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Silly thought: What's yer favorite Effect?


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I know at least some of us are hoping to get new noise toys for the holidays, or New Year, or whatever excuse you need. Given that, what's your favorite, other than our general-issue OD/Drive/Boost pedals? (You may as well include Compressors in that group, too.) I wouldn't take away anybody's favorite Boost or Dirt box, so let's say you still have your old standby Big Muff or TS9; what else goes with it?

 

Think of it as your "desert island" effect, one you can't, or won't, do without. Can be a specific pedal, but was more interested in general categories; how many of us would choose a Phaser, or a Wah pedal?

 

For me, it would have to be some kind of Delay, as I can get almost any of my other favorites out of a Delay circuit: Flanging, Pitch-Shifting & Looping are all built around Delays. You can get pretty weird with the right Delay settings, and it can also be a Compositional tool.

 

So, there's my choice, anyone else?

"Monsters are real, and Ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win." Stephen King

 

http://www.novparolo.com

 

https://thewinstonpsmithproject.bandcamp.com

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My choice is Reverb...It's a must have for both my guitar and my vocals. I sold my Boss Reverb to a buddy who needed it more than me as my amps and PA's all have reverb already on them. I had a couple of amps without reverb and had to buy a pedal for awhile there. I don't need a lot of verb but it's the one effect I can't live without. I even add a touch to my acoustics and nylons. I too would pick a Delay if I wanted to add some on/off surf vibe. Right now I've got my Digitec Looper back in line for practicing. I am considering putting my volume pedal back in line too. For the most part I just enjoy going straight into my Hot Rod Deluxe 112 sans pedals...I blame my reverb fetish on Elvis and The Ventures LOL! :cool:

 

ps. not being a bah humbugger for the Holidays, I just have too much stuff already LOL! :cool:

Take care, Larryz
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Because I like the combination of delay and chorus, I'm going with the Visual Sound H2O. I don't get too wonky on the chorus aspect, or I'd go with the EH Memory Boy Deluxe. the H2O gives me more of the Andy Summers styling, rather than extreme warble.

"Am I enough of a freak to be worth paying to see?"- Separated Out (Marillion)

NEW band Old band

 

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Reverb is the only effect I use. I do use tube overdrive pedals too, but I don't consider them an effect. However, lately I have been using a delay and compressor on one patch for one song from my Digitech RP-155 modeler, and it is tempting me to get a compressor and a delay pedal. The RP-155 was bought for it's ability to do intelligent harmonies, and I use it for its tuner as well, but I experimented with a second sound with delay, reverb and compression, and I am suitable impressed.
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I love my H2O V2 so much, I bought the V3 version recently, and I have a bunch of other nifty chorus, echo, reverb and delay pedals.

 

But if Im honest, fuzzes as a category probably account for bigger percentage of my collection than any other. I mean, off the top of my head, I know I have:

 

EHX Russian Big Muff Pi

Death By Audio Fuzz Gun

SolidgoldFX Sasori

Spaceman Effects WOW Signal

ThorpyFX Fallout Cloud (a.k.a. Muffroom Cloud)

Fuzzhugger Algal Bloom

Wren & Cuff White Elk

Black Arts Toneworks Pharaoh

Black Arts Toneworks Black Forest

ARC Effects Shepherd

ARC Effects Big Green

ARC Effects Crimson King

Magnetic Effects White Atom

Magnetic Effects Buzzkill

Catalinbread Antichthon

Catalinbread Perseus

 

Im probably missing a few from that list, and Im NOT done buying them. As you can see, Im about as fuzzy as a bear in winter.

Sturgeon's 2nd Law, a.k.a. Sturgeon's Revelation: âNinety percent of everything is crapâ

 

My FLMS- Murphy's Music in Irving, Tx

 

http://murphysmusictx.com/

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If I can classify my Digitech RP1000 as a pedal, I choose that, since it does pretty much everything. If I cannot use a multi-effects pedal, and have to pick some kind of pedal that does just one thing (a delay, a wah wah, a phaser, etc.), I would go with an Electro Harmonix Big Muff Pi. The first time I used one, it was one of those "Oh my God!" moments. It puts out the sound that I absolutely love in an electric guitar.
I rock; therefore, I am.
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For me, compression, overdrive, distortion and delay are equally important. My reverb is taken care of with my amp. I have to say I'm very happy with my newest purchase, an MXR flanger which I was able to replace 3 other pedals with- flanger, chourus and phaser. It covers all those applications nicely. It also allowed me to put my wah pedal on my main pedal board and create space for one more pedal! Christmas present!
"Let me stand next to your fire!", Jimi Hendrix
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I like a combination of dist + vol ped that allows me to pull in a bit of grind to color phrasing.

