All things pedal related.

[cptgone]

Is anyone playing pedals only, without an amp/cab?

(Listening through normal stereo speakers, or headphones.)

I recently started playing again, DI'ing into my audio interface.
After a while, I got into pedals. Pretty soon I added a amp sim pedal (an AMT F1, emulates Fender). I use it as an always-on clean pedal platform, it seems to add detail and might even emulate some of the behaviour of an amp pushed into overdrive, if one puts drive pedals in front of it.
My AMT F1 pedal has a single cab sim, too.

At the moment that suffices for me. Recording a real amp would be far too loud. I don't even feel tempted by amp sim farms, not even the Kemper, not right now. I feel I have so much to learn about guitars and pedals, I don't need another layer of sonic complexity yet*. A clean pedal platform should suffice, as I can always add amp sims later, is my current thinking. By the time I change my mind, amp profilers will hopefully be lots cheaper, too.

---
(*) I may well be wrong, I've heard people argue that guitar and amp are a single instrument, a closed electronic circuit, its components interacting.

[cptgone]

Some Mooer clones.

https://spartanmusic.co.uk/blogs/smblog ... nes-a-list

Wow thanks, I ordered a 2nd hand Lofi for my synth/drum pedal board

[codec_spurt]

I've really only bought a couple of stompboxes ever for guitar... some really crap sounding Ibanez distortion in the 80's, and then a Boss metal something or other a few years later. More recently, I've bought a ton of pedals, but I almost exclusively use them on synths. As for guitar, the Helix floorboard pretty much covers all my needs.

I had a really cool Ibanez distortion/overdrive pedal around '84. It was Blue. I remember this for two reasons: 1 - it's my favourite colour. 2 - I had an Ibanez acoustic that was the same colour, and it had a pointy guitar headstock (yeah like a heavy metal guitar) - very unusual for an acoustic at the time. Not really seen many since either come to think of it. I was big in to Ibanez, and had many of their guitars including the Artist.



Kinda like a LP mixed in with a Yammy SG2000.

So it was deffo Ibanez and it was deffo Blue.

Just haven't been able to find that pedal anywhere, except for this one:



Pretty sure that's it.

https://reverb.com/ca/p/ibanez-sm-9-sup ... g=15752434

It was a very creamy and smooth distortion/overdrive with lots of nice harmonic overtones. I'd been used to using the Electro Harmonix Big Muff Pi which I had on permanent loan. And this was a lot 'sharper' not so 'fuzzy'. I liked it a lot. Not sure why I got rid of it.

I messed about with a few other distortion pedals before settling on the fabled Boss HM-2. I knew then it was a very limited pedal, but what it did, it did better than everything else. I had that Boss Distortion that had a built in 'feedbacker' in it as well when you stepped down on the pedal, but the overdrive was not so good. Still, it had character and I regret getting rid of it.

I don't think Ibanez ever did a Blue distortion pedal apart from the SM-9.

http://theguitarzombie.blogspot.com/201 ... c-80s.html

It also came out in the year I remember buying it. I've killed a lot of brain cells since then...

https://www.tonehome.de/ibanez/9-series ... per-metal/

It's a very nice and well-behaved distortion/overdrive. Creamy but a little raspy, with a lot of nice harmonics. It can do basic overdrive but get very dirty as well if you push it - definitely more versatile than the one trick pony that is the Boss HM-2.

Btw, I'm up for trading my Boss HM-2 for the SM-9 if anyone has one. I'll pay the postage, anywhere in the world.

I'm not really in to pedals and vintage and boutique stuff, but I have a certain amount of nostalgia for that pedal.

I've also been trying to track down that pointy headstock Ibanez acoustic that was the same colour:



But no luck. The finish will have faded by now anyway as it was so 'vibrant'. Guitars painted in that finish lose the edge after a few years. Especially Blue. If you think about it, you don't see that many 'Vibrant Blue' acoustics around from the 70's and 80's do you? I might be wrong. It was a really lovely and deep and lush sounding guitar.

I couldn't get on with that Ibanez Artist, truth be told. More of jazzer's type guitar and I was a rock hack. I don't miss it, but it was a nice guitar.

I'm getting all teary-eyed. I might need to scour ebay for an old SM-9. Don't really want to spend a hundred quid on an old distortion pedal, but you know...

Yeah, fuzz is probably the number one effect that just doesn’t work digitally. I think flangers is another area - if they don’t have hiss and other noise they don’t sound right to me.

The nostalgia hits are coming hard and fast tonight.

