NPD's day

[greywolf]

As I'm planning a few open mics I thought it was way past time to update my pedal board , so I  went with :

TC electronics Ditto XL stereo looper - very impressed by the fidelity , 5 minute sample time and unlimited overdubs, the reverse and half speed options are fun , but not too usable for my application .  I'd strongly suggest getting the wall wart as it eats even 2 Lithium 9v's fairly quick

TC electronics stereo chorus/PM/ flanger aka the Eric Johnson box ~  Love the regular AC cord , pristine effects  and huge range of tones.

Radial Tonebone Trimode - 12Ax7 powered 2 channel 9 (plus clean by pass) -  WOW - I thought my boogie's high gain channel was good , both channels here sound better with the Boogie in clean , and Mercy if I kick both into lead it even makes my squeaky clean Taylor T3 sound like Metal Maddness .  Highly recommended , if a bit pricey.  I  has a nice effects loop feature for the lead channel , tha via TRS cord can kick in your effects when you hit it.  slick....

I still have my trusty Budda Bud-wah pedal it's one of the older ones .. best one I've played

 

[stratamania]

Congratulations on the new gear...

 

[stubhead]

I've ended up with a fairly changeable set of overdrives, but 2nd to last is a stereo signal processed through the Ditto X2, and another stereo output through a Pigtronix Infinity looper rig. Quad output with "loop-the-loop" at a click. Both sides are just a few clicks away from pitch shifting, modulation and delays.... It's scared me a couple times, sit down for a bit of relaxing at 8:30 or 9:00pm and all of a sudden the sun's coming up... I need like a 2nd hard drive in my brain just to keep track of stuff. Loop's de bomb...
Loop's de bomb...
Loop's de bomb...

Loop's de bomb...
Loop's de bomb...
Loop's de bomb...
Loop's de bomb...

Loop's de bomb...
Loop's de bomb...
Loop's de bomb...
Loop's de bomb...
Loop's de bomb...
Loop's de bomb...
Loop's de bomb...
Loop's de bomb...

 

[greywolf]

my jammin buddy turned me on to the ditto , I just had to get one.  When I  say the big brother with the added featires it was a done deal.

We are working on a short set for a local open mic  ( 3-5 songs) and as it's just us two the looper comes in quite handy in stretching the sonice landscape.

The Trimode is really something , with the right settings on channel one you can get a very nice boost with just a little dirt that is very touch sensitve .. love it.

 

[fdesalvo]

Some of my best live lead tone came from running a radial hot British into my amp. Rad pedals. 

 

[stubhead]

I kinda get jaded over the next, newest, "improved" take on a Tube Screamer circuit; I mean, you can't buy a pedal that can actually make old Stevie Ray Vaughan tracks sound worse! There are some that just add a few neat adjustments to one, like the Voodoo "Sparkle Drive" lets you blend in any amount of a split-off clean signal, which can give you back some bass and is actually a rudimentary take on the two-amp idea - midrange overdrive paired with clean bass & treble. Rich tone-freaky folk started using a Marshall for screamy mids and a Fender to pick up the clean bass and treble, both on all the time. Bassy overdrive = mush & trebly overdrive = rasp & scratch, so this works great. I remember this as Eric Johnson & Steve Morse hitting on it around the same time, early 80's. They're good friends so who knows?

And the other variants on Ol' Greeny are usually just switching to add more tonal variations, popular ones are (again) adding back some bass, and reducing some of the rather powerful compression in a straight Tube Screamer. I have a Fulltone Fulldrive II w/mosfet that does that, sounds just marvy. Plus another whole stage of boost - Ibanez themselves even have a newish version out with a very similar set of controls to do the same. Dog knows there MUST be at least 30, 40, 50? great-sounding Screamer-based stomps out there by now.

But having said that, I was pleasantly FLOORED by how great the newer TC Electronics and Pigtronix boxes SOUND, and I believe it's happening right at the very first stage, where the box grabs your signal and processes it to work best with the delay, looping, modulation or whatEVER else you're mangling it with. You really CAN plug a guitar right into the box and through to a clean amp and get something musical out of them. I won't of course, you want your other stuff inside the loops sometimes, but they've somehow fixed that crappy, cheap transistor-sounding initial signal that is the bane of several Boss pedals. Like I also have a Boss RC20XL looper (2003? maybe, 2005?) and you absolutely HAVE to process your signal somewhat before it hits the box to get anything toneful out of it, and it's real easy to launch that awful, barfing-transistor cacking-meltdown "my-pedal's-got-epilepsy" noise with just a hair too hot a signal - umm, "finicky" comes to mind? Their GE-7 equalizer is another dog (IMO)*, at least until you've F'd-up your signal elsewhere.

And the newest, biggest Boss loopers, the RC300 and RC505, are just piling way more stuff on top of their basically outdated crap-tone preamps! Digitech is another company that's rounded the bend on their root tonal starting point, their RP100, 200, 300, or their "Genetex"-whatever GNX stuff could be nasty, but the RP150, 155, 250, 255 etc. are, like, FIXED. I guess what I'm saying is that you have a good chance of any 2015 pedal being quieter, more versatile, and un-nasty than a 2005 or 1995 box. They ALL rip each other's pedals apart and steal what's working better, ya just gotta do the homework...

*(no really i buy my opinions at the goodwill store)

 

[alterbridgefan]

For TS variants, I want the EQD palisades.... You seen that one?

Cool pedal.

 

[Cagey]

I haven't tried the TC Electronics and Pigtronix boxes you mention, so I can't speak to those. But, most of the distortion/overdrive pedals I have worked with all sound derived and I'm not sanguine about anything else doing what I want it to do. That is, make some rig sound like it's racked to 11 when it's not. That's basically what they're all trying to do, and the vast majority of them fail miserably at it.

That's not to say that they can't make interesting noises or modifications to the sound - they can. Some quite admirably. But, to get the sound of an amp cranked to within an inch of its life is not so easy. It can be done, but not for pedal money. The best I've heard have been power soaks of various design that let you crank the amp to the sky without blowing the room away. Of course, they have their own set of problems, but they're the most authentic-sounding things.

I mean, think about it. What are you trying to do? Simulate the sound of a powerful amp running at arena rock levels. Only one good way to do that - run it at arena rock levels. At least, that's how it works with tube amps. Anything else, all bets are off.