hardware effects

i have a mini-kp effects pad and its fun but the effects aren't upto much. what else is out there simply for effects?

monotron worth a look?

effects pedals?

monotron's really good value for money and a sound you can't get from a plugin (yet)

old guitar pedals and spring reverbs definitely worth a look.

pedals with tubes in if they run them at full voltage (e.g. the Overlord) not so much if there's a light behind the tube to simulate glowing - that means the tube's not actually running "hot" enough to do tube stuff

really old (70s and older) domestic tape recorders etc can have preamps that sound nice if you just crank them a tiny bit into the red

all stuff you could find at a pawn shop

  On 7/24/2010 at 12:54 AM, analogue wings said:

 

all stuff you could find at a pawn shop

not so much round here. everyones hip to that trick

you're in california right?

go for a random funky old gear buying road trip further inland, or south of the border

if you only want to use one effect at a time and don't own a nice mixer you might want a mixer with a bunch of effects...

yeh, pedals are cool... if you can solder you can circuit bend or build your own

i got a mini dbx compressor and an alesis microverb, both about 1/3 rack size

picked up a junk dj mixer from ebay, only a couple of channels worked but it had a sampler on it, only one sample and limited time/quality but had a pitch knob so i used that to make lofi weird loops which i could resample

was given an old, beat up watkins copicat tape delay when i did some photo editing for someone, it was lying in the loft and hadnt been used for about 15 years...

what about buying a computer and soundcard and running it as a standalone software fx box?

a mic and a speaker on long cables and stick them in weird places :oooh:

  On 7/24/2010 at 2:35 AM, yek said:

if you only want to use one effect at a time and don't own a nice mixer you might want a mixer with a bunch of effects...

yeah thats the thing. effects pedals seem to do one effect very well. i really want a magic box good at doing everything (or at least a few things) but seems the more effects you cram on something the less good they are

also i just bought a mixer. no effects. its just a sound/cable collector

  On 7/24/2010 at 1:09 AM, analogue wings said:

you're in california right?

 

go for a random funky old gear buying road trip further inland, or south of the border

thrift store/pawn shop road trip!

  On 7/24/2010 at 2:39 AM, volg4 said:

yeh, pedals are cool... if you can solder you can circuit bend or build your own

 

nah i can't. i mean i could but i don't

  On 7/24/2010 at 2:39 AM, volg4 said:

what about buying a computer and soundcard and running it as a standalone software fx box?

 

nah no computers/laptops allowed. except a little post recording editing

  On 7/24/2010 at 2:59 AM, Benedict Cumberbatch said:

 

yeah thats the thing. effects pedals seem to do one effect very well. i really want a magic box good at doing everything (or at least a few things) but seems the more effects you cram on something the less good they are

 

Ensoniq DP4/DP4+/DP2

  On 7/24/2010 at 12:45 AM, Benedict Cumberbatch said:

i have a mini-kp effects pad and its fun but the effects aren't upto much. what else is out there simply for effects?

 

monotron worth a look?

 

effects pedals?

FX racks - what's your budget?

If you have some serious cash, the obvious choice would be some sort of Eventide unit. 2nd to none as far as quality, but they can be pricey.

http://www.eventide.com/

tc electronic racks are a great bang for the buck. Whereas stuff like lexicon will excel at only verb and delay, and have weaker other fx. The tc racks have great all around fx, and interfaces.

I've you're looking to spend around 5-600 bucks, get the TC Fireworx. It's a bit outdated these days, but it is one of the most flexible fx racks out there, you can route all the fx in and out of each other in a modular way. Pretty nifty. NO computers required :)

If you are looking for individual fx, I would buy anything from electro harmonix that catches your fancy. All of their stuff is class A.

Or...just look for older guitar multi fx pedals from zoom, korg, vox, and roland/boss.; Great options for dead cheap.

Kaoss Pad 3?