I had a really exceptional Flanger pedal:

Pearl Flanger - FG-01:



https://www.modulargrid.net/p/other-unknown-pearl-fg-01


It could do double tracking with very very short delay. It could do chorus effects. It could even do a kind of 'Dimension D' where it wasn't even really doing anything except enhancing the sound. And it did a wonderful phaser effect. But more than all that, when it Flanged, it really Flanged. The King of Flangers! A very very versatile pedal. I held on to it for years and years. Another one I wish I had not got rid of. Doh!

And yeah, it was noisy! Goes with the territory. But when you play, it goes away...

fuzz is probably the number one effect that just doesn’t work digitally

I think more and more this is becoming accepted wisdom.

It's a common bugbear among digital modeling amps. My Fender Mustang does a very mean AC-30 (my fave amp in all the world), but push it harder than that and it soon breaks down. From 'quite good' to 'really bad', very fast.

But distortion/overdrive has always been a hard one to nail.

I had a hybrid tube amp (Peavey Classic) and it was good up to a point at certain volumes, but not so great at others. Was it the speaker being pushed at very loud gain that contributed to the sound, making it sound so sweet? Or was it the fact the tubes were not being fully pushed at lower volumes that made it sound not so sweet?

These are questions the DSP gurus and VST makers need to answer.

And what makes a nice distortion/overdrive is also quite subjective.

I quite liked the inbuilt distortion from my Peterson Cube amp:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyGFX2C17NI

MOSFET.

Quite raspy, but quite sweet. Like a Big Muff mixed with the Ibanez SM-9!

I used to inline a Chandler Tube Driver in there as well for added effect. Along with my trusty old Boss HM-2. I could get varying degrees of nastiness and sweetness with that setup. I gave my Tube Driver to Dean Nekro a few years ago and he never did tell me if he got it working (it was a bit busted - needed a new tube I think).

All I know is my Fender Mustang does saturation very very well. It can sound silky sweet if you don't spank it too hard, but hit dem strings and the overdrive comes in to play. That is no mean feat for a modeled amp. Very Fender, very Vox AC-30. And I've had other 'real' guitar players say as much on other more guitar orientated forums.

When I need Tony Iommi and that Black Sabbath sound, I just plug in my Boss HM-2. It's an identical tone to what you will hear on the early Sabbath albums. Sounds like BS uh? But it's not. And all through a Fender Mustang amp as well. Even single coil pups spit out that sound.

I miss my old Boss Digital Delay pedals as well from that era when I was playing semi-professionaly. But if it's one thing the new generation of multi-mode DSP pedals do, and do well, it's digital delay and even reverb!

It's those non-linearities that are so hard to model when it comes to distortion/overdrive, it would seem. Not so much the end effect itself, but how the effect comes about in relation to the program material that is input. So many subtle variations that don't seem so difficult at first, then...

I don't know.

But it's not all bad. My Fender Mustang does a very good impersonation of a Vox AC-30, and it even does a very good impression of Black Sabbath 'Paranoid' tone when I plug in my Boss HM-2.

Mmm... maybe I'm not up for swapping it for an Ibanez SM-9 after all.

And if anyone anywhere has a Peterson amp to sell, hit me up, I'm in the game!


[EDIT]
That's a 600 watt Electro-Voice speaker in there btw in the Peterson.

Electro-Voice 150W (600W peak) 120db

Beautiful spring reverb.

A 10" speaker that would take your head off at a couple of yards. XLR jack on the back to go in to my Akai mixer for some sweet and very low SnR guitar tones. It was about a foot square, and heavy as Osmium. A seriously brutally loud amp that excelled at jazz, but could mix it up in the rock domain as well. A great amp for playing live and a great amp for recording.

[Forgotten]

^^^
What makes fuzz so difficult to replicate digitally is how extreme the clipping and waveshaping are in an analog circuit. There’s no simple formulas that can be applied, it’s just brutally beating the waveform into a different shape.

[codec_spurt]

^^^
What makes fuzz so difficult to replicate digitally is how extreme the clipping and waveshaping are in an analog circuit. There’s no simple formulas that can be applied, it’s just brutally beating the waveform into a different shape.

It's those non-linearities that are so hard to model when it comes to distortion/overdrive, it would seem. Not so much the end effect itself, but how the effect comes about in relation to the program material that is input. So many subtle variations that don't seem so difficult at first, then...

[Hink]

mine might get replaced, I just went to ggg to get the info on mine and they have mine with a six way diode selector...same mods as mine...the so called "very expensive" mods.

https://store.generalguitargadgets.com/ ... ption.html

Looks cool! I'll get it if you say it's good. VHT has a multi-mode TS that seems interesting, too.

I'll let you know, I want to get it next month

[Uncle E]

I had a really cool Ibanez distortion/overdrive pedal around '84. It was Blue.

Definitely the SM9. I knew it even before you posted the pictures, that color was striking. Ibanez released a mini reissue of it for pretty cheap.

