Pedal Apathy?

[The_Sentry]

I wish this wasn't the case...but it is....

I think I have pedal apathy.

Other than something for swapping channels, and the occasional wah pedal, if it's not onboard...I don't really go for it. I've had pedal boards in the past, but more times often than not...they just seem to disappear, get sold, or go by the wayside.

Lately at practice? I'm using that Express Footswitch by Line6 on a Spider II. That seems to be plenty. My Marshall has 3 channels. The Roland I use has a Boss pedal I picked up to change channels.

That's it.

Am I alone in this? I could see the benefits to a tuner if your tuning got hammered in the middle of a set and you only had one guitar...but for building dynamics, texturing and all of that....

.....OK, what am I missing? Why can't I warm up to pedal boards or effects? I even thought a volume pedal would be great...but now I find myself barely using one at all....

:wft: is wrong with me?

Is it a bad thing to be apathetic about effects like this?

 

[Jason]

Depends on your style, I suppose. I've only got an OD, an EQ (no EQ on the amp), and a Korg Toneworks multi fx which is mostly just for screwing around.

Every time I play I'm just plugged straight in by the end. The sound just seems so much bigger and richer that way. Even through just the EQ, it just seems to lack something. Of course it's a cheap EQ.

 

[The_Sentry]

Depends on your style, I suppose. I've only got an OD, an EQ (no EQ on the amp), and a Korg Toneworks multi fx which is mostly just for screwing around.

Every time I play I'm just plugged straight in by the end. The sound just seems so much bigger and richer that way. Even through just the EQ, it just seems to lack something. Of course it's a cheap EQ.

That's my audible issue as well. I can't seem to get the same rich tone vs. just plugging straight in....

 

[Jason]

Wahs can be really expressive, but mostly makes me feel like I'm ripping off Jimi. Volume pedals are neat cause you can do the violin thing... But unless you come up with something brilliant, it's really just novelty.

I really kind of on an octave pedal kick right now. The minimalist guitar+drummer sound has a lot of appeal to me, and an octave pedal gives a pretty good fattening up effect. And there's something cool about the synthetic sound of it...

 

[The_Sentry]

Wahs can be really expressive, but mostly makes me feel like I'm ripping off Jimi. Volume pedals are neat cause you can do the violin thing... But unless you come up with something brilliant, it's really just novelty.

I really kind of on an octave pedal kick right now. The minimalist guitar+drummer sound has a lot of appeal to me, and an octave pedal gives a pretty good fattening up effect. And there's something cool about the synthetic sound of it...

That one might not be bad...and TBH, that's one of the reasons I tend to avoid the wah as well...every time I use it, I'm thinking "Hendrix rip off"...granted, it's a cool effect to rip off.

Right now my "project" is without a bass player, and we can't find another guitarist or a keyboard player. We're thinking about looking for some sort of opening act status at the local bars as a 2 piece (I advertised...but damn, finding committed musicians out here in the boonies is not easy). Right now I'm happy just bouncing between 3 channels (clean, crunchy, and massively distorted)....that seems to give a lot of variation, and with the archtop...that thing has so much bottom end it almost makes up for the lack of a bass player. (I do wish I had a channel set up for tremolo effect, but on the Line6 I have it for 2/3 of the song...so it's OK.)

An octave pedal sounds nice though....even though I suspect after a while....

I dunno, Jason. I see all of these pedals, and boards, and the pods, but I don't think that stuff is for me. I inquired about a Univibe pedal not too long ago (thought those would be fun)...but even that got to a point where I eschewed it because I couldn't convince myself to get it...

 

[Jason]

Yeah, even with the octave, I would only want to use it on probably one song. Beyond that it would get old and boring.

I have to admit I'm not a straight ahead rocker so much anymore. I do get sucked into some of the newer style rock with some synths and more simple guitar parts... Stuff that's more vocally centered.

 

[The_Sentry]

Yeah, even with the octave, I would only want to use it on probably one song. Beyond that it would get old and boring.

I have to admit I'm not a straight ahead rocker so much anymore. I do get sucked into some of the newer style rock with some synths and more simple guitar parts... Stuff that's more vocally centered.

Yeah...well, I wish I had more leeway to just open up on leads...right now I'm having to sing and play and add melodies....so for the most part...I just need channels with presence and more poop on 'em when it comes time for the chorus in the song...the channel selectors do that just fine.

