I won a Facebook contest by Hardwire Pedals in which they're going to give me a free pedal when they hit 1000 likes, but I don't know which one to choose. I just want to hear what other people would choose if they had won to help me make a decision. These are the one's I'm considering getting since I have the valve and metal distortions by them already. Here's their website if you want to look at them, I'm a big fan of these pedals. http://www.hardwirepedals.com/
Help me pick a new pedal
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shamone.
Justinginn
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Effects are always nice. Delay is arguably the only one in that list that introduces a completely new playing style (or it can - think The Edge). Every guitar player should have access to delay and know how to use it because everyone will write or cover at least one song with rhythmic delay being the basis of your sound. After that, I'm a big fan of tremolo. :redflag: I think it gets underrated but you can do cool things with it. Rotary isn't bad either.
I think a digital delay capable of long delay times is one of the pedals that can actually improve your playing - not on the stage so much, but as a practice tool. If you set it in the 500ms range, start playing repeating the same four notes - then fit six notes in, then fit eight notes in, then turn it to 450ms etc. 5's and 7's... :evil4: With longer delays you can specifically work on and write harmony lines, figuring out what works before you bring it to the band. If you've ever spent time working with a metronome on exercises for speed - Morse, Gilbert, McLaughlin speed - you know that the most important starting point is to have a very even time duration for each note before you try to speed it up, because it will fall apart otherwise. A delay lets you practice overlapping the same lick in alternating positions - that'll put the hair on your chest, and it's FUN too, unlike a metronome. The Hardwire has 8 seconds, even more than my RP250. No-brainer, here.
(and if you get a little mixer and two or three stereo delays hooked into each other, you can have a looperama festival in your living room! I've chained my Akai Headrush and a Boss RC20XL, gets out of hand in the very best way)
(and if you get a little mixer and two or three stereo delays hooked into each other, you can have a looperama festival in your living room! I've chained my Akai Headrush and a Boss RC20XL, gets out of hand in the very best way)
Patrick from Davis
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Telenator said:
Not entirely true. The buffers tend to mess up fuzz's and wahs. If there are too many of the buffers (usually about 4 pedals worth) the cheap FET transistors used in the switch color your signal as well, and generally not in a great way. True bypass (A friggin switch, not all of the odd mumbo jumbo things that are labeled true bypass) does have it's draw backs, but you need about 35-50 feet of cable to arrive at that point Also most drive, compression, and boost pedals have enough oomph to power the signal on it's way to the amp. A good high impedance load on the first pedal should clear (make it shimmer really) up any other problems.
Not to be overly nitpicky about this, but I am going to be. There are pluses and minuses to both. Generally minuses. My opinion is to get rid of the FET switches due to the cheap-o parts, and I don't have a cord longer than 10 feet. So then it is like I just have a cord between me an my amp.
Patrick
It's a tricky thing. All the overdrive and distortion box makers like to brag on their "touch sensitivity" and how they clean up when you back off your guitar's volume - but that only works when they're first in line. Once you start hitting chains of pedals, you can end up with that noise-gated uber-metal tone, where your guitar is basically an on/off switch with pitch variations. And all the bragging about "the best cable EVER" - most of the time, you need some cable in your rig with enough capacitance to dial down some high end coming out of a box. If low-capacitance was the ONLY thing that mattered go with all-Lawrence or George L's cables. But if you used those to hook a Strat to a wah to a Fuzzface to a Marshall with cheap Celestions - it would shatter teeth. Which is specifically why Jimi Hendrix used those coily cords in that rig, to drop the resonant frequency of a Strat before it hit his toys. I don't like to play with more than a few things hooked together in a row. There's a "blues guitarist" named Joe Bonamassa with amazing chops, but he plays with this super-compressed, 80's metal tone - it's really hard to listen to, for me.
Patrick from Davis
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I understand what you are saying, and the Hendrix thing is always an argument out there. But the design of the FET flip flop requires the signal to pass through two transistors at all times. This has been marketed into a "Buffer Circuit" name because, it is. And that tends to keep the nay sayers back a couple of feet. When the signal has passed through 8 or so of these FET transistors, or four pedals, it tends to start to degrade things. Not to say that any one of us can't work with that or make it sound good. The fuzz pedal and the wah pedal seem to get the most benefit from an unadulterated signal from the guitar. Why people put their tuners first, and hide any of those dynamics, in that line will forever be a mystery to me. The fuzz tends to also like the dynamics of the player.