I used to inline a Chandler Tube Driver in there as well for added effect. Along with my trusty old Boss HM-2. I could get varying degrees of nastiness and sweetness with that setup. I gave my Tube Driver to Dean Nekro a few years ago and he never did tell me if he got it working (it was a bit busted - needed a new tube I think).

Those original Tube Drivers are worth a fortune these days (relative to other pedals). The TK999US sounds almost the same except the EQ's are at different settings. For example, many people believe the Tube Driver sounds the best with its bass knob at around 2 or 3 but the TK999US's bass has to be at 8 to get the same sound. Also, the TK999US is lower noise because of the external power supply.

A 10" speaker that would take your head off at a couple of yards. XLR jack on the back to go in to my Akai mixer for some sweet and very low SnR guitar tones. It was about a foot square, and heavy as Osmium. A seriously brutally loud amp that excelled at jazz, but could mix it up in the rock domain as well. A great amp for playing live and a great amp for recording.

Sounds cool! I was playing through a 75 watt 10" speaker today (only as heavy as iron) and it really blew me away that such a small speaker could sound so huge.

[Magic Russ]

I always get a kick out of JHS Pedals videos. Here's a good one debunking a lot of pedal myths

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEZ0yzswOt4

[Uncle E]

It’s a fact that buffered pedals change the sounds of fuzz and wah pedals. It doesn’t make them necessarily bad, people just need to understand it’s a factor if they’re trying to emulate their favorite artist who didn’t use buffered pedals.

[codec_spurt]

I had a really cool Ibanez distortion/overdrive pedal around '84. It was Blue.

Definitely the SM9. I knew it even before you posted the pictures, that color was striking. Ibanez released a mini reissue of it for pretty cheap.

I used to inline a Chandler Tube Driver in there as well for added effect. Along with my trusty old Boss HM-2. I could get varying degrees of nastiness and sweetness with that setup. I gave my Tube Driver to Dean Nekro a few years ago and he never did tell me if he got it working (it was a bit busted - needed a new tube I think).

Those original Tube Drivers are worth a fortune these days (relative to other pedals). The TK999US sounds almost the same except the EQ's are at different settings. For example, many people believe the Tube Driver sounds the best with its bass knob at around 2 or 3 but the TK999US's bass has to be at 8 to get the same sound. Also, the TK999US is lower noise because of the external power supply.

A 10" speaker that would take your head off at a couple of yards. XLR jack on the back to go in to my Akai mixer for some sweet and very low SnR guitar tones. It was about a foot square, and heavy as Osmium. A seriously brutally loud amp that excelled at jazz, but could mix it up in the rock domain as well. A great amp for playing live and a great amp for recording.

Sounds cool! I was playing through a 75 watt 10" speaker today (only as heavy as iron) and it really blew me away that such a small speaker could sound so huge.

All good info!

I tell a lie about the tube driver though. It wasn't the Chandler:


It was the Tube Works version of it:



I gave it to Dean at a point in my life where I thought I would never play the guitar again. I don't know if he ever got it going. I hope he is well.

The Tube Works version is not as great as the Chandler, apparently, but still it was a super pedal to have inlined via my Peterson amp. It really did give off a tube overdrive vibe (not surprising as it had a tube in it) that was super creamy and warm. I would vary between the overdrive of the MOSFET Peterson overdrive (quite good actually) and the Boss HM-2 (which had its own charm) and the Tube Driver. Sometimes I'd even do a couple of them at the same time.

The Tube Driver is a great pedal and it doesn't seem to cost too much more than the HM-2 or SM-9 on ebay. A really great pedal.

But if I had a choice, I'd still choose the Ibanez SM-9 over it. Hopefully I can find one on ebay at some point.

[Magic Russ]

Doesn't Behringer have a clone of it?

[abhor]

I like cheap Rat and Metal Muff clones. Can play them through a toaster and still get something that sounds cool.

[The Noodlist]

Been looking at Rats, the original isn't overpriced.
MOSKY Black RAT Distortion. Nearly a clone, one resistor needs changing.
Mooer Black Secret.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNKIBKAbQLM

[abhor]

The current proco rat is awesome but the clones have turbo mode and are a 10th the size. The mooer black secret was great for $30 until it gained a following..now it's the same price as the original and not worth it. The mosky pedal is probably the same circuitry as the mooer one for 1/3 the cost.

I'd buy either donner dark mouse off amazon, the caline headroom or that little bear thing. Donner is $40 and eligible for prime free shipping and caline/little bear have vintage/turbo/solo modes (3 different rats).

[Uncle E]

I like cheap Rat and Metal Muff clones. Can play them through a toaster and still get something that sounds cool.

Why not just get a real Metal Muff? They're so cheap. We have a ton of them in stock, what are they good for?