 

Reverb is the only effect I use. I do use tube overdrive pedals too, but I don't consider them an effect

To me this is the most like a human vox.

No specific peds endorsed.

d=halfnote
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  • 4 years later...

HOW could I pick just one?! Some of my 'favorite effects' are combinations of pedals.

Mmmaaaybe Octave-Fuzz. Up, Down, or Both. Especially stacked into Distortion.

The squidgy around-the-edges twinges of Ring Mod that can be elicited from elicit abusement of Octave-Fuzz.

Vintage germanium Rangemasterly Treble Boosteling or quirky sounding Overdrive stacked into a cranked, overdriven tube-amp or pedals that are like that...

Any means of Volume-Swells- and I don't just mean slow swells, but lots of rapid-fire swells on individual notes and phrases.

Tape-flavored echo...

Fat Flanging and Phaseringing! Uni-Vibe! LESLIE!!

FEEEDBAAAAACK.... ... .. ... .... !!

TwNlp5d.jpg?1
       
 

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Ask yourself- What Would Ren and Stimpy Do?

 

~ Caevan James-Michael Miller-O'Shite ~

_ ___ _ Leprechaun, Esquire _ ___ _

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In the following order...

Reverb.

 

Edited to add: Micro-pitch shifting, that "almost in tune sound" that creates sympathetic modulation, love it. 

 

A great sounding rotary speaker effect, especially with 2 amps, one with and one without. That brings a 3d effect to the swirly-whirly.

 

Reverse delay, it makes me laugh plus I can do truly strange things with that sound. 

 

Everything else is just stuff... unless you run a bunch of it at once, that's good. 

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It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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I use so many effects so liberally I'd be hard pressed to pick a favorite, but for purposes of the discussion I'll say the Leslie rotary effect might easily be my fave. It's not a phase shifter, not a flanger, not a chorus, not a vibrato, not a tremolo, not an overdrive; it's all of those at once, more subtle yet infinitely richer than any one of those by itself. The real thing, the physical Leslie, is creamy, gooey, vibrant, electric, raw, sensuous, three dimensional, & very very exciting. Donald Leslie may have only invented one notable device, but he was the Leo Fender of pre-electronic effects. As crucial to the sound of music we treasure as James Marshall. 

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Scott Fraser
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19 minutes ago, Larryz said:

I would check into this one:

 

Available at SW for $379...😎

Nice one Larryz, the effects are awesome!

Now, imagine that you are reaching down and adjusting the knobs on stage. 

This is why I hate pedals, they are ergonimically ineffective for live performance. 

Put a wireless widget with the 3 knobs on it on the face of your guitar and the footpedal down by your foot and you got something. 

Someday, somebody smart will offer this option and guitar players will say "I'm not putting that on my sacred instrument, I'd rather look like an idiot."

So it goes... 😇

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It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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4 hours ago, IMMusicRulz said:

 

Phase shifting was very common back in the seventies, so it wouldn’t surprise me if Robin Trower was using an MXR phase shifter and Marshall amps to get that Strat tone that nobody else can create.


To be specific, IMMusicRulz, that's DEFINITELY a Uni-Vibe that Mr. Trower used there for his lush, watery phasing effects, like what Hendrix and David Gilmour used. It's like a mish-mash between vibrato, phase-shifter aka phaser, chorus, Leslie sims- and  predating commercially produced devices for any and all of those by at least a few years, and even decades in the case of realistic sounding Leslie-sims.

A real-deal authentic Uni-Vibe or 'clone' thereof uses actual lights and photocells to create its pulsing, mesmerizing undulations. Search-up 'Fumio Mieda Uni-Vibe'; Fumio Mieda was its inventor... 
 

Quote

Josh Scott, Univibe 101 - The JHS Show

"In 1968, a company in Japan called Honey/Shin-Ei created the first Univibe Chorus Vibrato. This pedal is an iconic piece of guitar history, and its origin story is as trippy as the sound it created. Fumio Mieda, the univibe inventor, actually drew his inspiration from the stars. He wanted to recreate the sound of radio waves bouncing off the atmosphere as he heard them as a child in Japan. Russian signals would phase across the airwaves and cause a strange "washing" sound. He simply wanted to replicate the effect. The result is the swishing, swooshing, phase modulation vibrato effect that a lot of us love in the 2020s, but few understood back in ’68. 


