Your guitar pedals

[Bent Fabric]

The problem with pedals is that they hide your deficiencies as a player.

I assure you, they have not yet created a pedal capable of hiding my deficiencies as a player.

[take5_d_shorterer]

Bill Frisell and several pedals, "La La Means I Love You"

[Deebank]

Apparently I have one of the 'holy grails' of guitar pedal collecting, the Digitech XP300 Space Station.

According to this vid I must have been 'Cool and into weird shit' back in the day



Judging by the conservative response here to very basic things like OD and compressors, this thing would make most of you shit your pants

It makes some very cool sounds and some pretty crappy ones too.

The only thing I ever really used it on though was a cover of Diana Ross's Upside Down - using one of the 'synth' settings.

I didn't like having it in my effects loop because even switched off it altered the signal - ie not true bypass, but it was good for inspiring original ideas and stuff and I loved adding in resonator and ring mod tracks in the studio.

This pic has the range of FX - as printed on the back of the pedal and thus completely useless





The switching between different settings was a pain in the arse too.

They go for around £500 on ebay.

[Kinkhurt]

I've got a Digitech GSP5 which I got cheap in the early 90's when a shop in London started flogging them off. It sorted out the early Edge wannabe in me and did all the stuff up to the Unforgettable Fire to a suitable level of facsimile. Using the delays to play 'Wire' and actually sounding plausible was a cool moment. Its got reverb, chorus, flanger, delay, distortion, EQ and some primitive amp voicings which I never used as intended. The distortion was great and really was the 'sound of war' when you ran it through a Marshall JCM900. The box still works but it does sound like a chip pan when you put certain combinations of effects into the loop, and it 'talks' to the valves if its positioned too close to the head when you crank it up.

[Deebank]

I've got a Digitech GSP5 which I got cheap in the early 90's when a shop in London started flogging them off. It sorted out the early Edge wannabe in me and did all the stuff up to the Unforgettable Fire to a suitable level of facsimile. Using the delays to play 'Wire' and actually sounding plausible was a cool moment. Its got reverb, chorus, flanger, delay, distortion, EQ and some primitive amp voicings which I never used as intended. The distortion was great and really was the 'sound of war' when you ran it through a Marshall JCM900. The box still works but it does sound like a chip pan when you put certain combinations of effects into the loop, and it 'talks' to the valves if its positioned too close to the head when you crank it up.

Tsk! That's not a pedal

















Wire is one of the few U2 songs I can tolerate - The Celtic Dub mix anyway.

[Deebank]

Arf!

[Kinkhurt]

Being particularly 'inspired' this weekend I repaired one of these.



New transistors throughout and pot cleaner liberally applied to get 30 years of storage cack out of the system.
Man hours spent probably equate to more than twice what its worth but we went through a lot together it seemed
a shame to leave him dead when a few pnp's would have him up an running.

Being a heretic and this being the post-punk years, I used to run this into an old blue Watkins Dominator V-front that I got
from Carlsbro Sounds for pennies, since it didn't strictly work and nobody loved that stuff in the early 80's. Once I'd got it running it was a
bit of a hooligan - the Fuzz wasn't that extreme and got me the crunch without having to play in a parallel universe to everybody else.

[Joe Baxter]

People who can actually play the guitar don't need pedals.

I have none.

2 years ago I had none, but I've been rethinking my sound and now have 2 boards. Both have a tuner, a compressor, a clean boost, 2 overdrives, reverb and delay.
The bigger board also had a Bluguitar Amp 1 in it. Alas, it has stopped working, and will be in for repair tomorrow.

[Joe Baxter]

Now that I've read through the thread, I'm impressed by the amount of dogmatic statements, and not all from Mike either.
I started my love affair with pedals when I watched a youtube clip about overdrive pedals, and at one point, an Origin Effects CalI 76CD Compressor was used along with an overdrive pedal, and the tone jumped out and bit my arse. It was really expensive £300. plus power supply and delivery, but it was worth every penny. The best value is the TC Electronics' Mini Spark clean boost - £30. I have one in each board. My small board was put together for a once a month gig where space is very tight.
I still have my Epiphone Valve Junior, which I bought on Deebank's recommendation, it's a fantastic wee amp. I keep it in the shop and was using it this morning, and I'm going back to it once I finish this post. Got to keep the fingers moving.

[Kinkhurt]

In light of recent news, lets not forget the best one ...