Zoom Gfx
July 17th, 2011 | 
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What is your favourite guitar effect pedal or combination of effects?
What effects, what brands, what specific models?
Also, do you prefer individual stomp-boxes or multi-effects processors?
I have a second hand Zoom GFX-707 multi-effects pedal but I think I might start buying some stomp boxes. It's good and all but I don't like all the menus and the little crappy screen that you can't see in direct light and the crappy grey plastic etc. On the positive it is a whole lot of stomp boxes in one and is a lot cheaper, but it's not particularly easy to add effects one-by-one while playing. I like the idea of just stepping on the ones I want... so much simpler.
Now your turn to rant.
I've gone both directions - a moderately involved signal chain, a multifx pedal, and a combination of both even - so I'll weigh in on what has worked for me.
I like to get my distortion from my amp. A decent (!) amp is going to have better distortion than just about anything else except the highest quality digital modeling gear, so that's that. One notable exception has been to use the Boss OD-20 into my Epiphone Valve Jr. That sounds pretty good, although it does get a little noisy at high volumes. Of course, I haven't modded the Epi yet either... =) I do really like the sound of the Boss Metal Zone MT-2, It's a remarkably good pedal, and I keep seeing them used for around 80$, so it's a pretty good buy, too. Of course, it does metal well, but not much else.
For clean sounds I think there are two ways to go - either get the best possible effect for the sound or go multifx. On one hand, the Boss chorus (CE-1 I think) is one of the best chorus sounds I have ever heard, second only to the H20 (mfg?), which is simply gorgeous. Dedicated analog pedals are often irreplaceable and far superior in tone for that particular application... On the other hand, my Boss GT-3 (notice a trend, here?) has very nice clean sounds, can do tap tempo delay, and can tweak and synchronize that tempo to chorus, phaser, flanger, etc, not to mention the extensive onboard EQ, pickup sim, amp/cab sim, etc. I don't know of a way to get that kind of versatility in an all-stomp setup, especially in terms of changing all pedals to the same (tapped) tempo on the fly.
So on one hand, if you want a simple setup, either carefully select your pedals and keep to as few as possible, or get one or two pedals plus a multifx, and be prepared to spend some time dialing in the sounds you want on the multifx.
Buy multifx second-hand is a great way to get a good product... again, having things like a tuner, delay, and other clean effects in one package is very convenient, as long as it doesn't compromise your tone.
My gigging setup comprises of (in order)
LTD EC-50 ( SD JB in bridge, onboard buffer circuit [invaluable] )
Boss GT-3 (clean effects only)
Dunlop 535Q Crybaby Wah
Mesa Boogie 100w Tremoverb (JJ pres, Mesa 6L6 tubes, 2 pulled)
Marshall 1960a 300 watt 4x12 cab
I've experimented with putting an octave pedal in the fx loop, it's an old DOD though, I'm not sold on it yet. Does give a nice thick feel to it all when a bit of that octave down is blended in.
I have run a wide variety of different rigs in the past... everything from 8+ stompboxes to rackmount MIDI-controlled preamps w separate poweramps to combos. My personal conclusion is that you need to find a happy place between doing what you want to do and what you have to do. It is extremely important to run the simplest rig you can, because especially when you start playing live, if it can go wrong, it probably will.
My simplest pedal setup was guitar -> tuner -> metal zone -> chorus -> wah -> amp with crappy distortion. That still gave me a few sounds that I could work with (clean, crunchy rhythm, solo w/wah, effected clean, etc) for the rock band I was in. It did what I wanted... no problem.
The most complex setup that I've gigged with involved six different pedals in front of the amp, (tuner, flanger, wah, chorus, delay, phaser, not in that order), two or three pedals in the fx loop (another chorus, the octaver, and a buffer I think), a stereo rackmount EQ with half for before the preamp, half after preamp, and I think it was a rackmount preamp for cab simulation and noise gating.... must've, cuz I was using a power amp instead of a normal head. Oh yeah, and of course the MIDI pedalboard for changing the preamp settings. Oh god, powering all of those pedals... quite frankly, it was a distraction, having to kick in and out of so many pedals!
My simplest setup overall was just a guitar, the Boss GT-3, and the amp. I ran with that for three or four gigs before I found that I really just loved the sound of the Crybaby and had to add it in also ... that wah is great, it's really versatile, and it just doesn't sound the same without it. And half of the time I didn't even need the GT-3, the amp gave me a lot of the sounds I wanted already... a good amp is the basis for good tone!
Saul
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