What are your thoughts?

[Gopherbassist]

This seems to be one of those rare forums with a community of cool people. I want to take advantage of your coolness, and ask you all a favor. Here is a hypothetical situation: You know no name brands, and no retailer's name. If you went to your search engine of choice, what phrase would you put in to try and find a pedal with the properties and that makes the sounds you want? Any kind of pedal, from flangers, phasers, pitch shifters, distortion and anything you would imagine.

Give me many examples, if I may ask.

[ifeellikeatourist]

I know that for a long time I was on a search for the perfect "crunchy" distortion. I know that typing that into a search engine would not really help much, but as far as a description of the sound I want, definitely crunch, although since then I've realized how glorious fuzz can also be (and I've actually found the crunchiest distortion in certain settings of some fuzz pedals). Other pedal sounds that I actually have tried typing into ebay include: noise, feedback, and theremin (theremin-like, that is...I know that "theremin" is not an adjective, but think eog or tbd). I'm also currently on the search for a nice "glitchy" fuzz. Hope this gets the ball rolling...

[smile_man]

Tera Melos/Boss sample effect.


It's the TSP Teaspoon

[Ghost Hip]

I'd probably figure out a band that has a similar sound.... then look up that band's equipment.

Or I'd go to Harmony Central, and look at effects for sale and see if anything catches my eye. Then look that effect up.

[metalmariachi]

Some times I just go to the sellers sites, like Analog Heaven, Pedal Geek, Music Toys etc and just look through the pedals. Once something catches my eye I'll search the manufacturer.
I have come up with some surprising finds on Ebay with generic searches like Delay, Echo, distortion, or bass distortion.
It's amazing what you can find listed outside of the musical instruments category.

Now If your looking for the effect used by what's his name in that band with the song that goes ... Actually if you know some of the lyrics there are a couple of sites (search song lyrics) that will give you the name of the song and the band name etc.


MM

[Gunner Recall]

to complete my devi ever story...

I wasn't really into booteek pedals, but was looking at the equipment used by a band I liked and I saw they used an OCD. I did some research and stumbled upon harmony central. Someone there was selling a US so I looked it up and

Anyway...googling your favorite bands gear. Yep. Sadly in most cases they use a ton of guitar center gear, in the face of all us boutique weirdos.

[bigchiefbc]

to complete my devi ever story...

I wasn't really into booteek pedals, but was looking at the equipment used by a band I liked and I saw they used an OCD. I did some research and stumbled upon harmony central. Someone there was selling a US so I looked it up and

Anyway...googling your favorite bands gear. Yep. Sadly in most cases they use a ton of guitar center gear, in the face of all us boutique weirdos.

I found devi gear by typing "Aenima distortion" into google because I wanted to try to get the tone on that album, and the very first hit was to the Devi page. I bought an Aenima that day.

[ifeellikeatourist]

Sadly in most cases they use a ton of guitar center gear, in the face of all us boutique weirdos.

I've always thought it was strange how so many guitarists in successful bands who could afford better pedals just play through Boss pedals. Granted, these guys almost always have very sweet amps, so maybe they have all the distortion that they want right there and don't feel the need to seek out weirder and crazier distortion sounds, but still...

I dunno

[smile_man]

It probably has to do with reliability. Boss pedals are very easy to find, so if you break one on stage you just go to the nearest music store and chances are they'll have it. That wouldn't be the case with boutique pedals, not everywhere has them in stock, so if you have a certain sound specific to that pedal and you can't find a new one you're pretty much fucked. In the studio on the other hand...

[Gunner Recall]

It probably has to do with reliability. Boss pedals are very easy to find, so if you break one on stage you just go to the nearest music store and chances are they'll have it. That wouldn't be the case with boutique pedals, not everywhere has them in stock, so if you have a certain sound specific to that pedal and you can't find a new one you're pretty much fucked. In the studio on the other hand...

This. Also some people just hate tap dancing or having to worry about pedals during a long tour. Some dudes just like going Guitar -> Tuner -> amp. Granted, you need a really nice amp to do this.

Selling my ffxi account and will hopefully have half the money for a mark V hehe...

[jrmy]

On the Boss pedals tip, I agree with the reliability explanation, but I'd also elaborate on that. Most guitarists get "that sound" you know so well in the studio. When they're in there, their signal may get modified any of a billion ways that they have no precise idea about - studios tend to have craploads of pedals and rack effects (never mind all the effect plugins these days). It's like Billy Corgan said in an interview about recording Siamese Dream - by the time they were done, there were so many guitar tracks stacked on top of each other for each song, he had no idea what any single track sounded like. So what you usually see in a big touring band's live gear is just what they think will approximate the recorded sound, not reproduce it precisely. And when you're talking about stadium bands, there's no way that they can have any assurance that any sound is going to reproduce well with the ridiculous acoustics they have to deal with.

So when it comes to getting "that sound" from your favorite album, it might be best to either track down the studio it was recorded at and look at their gear list, or just drop the whole thing, and try and make your own sound (that's not meant sarcastically, by the way - just on observation on the futility of the whole thing... which I fully participate in, as well).

[Ghost Hip]

Yeah an indie band I'm friends with said when they record at the studio the people there are perfectionists and you mostly use their amps, not to mention plug ine ffects. However they do use their own effects, which is essentially just a fuzz face, RC-2 looper and a boss distortion. I'd hate recording in studios like that though. I hope once get in a studio it's not one like that. I just want to bring an amp mic it and play my normal set up.

I like the jack white approach on limiting yourself. The more oppurtunities you have sometimes the creativity dies.

[Skarrgus]

This seems to be one of those rare forums with a community of cool people. I want to take advantage of your coolness, and ask you all a favor. Here is a hypothetical situation: You know no name brands, and no retailer's name. If you went to your search engine of choice, what phrase would you put in to try and find a pedal with the properties and that makes the sounds you want? Any kind of pedal, from flangers, phasers, pitch shifters, distortion and anything you would imagine.

Give me many examples, if I may ask.

I always start of with the terms - "extreme", "crazy", "insane", "bent"... Or even just the term "different" and go from there. Then, I listen to samples, read reviews and take my chances.