Distortion and Effects

[Blackie]

Who's been using what for guitar effects and distortions and what's your favorite stuff?
Is everybody in the box now with software, or are people using external gear?
I've been using Digitech stuff for years now because I like the pitch-bending capabilities, but I can't say the distortions on the GNX3 I'm using now are my faves. Some sound really good, but others are so-so. I've found it sounds better in the FX loop of my amp.
The distortion channel on my Carvin combo amp is great, but I don't want to haul a tube amp to my gigs.
A friend lent me a Korg PX 2 for my trip to Belgium last year, and I enjoyed it a lot, despite the lack of options. Some of the distortion patches sound nice, but not many good clean sounds. Anybody have PX 4? Is it worth the $170? How about the bigger Korg floor stuff?
Hmmmmmm?
Thanks for any replies,
JW

[Jersey Ray]

I have used the same gear since 1997:

Treble: Roland GP-100
Bass : SansAmp PSA-1

Works great on my ADG, and on the instrument I had before that. The Roland's knobs are getting a little funny, after ten years the digital knobs don't always work smoothly, but the sound is still there. I can use this compact rack to feed my own power amp/speakers, or a PA, or the recording board.

JR

[jamsire]

A while back I posted some photos of my effects - Tech 21 pedals, Guitar Rig 2, etc.

I'll hip you guys to some new gear soon. Revamped the studio and began reviving some older rack units.

[Padauk]

Ampeg SVP-Pro preamp into Bass Pod XT Pro with shortboard (usually bypass amp/cab models, use the FX) , Akai Headrush E2 for Looping. Also use a QSC PLX1602 power amp bridged into a 1400 watt Schroeder 410 cab.

[GaryOpenhill]

Yeah, i got the korg px 4. I found it very good for practicing with ear-phones....just smacked it on the belt with velcro. And its possible to put together a lot of rythm tracks, but it is much limited compared to a drum machine. I guess it sounds good for it's use, but to my ears all these digital multieffect boxes lack depth. Could be my crappy earphones tho :)
My kid recently find it amusing to throw it around and it broke. However, it was totally worth the money, but im not getting another one, but a simpler solution, since i ended up just using one clean custom sound anyways. (and that sound was pretty good, but i had to tweak around a lot to get there)

I find it frustrating in the long run with the un-intuitive interface, push this button while holdning down that button, then push 3 times on that button and then you can use the big button to adjust the value of the compression peak IF you remembered to push those other buttons before.....argh! But some people like that. They are called geeks.

Btw, i recenetly moved to a new home far away, and havent unpacked anything but my carvin amp. Its pretty nice to just plug the tapper in mono unprocessed. What a great way to practice a good tone. Very revealing.

[jamsire]

Originally posted by GaryOpenhill
Btw, i recenetly moved to a new home far away, and havent unpacked anything but my carvin amp. Its pretty nice to just plug the tapper in mono unprocessed. What a great way to practice a good tone. Very revealing.

Ya know, I totally hear ya!

At the NY Stick Seminar - Pete Beggs stopped by for a quick performance and all he did was plug into this new tri-channel Stick Amp - no effects except the built in reverb. Clean and pure as can be - and it was glorious. Absolutely glorious.

[qbensis]

Originally posted by jamsire
Ya know, I totally hear ya!

At the NY Stick Seminar - Pete Beggs stopped by for a quick performance and all he did was plug into this new tri-channel Stick Amp - no effects except the built in reverb. Clean and pure as can be - and it was glorious. Absolutely glorious.

Uuuuuuuups, I think I missed something.

What kind of a new stick amp are you talking (writing) about jamsire?

The only one I am aware off is the stepabout preamp, but no complete amp?!:confused:

[K Rex]

Jim,

I used the GNX 4 for a while and loved the tones, but had to get rid of it because of dramatic latency issues when switching patches. A real drag.

Now I use a Boss GT-8... it's great. I also use a Tech 21 Sans Amp Bass Driver in unison with a Boss pitch shifter. Awesome combination. The Sans Amp is the best unit for bass fuzz, hands down. No competition.

Kev

[Tom Drinkwater]

I have had really great luck for a long time with Line 6. I have an old 1st generation guitar pod and it's bass counterpart. I think that they sound really good considering how much I wasn't impressed with their AxSys 212 amp. The Pod may not sound exactly like whatever amp that they are modelling but it does offer a variety of very usable tones and effects and is quite easy to use. This last part being the most important to me because I am a complete idiot when it comes to these sort of things. I also have a Seymour Duncan Twin tube that sounds great, it's basically a tube preamp with 2 channels. I think that it sounds better than my old JCM 900 marshall. I play through a 300 watt Behringer keyboard amp that has a 15" speaker and a horn. This amp is really a great choice for any electric instrument because of it's flat response and multiple stereo inputs, not to mention the mic input. Under 3 bills too. It has some effects but I usually only add a little reverb because I really like the clean tone of my Megatar. The Bartolinis probably have a lot to do with this. I think that when I am ready to upgrade the effect units I'll shop around alittle but I will probably stick with Line 6. I also have a pile of stomp boxes that I rarely use like the Boss PS-5, DS-1, dod death metal, crybaby wah, Boss flanger, mxr evh phase 90, so on and so forth. Still like to play clean though.

[K Rex]

The Boss Metal Zone is good, as is the Line 6 Pod. Even the Line 6 Pod doesn't sound as good as the Marshall JMC, though.

Do yourself a favor and check out the Sans Amp stuff. You'll never go back.

