Just to stop hijacking
spacedog 's thread about
Berlin School Sequencing, which segued into a discussion about Zoom pedals, I'm starting this new thread.
Firstly, to highly inappropriately brag about my newest acquisition, the Zoom MS-70CDR, and my first patch I made with it, and secondly to invite everyone to share their pedal setup and discuss the pros and cons of various types and setups.
So here is my first patch which involves a flanger and reverb to get some more interesting movements out of the mini modular
Congratulations,
admin . welcome to the slippery slope of the effects pedal
I've been through quite a few effects and setups through the years, but central to every setup has always been the reverb-delay combination. Coming a close second is a good variety of modulation effects. I'll be quick...
I started out as a guitarist, which meant stomp boxes straight into a amp, I still have most of these including some quite rare ones (now). I did have some synths as well, but guitar was mainly where I was at. Gradually, I bought more synths and the pedals were useful (maybe not the fuzz boxes).
Then I built an 8-track (tape) studio and bought even more, and better synths, which meant "investing" in 19" rack effects, including more studio effects like limiting, compression, EQ and other "fairy dust" units. This combined with a large patchbay and a decent mixer took care of things for quite a while, including breaking it down to take out live (which was painful in the extreme). In parallel, I kept a guitar rig going, with its own stomp box effects.
Things changed and evolved over the years to the point where the "studio" is a DAW and a small mixer, and the 19" rack effects were mothballed and the smaller stomp boxes started to proliferate and take over main duties as the quality improved. I can now set up a quick and simple chain of effects using my stomp boxes that is both versatile (including routing as I can move things around and create parallel runs) and really high quality.
Rather than list pedals, I'll go for effect type and then give my personal favourite of the ones that I own. I haven't always picked the most expensive by the way, and there are a few more types, I just see these as the basic set.
Reverb: goes on everything, favoutite is the Digitech Polara for its range of usable reverbs at a great price.
Delay: essential for seqeuences, favourite is the EHX Memory Boy Deluxe for its slightly dirty true analogue sound with tap tempo and modulation on the echoes.
Phaser: on almost all bass sequences, adds a nice bit of movement, favourite is the EHX Small Stone, basic one-knob, one-switch analogue phaser that just nails the sound.
Chorus: provides a more detailed movement, good for pad sounds, favourite is the Walrus Audio Julia, huge range of sounds from this boutique pedal (i.e. expensive, but worth it); I have a special edition (i.e. fancy artwork) bought for me by my partner, Julia.
Flanger: great for making the instrument stand out, my favourite is the slightly weird Keeley Bubble Tron (which also has filter and phaser modes), amazing control over the effect for lead lines.
Rotary: to give that Hammond rotating speaker sound, not everyone needs this, but I find it essential for some of the vintage sounds, I am lucky enough to have an original Roger Mayer Voodoo Vibe that served me well as a guitarist in a Blues band for a decade as well, sounds great on synths.
Way-Out-There pedal: I have a few weird and wonderful pedals and the EHX Superego is probably the most useful. Basically a micro-sampler with an effects loop. I once played a cover of "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" live using this pedal and one guitar... admittedly, it wasn't a great version
Looper: more useful than you would imagine once you start playing with it, and it's not just for guitarists, my value-for-money favourite is the TC Electronic Ditto X2, it's simple and can help to produce amazing ambiences if you don't want to use a DAW - great for live use as well.
I have quite a few others, some much more expensive and some dirt cheap and multiples of certain types (you can never have enough delay pedals). Having said that, you can do just about all you need with a decent reverb, delay and modulation (my personal favourite is a phaser) pedal. My usual chain is:
Instrument ---> Phaser----> Delay -----> Reverb
Nice and simple and gets the job done.
If I'm creating something more ambient then there will be a bit more going on, with parallel routings all controlled and mixed at the mixer. The patch that I created for this week's challenge ("Imitation is Flattery") uses the exact setup above to create a bass sequence with a bit of movement. I do also play with the effects in real-time as part of the overall sound generation chain - so, rather like synths, having real knobs is a bonus.
Without teaching people to suck eggs, a great way to work out what you like and how to use effects is either via a multi-effects (I still have a few of those as well...!!!) or downloading free plugins and playing in a DAW. The milti-effects are quite versatile now and do allow routing and chaniing and the quality is very good. Analogue freaks will baulk, but frankly for what we're doing it's more than good enough.
In terms of plugins, there are a wealth of legitimately free plugins that can help to understand how an effect works and what it does to the sound - even if you don't want to work in a DAW, this is a great way to improve understanding and allow you to audition the right effects for what you want to achieve. You can pick up (for example) Reaper to demo and there are a couple of well-organised sites that let you safely download free effects to try out. If your host is powerful enough, you can even try the effects out in real time, although sometimes recording a piece, looping it, and then adding and tweaking effects can be very instructive.
Apologies if that's too much detail, it's a very personal viewpoint and I tried to keep it short and relevant - it took two coffees, so that's not too bad