One of the first musicians to fully appreciate its odd sound was Jimi Hendrix. So much so that he used this exact unit, a late ’60s Univibe, on August 18, 1969 on stage at Woodstock.

As a result, guitar was never the same."


Long reply post ahead, bear with me and please be sure to go through to the end...

Now... I have and love a Fulltone Custom Shop Mini DejáVibe 3 V2, or CS MDV-3 V2. And as a matter of fact, Mr. Robin Trower has been using Fulltone 'Vibes for a many years now.

While Mike Fuller has long enjoyed a reputation for decidedly NOT being enjoyable to interact with for many people- he's abrasive on a good day- I bought mine well before he made a series of, at the very least, extremely insensitive statements and exchanges that many interpret as racist (I don't think it's quite where he was coming from or going to, but his timing and insensitivity were colossal- he really could have chosen his words MUCH more wisely) and insultingly sexist, and I cannot really argue against that or defend him. He's been very rude to a lot of people, including some good friends here.

I'm not going to ditch my MDV-3, and it is probably the best commercially produced Uni-Vibe effect- it's marvelous! HOWEVER, I cannot blame anyone for taking great umbrage with him and his brand. I'd recommend the pedal to anyone, but I'd also suggest buying used and applying tape or paint to the brand-name, etc. as a solution or compromise for those with understandably conflicted feelings on the matter...

It looks like this; note the all-in-one design, VERY heavy-duty construction, and the brilliant solution for switching the effect off with the same heel-ward actuation as vintage Uni-Vibes, while allowing ease of 'parking' the pedal at a given speed with the pressing of a toe:

6GEHdH1.jpg

NOW...

I think that the JHS Unicorn is a fantastic sounding compact, pedalboard-friendly, cleverly executed drama-free Uni-Vibe alternative with some GREAT FEATURES. It sounds GREAT, uses photo-cell technology, and doesn't take up a lot of space. If I needed another, smaller Uni-Vibe, this would be my choice. Here's a couple of great demo-videos:
 



 

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Ask yourself- What Would Ren and Stimpy Do?

 

~ Caevan James-Michael Miller-O'Shite ~

_ ___ _ Leprechaun, Esquire _ ___ _

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I'm not going to ditch my Fulltone 2b either, it is my favorite pedal. I'm not sure who the best of my dual with Mike Fuller, me because I bought the pedal even tho he said he wouldn't sell me a pedal if he was starving or him because he got my money anyway 

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Jenny S.
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@surfergirl- If it makes any difference to you, the store where you got your Fulltone 2b would have already paid for it, so you were just helping them make their money back on it.

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"Monsters are real, and Ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win." Stephen King

 

http://www.novparolo.com

 

https://thewinstonpsmithproject.bandcamp.com

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5 hours ago, Winston Psmith said:

@surfergirl- If it makes any difference to you, the store where you got your Fulltone 2b would have already paid for it, so you were just helping them make their money back on it.

He kinda did me a favor. I was going to buy an Octafuzz because Gary Clark Jr used one. At that time I didn't even what an Octafuzz did. 

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Jenny S.
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8 hours ago, surfergirl said:

He kinda did me a favor. I was going to buy an Octafuzz because Gary Clark Jr used one. At that time I didn't even what an Octafuzz did. 


I bought a used Octafuzz for $80 at a store, out the door (plus sales tax, but nothing more). It's a really, REALLY excellent Octavia type, and doubles as an aggressive, toothy NON-octave fuzz with its little mini toggle switched to Fuzz, from Octa. Lots of attitude and many shades and colors with various setting combinations of its deceptively simple looking two-knobs control scheme. Looks really sharp, too. My biggest problem was simply deciding just WHICH pedal I wanted it to be at any given time, what with varying its controls along with my guitar's volume-knobs and my "touch". Classic Hendrix Octavia tones? Right this way...

I would never trade my beloved Foxrox Octron for it, but they're pretty much two very different pedals, even if comparing ONLY their respective octave-up fuzzes.
    
 

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Ask yourself- What Would Ren and Stimpy Do?

 

~ Caevan James-Michael Miller-O'Shite ~

_ ___ _ Leprechaun, Esquire _ ___ _

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