I love the MuTron, also. You can really mutilate sounds in very nice ways with that piece of gear.

Anyone have any experience with the Boss RC-50? How does it compare to other looping devices?

Anyone using good plugins?

K

[jamsire]

Originally posted by K Rex
Do yourself a favor and check out the Sans Amp stuff. You'll never go back.


Indeed!!

For the bass side - check out (if you can find them) the Bass Compactor! Awesome knarly growley sound for that side of your instrument. Get a little shaping from their Bass Driver (their best selling pedal) or their RBI rack mount unit.

I'll take some pictures today of my stuff with details.

Very, very, very fun indeed.

[K Rex]

Yes, I'd like to see some details (words, photos, whatever) about people's various tapping rigs. Not just effects, but the overall system.

k

[rpmartino]

I use separate but identical signal chains for bass and melody, each side goes to a Boss GX-700 with a Boss SE-70 off the effects send but going to it's own mixer channel rather than back to the GX-700 (so four channels total). This allows for some interesting layered effects. A Behringer FC-1010 is used to control patch and parameter changes like volume, wah, delay etc.

The GX-700 is good for amp/speaker simulations (it's one of the first COSM units) and the SE-70 is fantastic for everything else from clean sounds to synth like textures. One nice feature these units have that later processors lack is a true analog distortion circuit.

Also experimented with just using Guitar Rig 2 software (a couple tunes on my MySpace page use this) but for live playing I feel it's missing something in terms of responsiveness (both latency and sound wise). Great as a mixing tool for changing the sound of a track after the fact.

Because two handed tapping instruments aren't complicated enough, I also recently picked up a set of MIDI bass pedals so that I can trigger a Wavestation SR synth. It can be used to trigger single notes in a "traditional" manner or, using my laptop, go through a little MAX/MSP MIDI program I wrote to generate full chords based on the key signature I'm playing in. So all limbs are going at once... the grande finale of my set involves my brain exploding.

[jamsire]

Here is the link to the thread I did almost a year ago.

http://www.tappistry.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1015&highlight=SansAmp

Cool too because no one responded or replied, so it's short!

Originally posted by K Rex
Yes, I'd like to see some details (words, photos, whatever) about people's various tapping rigs. Not just effects, but the overall system.

k

[K Rex]

Tapping instruments not complicated enough, heh. Nice one, Rob!

Ernie, you must be sponsored by Tech 21... right? Regardless, an impressive array of very fine tone-shaping gear. How much you want for that bass compactor, hmmmm?

k

[K Rex]

Remind me never to go on stage after Rob's set... too messy.

[jamsire]

I have an endorsement with them (and several others I will admit), but I buy everything. I just get to get it - first:p

Originally posted by K Rex
Tapping instruments not complicated enough, heh. Nice one, Rob!

Ernie, you must be sponsored by Tech 21... right? Regardless, an impressive array of very fine tone-shaping gear. How much you want for that bass compactor, hmmmm?

k

[BigDaddyPoo]

I was working at a guitar center for a couple of months ( just long enough to build up a hefty case of gear lust ) which gave me the oportunity to try out a bunch of gear. I have to say that a group of select pedals instead of digital multi-effects is the way to go in my opinion. The digital stuff seems to color the tone in a bad way, unless you're want to fork out some cash on Eventide gear.

My personal favs in the distortion department are the Metal Muff for melody and Rat for bass. Everyone should also check out bbe's new pedals.

[Blackie]

Obviously a subject on which people have lots of experience and opinions.
Thanks for the replies, and please, let's have some more. I will try some Sansamp stuff.
Anybody have experience with the G-Force?
I tried some of my old Boss pedals recently, and felt it was a step backwards.
I am generally unhappy with any thing that is modeling to make distortions. I like the convenience, but a distorted channel on a tube amp sounds best to me. However, I don't like carrying tube amps around to gigs, so I bought one of the Fender FM 212R solid state amps (@$300) to take to gigs, and am using the GNX 3 as an effects device in the Fender FX loop. The Fender has a fine clean tone (I love 2x12 on guitar), and the distortion channel is OK, but obviously solid state.
On the GNX, the wah is one of the better sounding that I've heard from modeling, and some of the distortions are very nice, but some are also a bit "paper-y". I haven't gotten into the looping capabilities of this unit, but they seem pretty comprehensive. You can run many channels/loops at one time, and foot controlling of the recording/playback of the loops is easy. The drum grooves are fun to jam with, but pretty useless otherwise.
Chorusing and delays are nice, but as I mentioned before, I use the Digitech gear for the pitch bending that is possible with the foot pedal. Usually it's set at a major 2nd for scooping into notes and fall-offs (listen to 'Allans Room' on my MS page), but after seeing Belew a few times with KC, I made a couple of octave patches to get that electric violin sound that he does so well.
Having said all that, my guitars sound best to me straight into any amp, and putting something in the effects loop just takes away fidelity, so most of my jazz gigs are played straight with the Fender amp, and an SWR Studio 220, which I simply love, combined with a 2x10 cabinet.
I have an older Digitech Valve FX, which I have kept due to it's unique tone. The clean tones are very brilliant, and the distortions are nice. It sits in my studio rack. This is what I used for the tune mentioned above.
One thing I do is put J/J tubes in anything that uses a 12AX7, even if it only runs at thermionic voltages.
These are good-sounding tubes, and worth the expense and trouble. They go into all my studio mic pres, too.
JW

[jamsire]

I honestly say try the SansAmp classic.

Programmable to the "one tone" you want, other than that - it's a killer.

No need to carry stuff!