I suppose I like to be able to take a guitar, cord, and amp and have something I like. Pedals are accents to me and do provide something necessary for different situations. But I'd rather have the simplest thing first and add to it later. I am, as stated, not a fan of FET switching because of it drawbacks. The "buffer circuit" argument has it's limitations, and why it is a limitation is rarely pointed out properly.
As far as the pedal I'd get if I were to get a freebie, awe geez... I have a tube reverb tank, so that is out. I was always a fan of an analog chorus. Not so much of Flanger though. Haven't met a dirt box that I like better than an amp. This is a bit of a toughie.
Patrick
I suppose I like to be able to take a guitar, cord, and amp and have something I like. Pedals are accents to me and do provide something necessary for different situations. But I'd rather have the simplest thing first and add to it later. I am, as stated, not a fan of FET switching because of it drawbacks. The "buffer circuit" argument has it's limitations, and why it is a limitation is rarely pointed out properly.
As far as the pedal I'd get if I were to get a freebie, awe geez... I have a tube reverb tank, so that is out. I was always a fan of an analog chorus. Not so much of Flanger though. Haven't met a dirt box that I like better than an amp. This is a bit of a toughie.
Patrick
Cagey
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Stub: two Head said:
Y'know, Hendrix has been dead for 41 years, and was only 27 when he died. He didn't live long enough to have as many thoughts, insights, plots, plans, etc. as people attribute to him. Anyway, back during his time you were lucky enough to even have a guitar cord that worked, let alone be able to pick and choose among them for tonal nuance, appearance, and mechanical integrity. Most of them weren't much more than glorified telephone handset cables, and you were lucky if they lasted a week. I'd wager he asked for a cable to hook up his guitar with less thought than he would give to asking somebody for a cigarette. If it was curly, cool. Less likely to trip over it. It wasn't until the later '70s that Whirlwind started coming out with "good" cords, and by "good" they simply meant they were built to military spec so they'd take some real serious abuse, not that they had low capacitance. You could tow a car with those bloody things. Then guys started pulling their stacks over or having their combos follow them around, because the cords wouldn't break <grin>
Nowadays, of course, you can get cords in as many varieties as there are insect species, and he who applies the most flowery adjectives and tells the tallest tales makes the most money. That's not to say that they don't make a difference; they certainly do and in some cases it's audible. But giving Jimi credit for recognizing that would be quite a stretch of the imagination.
Actually, the one thing that Hendrix was obsessive about was his sound. When he first lived in London, he spent several weeks going to the Marshall factory every single day and working with Jim Marshall, going through tubes, speakers and components. Marshall himself has said that that "help" was a big reason for their success, though of course Hendrix was just trying to get his gear straight. The story about the coily cord was told to me by Bill Lawrence, who took care of Hendrix's guitars in London and then in New York when he was the manager for Dan Armstrong's shops there. He knew exactly where the resonant peaks and weak valleys in the new Strats Hendrix favored were; of course "new" now means early CBS, 1968-'69 specs. Mr Lawrence loves nothing more than to get on the phone and gas about the old days, which is why his wife Becky tries to keep him off it... call him sometime!
http://www.billlawrence.com/Pages/ContactUs/BLGuitarDesignCo.htm
The image of Hendrix as being nothing more than a stoned wastrel who lucked into his sound is just part and parcel of the attempt to discredit all the hippies for anything positive, especially anything concrete; oddly enough, if it weren't for 35 longhaired pot-smoking sandal-wearing freaks who were at Stanford in the early 1970's, the computer "revolution" would still be tied to IBM mainframes. Look up "PARC" and "SAIL" sometime.... if you could instantly subtract their contribution to modern life - all the planes fall down, the cars don't run, the lights go out, there's no more food... goddam hippies.
http://www.amazon.com/What-Dormouse-Said-Counterculture-Personal/dp/B000IOEU90/ref=pd_sim_b_2