 

[Jason]

Well, if you're getting what you want, why make things any more complicated that they need to be? What kind of tunes are you guys working on?

 

[fatb0t]

Can't..relate....at all.

Depends on your style, pedals afford me a tonal palette that I can pick and choose depending on song, style, or emotion I'm feeling.

BTW the wah kicks some serious ass if used properly and sparingly during solos...

 

[Leumas]

I really only use just a wah, even when I'm on bass. Pedals are great if that's your thing, but I prefer just to go straight in. I do have a cheap Zoom G1 multi-pedal I use for practice amps and such, I get involved in kitchen jams quite frequently. It's also good to wring some useable sound of of a dog guitar, but with good gear I have no interest in buying batteries, finding more outlets, tweaking more knobs, etc.

 

[The_Sentry]

Well, if you're getting what you want, why make things any more complicated that they need to be? What kind of tunes are you guys working on?

Mostly old rock with some tweaking to it and a few originals. Yesterday I was working on some Bloodhound Gang and some Bob Dylan....(I'd love to learn this one Al Green song and do a rock version of it...but damn there's a lot of chord changes in that... )

 

[Jason]

Mostly old rock with some tweaking to it and a few originals. Yesterday I was working on some Bloodhound Gang and some Bob Dylan....(I'd love to learn this one Al Green song and do a rock version of it...but damn there's a lot of chord changes in that... )

Cool, that sounds like fun.

 

[Leumas]

Mostly old rock with some tweaking to it and a few originals. Yesterday I was working on some Bloodhound Gang and some Bob Dylan....(I'd love to learn this one Al Green song and do a rock version of it...but damn there's a lot of chord changes in that... )

....BHG and Bobby D. Damn. I always wanted to do "Is you is or is you ain't my baby." Or some old Cab Calloway tunes.

 

[Leumas]

Wahs can be really expressive, but mostly makes me feel like I'm ripping off Jimi. Volume pedals are neat cause you can do the violin thing... But unless you come up with something brilliant, it's really just novelty.

I really kind of on an octave pedal kick right now. The minimalist guitar+drummer sound has a lot of appeal to me, and an octave pedal gives a pretty good fattening up effect. And there's something cool about the synthetic sound of it...

If you never checked out CKY I'd suggest listening to this tune, great use of an octave pedal.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgQ7qOCDFYQ]CKY - 96 Quite Bitter Beings[/ame]

 

[The_Sentry]

....BHG and Bobby D. Damn. I always wanted to do "Is you is or is you ain't my baby." Or some old Cab Calloway tunes.

Cab Calloway would be sweeeet!

 

[Jason]

If you never checked out CKY I'd suggest listening to this tune, great use of an octave pedal.

CKY - 96 Quite Bitter Beings

Yeah I think that was the first place I heard it, actually. The White Stripes use it to great effect in one of their songs as well.

I dunno why, but I love stuff like that... while I CANNOT STAND all the echoey/delayed/overly crunchy/flanged/auto-wah/ect/etc "traditional" guitar effects. Hell, I don't even mind synth drums and/or bass combined with a "real" guitar as much as I hate all that spacey noisy sounding BS.

 

[cynic79]

I frequently go through this as well, if just because it's easier to plug in and play without having to worry about doing a tap dance to change tones, or having batteries die or connections go bad. If I want a different effect, I usually crank the reverb or use a slide.

That said, I did use a friend's phaser pedal during a recording session last year and that reminded me how much I like that effect. I need to dig out my Dano tremolo pedal as well, which is great fun.

And octave pedals are always a blast!

 

[ptate]

My set up (after years of pedal pushing....); a Gibson Les Paul Custom, 80's Marshall JCM800 2204 head, Celestions and my RRT-1 distortion pedal. Binned the rest.

 

[jimmydeuce]

I have a board but don't really use my pedals much. I'll use my OCD or Box of Rock sometimes when I want something a little different sounding or for a boost. My delay,trem and chorus hardly ever get stepped on. The tuner stays on though. What I use more than any of them is an EQ. I set it up for my Strats and use it instead of turning knobs on my amp. The Strats don't like the way I have the amp set for LP's.

 

[fatb0t]

Hhahaha my drummer told me I have too many pedals! Perhaps I should adopt some pedal apathy