedal and a two hundred dollar pedal "that does the same thing".

Why drop a couple grand on a good guitar and a couple more grand for a good amp then stick some crappy tone sucker in between?

Ah, tone suckers. That's Aspen Pittman's term. I guess there's a thing or two good ol' Aspen just doesn't get. He thinks effect loops all suck tone, period, end of story. Here's the thing, though... you can just about cut the cord of a lamp, solder an XLR to it, plug it into and old analog Neve input module, pad it down and get a perfect 60hz tone. Q: Why don't pedals work like that? A: Crummy frequency response, lousy signal to noise ratio and inattention to impedance match. Lack of headroom. Those are the biggies, add your own favorites to the list. That's why true bypass is so desirable, just lift all that junk outta the signal path and you have a straight shot at it again.

I know it can be made to work. If you're in the business of creating masters for duplication you know analog audio can go maybe 10 generations down before it degrades substantially... using good gear. NTSC video? One generation. I'm gonna miss NTSC.

I can't be bothered to figure out which pedals suck and which ones don't, for all practical purposes they all do. Suck tone that is, it's not the effects loop it's the pedal. Yeah I can fix it but it took me so long to find a killer guitar and a killer amp I'm all done with my tone quest. For now.

Shoot me now, I agree with Twang!

[Pr@]

Can I say my piece on this topic please guys.
My favourite amp at the mo' has one volume and one tone and a standby switch, its old too. I use pick effort and fingers to get all the different effects I like, theres only a few. I do pretty heavy rock, but I also like acoustic stuff like you guys. I recomend miking up acoustic with condenser mike & its internal pu into 2 seperate channels, but solid state maybe.
I made my favourite acoustic with a Stewmac guitar kit, the wood they use is great, I musta been lucky or something, coz it sounds and plays just majic.
My only leccy guitar is a Giblespaul, I use the vol and tone on it a lot. I also "used" a swell pedal for a while, but pic control made it redundant.
My only pedal now is a double pedaled Boss stereo chorus, which goes out to my amp and to the PA, sounds wicked on clean stuff only, but it too has ended in the dust under the bed (the wife told me).
Enjoyed readin your views on it guys, I'm not far away either.

[drhulsey]

...I'm down to one string...

And Doug asked the Buddha, "What is the way to enlightenment?" and the Buddha held up ONE guitar string. Doug was immediately enlightened

[Tubetwang]

welcome pr@!


PS.

i will keep tremolo...i play with Manuel Galban and it comes handy...

To each is own but...i prefer my electric sound without effects.

Other interest came and went...but my love for music is still intact...

I'm a happy camper

[CaseyJones]

The great thing about a Strat is that you can do some serious acrobatics with the pickup switch volume and tone controls. If you have a Fishman bridge there's your clean tone. Wire in a stereo jack to it, run your piezos down one conductor and your magnetics down the other. You now have a killer clean tone available independant of your normal magnetic tones.

Next, you get three knobs and a switch without drilling extra holes in the guitar. If the bridge position is a humbucker a tap is available and you can switch it with a push/pull pot on the volume knob. Next, shitcan the tone control for the middle pickup and wire in an extra volume pot in its place. While your soldering iron is warm you can use the two volume controls you now have available any way you choose, I use 'em for the neck and middle pickups and have the bridge pickup wide open all the time.

Here's the way it works in practice... the bridge pickup is always wide open for a maximum distortion tone. The middle and neck pickups can be backed off for a clean or a cleaner tone. I prefer to roll off the tone knob on my neck pickup a couple notches. Volume rolled off tone rolled off on the neck pickup nets a pretty jazzy tone. We haven't even gotten into the tween tones that are available on the five position selector. If you're in a Skynyrd mood that's the easy way to get those tones.

Just for fun I dig out my cordless drill and wire in a mini switch that cuts the signal to the output jack, that's good for all sorts of stacatto effects.

That's just one Strat wired one way and I own 20 of them. No one says they all have to be wired the same, my other favorite is to wire in a stereo jack and run the bridge pickup to one amp setup and the other two pickups to another amp setup, no piezos.

That's why Fender put those knobs and switches on there to begin with.

[Pr@]

Hey Casey, My gison LP is similar wired.
I have an XLR locking connector on my LP, I have all the pins in the microphone lead wired seperate and the screen, all my pickups (neck-bridge-baggs T bridge 6xpiezo), also wired out to seperate channels, or even seperate amps. The XLR lead plugs into a small box with three different coloured jack plugs out.
Its a pain sometimes, but I get some wicked sounds specially when the amp inputs are out of phase with each other.
The baggs mostly goes straight to the PA desk.