  On 7/25/2010 at 1:19 AM, Brandi_B said:

If you are looking for individual fx, I would buy anything from electro harmonix that catches your fancy. All of their stuff is class A.

some of their stuff can be hit or miss. i would just say stay away from any of their units that try to do too much/too many effects like the worm. but overall im a big fan of ehx

Well, the mini Kaoss Pads suck dick. You should get Kaoss Pad 1 and 3 - oh, and look into the new Kaosslisator

Yeah I do agree with that. That one "multi" fx thing I tried out in the store and it wasn't that great, and you couldn't run anything into the reverb, it was only one effect at a time and seemed like a waste of money.

Big Muff - awesome fuzzy distortion

Deluxe Memory boy - fantastic analog delay

Holy grail - epic reverb

Octave Multiplexer - great octave pedal that can do really cool fm'y glitchy fx when you turn the sub off

Micro synth - fun pitch tracking synth times

Black/White finger - great analog opto compressor

Qtron - their best analog filter/env

Small clone - wonderful analog chorus

Tube Zipper - nasty sounding distortion/filter/comp

Ring Thing - fun ring mod

  On 7/25/2010 at 5:32 PM, Squee said:

Well, the mini Kaoss Pads suck dick. You should get Kaoss Pad 1 and 3 - oh, and look into the new Kaosslisator

 

Yes. KP 3 is a huge step up from mini kp.

Also here's a few quality, medium cost multi fx to check out.

Yeah pretty much all boss pedals are good. They can get a bit pricey though for one effect. AS can EH stuff, but EH stuff goes down a bit second hand, while boss pedals tend to retain their price. But yeah. Boss pedals are fab.

not as expensive as most ehx pedals, plus theyre cute and colorful

I'm a guitar pedal man all the way - one of my favorite passtimes is to run NPR through a gamut of pedals and out a shitty mini practice amp; keeps me entertained for hours.

I would say the benefits of individual effects vs. multi-fx boxes or computers is the physical tweakability. if messing with effects live is your style, you want individual gizmos with lots of knobs to twiddle. on the other hand, if you just want to set up a nice phase and some reverb and then leave it alone, or something for polishing tracks post-recording, a multi-box or computer will do that just fine (and might sound better, too).

  On 7/24/2010 at 2:17 PM, BCM said:

  On 7/24/2010 at 12:45 AM, Benedict Cumberbatch said:

i have a mini-kp effects pad and its fun but the effects aren't upto much. what else is out there simply for effects?

 

monotron worth a look?

 

effects pedals?

 

FX racks - what's your budget?

budget is limited for sure. space is even more limited. not sure i want to start on racks till i got a room

I just tried out the new Kaosslisator Pro today. Skip it. It sucked.

Electro-Harmonix is god tier.

Also, first I've seen of the Tube Zipper. Sounds awesome from the demos. *gear luuuuust*

Anyone play with the POD X3 Live? Planning on getting one of them at some point. For playing guitar mostly, but I could use it for other things.

  On 7/27/2010 at 5:45 AM, wahrk said:

Anyone play with the POD X3 Live? Planning on getting one of them at some point. For playing guitar mostly, but I could use it for other things.

Its pretty fucking amazing once you get used to editing it, two completely separate signal chains for different amps, effects, mics, cabs etc. gives it a lot of possibilities, combining two completely different tones can lead to heavenly results. It took me forever to get the a real nice thick punchy fire hot pristine modern ultra high gain uber dynamic studio quality metal tone but all my tones are more than satisfying now. I would start out right out the gate editing tones with gearbox on a computer, its much easier and more enjoyable than editing with the actual unit until you get used to the units interface(which is actually really good just not as good for endless tweaking than a computer)((but if you have it up at your shoulders were its easy to dial and tweak settings is almost as good as gearbox)) everything in and understand how everything sounds.

Do regret buying my X3 in the least and I've used almost every digital guitar tone unit out these days.

I cant wait to see what line 6 unleashes next. Now that Propellerheads and Line 6 are the same company I dream of them making an even more godly unit were gear box is a device in Reason and you can automate INSANE automation's that could collapse nations.