Effects choice to be made

[Doadman]

Well, it's getting time to upgrade my GNX3000 and I have a choice between an RP1000 and individual pedals. I play mostly at home but I am putting together a Rock covers band at the moment. The RP1000 is £414 and if I were to go for individual pedals, this is what I'd be looking at:

Overdrive = Bad Monkey
Distortion = EHX Metal Muff
Delay = Boss DD-3
Chorus = EHX Small Clone or Hardwire Chorus
Compression = MXR Super Comp
Wah = Vox 847a
Volume = Morley Little Alligator or Boss FV500 (not sure what the difference is between the low and high impedence versions)
Noise Gate = Boss NS-2

In my choices I've tried to strike a balance between good quality effects and keeping the costs reasonable.

All that would come in at about £100 more than the RP1000 so I have two basic questions:

1) Which route would be best?
2) Are the pedals I've chosen good and where I'm not sure; which is best?

Thanks

[ailean]

I'd always go for separate pedals. Yes it's more costly, but you can have more options, and if you don't like a particular aspect of your sound then you can swap out a single pedal for something else. Also you get to pick each type of pedal, you can buy the distortion pedal you like rather then hope the like the modeller on a multi FX unit.

I guess the downside is that they take up more space and you ideally need a pedal board too. I'd still get separates though.

As a caveat I do get the impression that multi FX units (good ones) are popular for recording with, rather than playing live, so if you intend to record a multi unit might be better, but I'm way out of my depth here :)

[Ian Price]

I would always go for seperates - I've always found that multi-fx units have too much on them and as a result spend most of my timing p*ssing around with the hundreds of different sounds you can get.

Ultimately if you want portability go for the multi fx, if you want to keep the set up simple and 'better' sounding go for quality purpose built pedals! I'm currently getting by with a Fulltone OCD and a Boss DD-3. I think all I want to add now is a chorus - the Tonerider chorus is supposedto be very good. Check out Twinfans review of it on this link:

http://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=15111.msg196989#msg196989

I'll admit that I'm not too impressed with the EHX stuff - my experience has been that it is quite noisy.

Finally, if you buy seperate pedals you can change them around until you find a set up you like. Much more cost effective in the long run than buying a multi-fx and then changing the whole unit!

[Doadman]

Thanks for the feedback. First of all, none of the pedal choices I've made are set in stone so if you have any alternative suggestions I'd be happy to hear them as long as they are in the same area in terms of price. I know the Fulltone OCD is good for instance but it's also £100 more than a Bad Monkey, which by all accounts is a very good pedal anyway. As for portability, I guess I'd probably end up with a pedal board to house them in so they should be almost as portable as a multi fx unit anyway.

[hamfist]

Potentially, much better tone with separate pedals, although that does, of course, depend on which pedals you choose.
  if going the pedal route, audition a LOT, findout which ones you do and don't like.

I'd question whether you really needed a noise gate. For the same levels of gain, pedals afre usually considerably quieter than amps. if the EHX Metal Muff is noisy, then get something else instead, unless it really is the only pedal that can get you the distortion that you want.

Be ruthless in whittling it down. Do you really need a compressor  for example ?

The Danelectro pedals are well thought of BTW, in the budget arena.

[Doadman]

With the noise gate gone it's even closer as now the individual pedals are only about £50 more than the RP1000, though somebody did suggest I invest in an MXR MC-401 Boost pedal.

In one way the RP1000 appeals as it's a simple 'all in one' solution that offers loads of flexibility with masses of effects and the ability to incorporate amp modeling into the mix as well if I'm after a sound that my Marshall will struggle to produce. Against that, I am a little concerned that if I have a unit that has hundreds of possible effects, I'll end up over complicating my sound. There is certainly something to be said for building up effects one at a time. I thought I'd start with the Bad Monkey and go from there as maybe I'll decide I don't need a distortion at all. And if I bought this MXR MC-401 Boost pedal, would I really need a volume pedal to boost my solos? I'm pretty sure I'll want Chorus, Delay and Wah as I use them quite a bit on the GNX but who knows, maybe the compression can go. On the GNX I like the way compression thickens up the sound but maybe through my valve amp I won't feel I need it as much.

[tomjackson]

Try the Carl Martin Quattro, best of both worlds.  It also has an effect loop so you can add other pedals but has four quality effects which may be all you would need?

[dheim]

i use compression a lot. maybe even too much... regarding chorus i can suggest you the tonerider. it hasn't a mix control, but the amount of effect is just right, and can be tweaked a lot with depth knob... it's completely noiseless too.

[38thBeatle]

I picked up a Visual Sound H20 for peanuts the other day. Patiently watching out for one on Ebay. As chorus pedals go, pretty good and the echo section is usable too. I am turning into a pedal dancer!

[Doadman]

I've researched these pedals a lot now and I've pretty much decided what I'm going to get. There have been some changes as I've decided to go with a Boost pedal instead of a volume pedal to make solos stand out and I've ditched the noise gate but what I really need to know now is what order I should buy them in, in order to successfully incorporate them into my rig. This is what I've selected:

Overdrive - Digitech Bad Monkey
Distortion - Hardwire Metal Distortion
Chorus - EHX Small Clone
Delay - Boss DD3 or MXR Carbon Copy (whichever comes up on Ebay)
Compression - MXR Super Comp
Wah - Vox 847a
Boost - MXR MC-401 Boost

I'll need to buy them individually or in pairs to spread the cost so which order should I buy them in?

[Philly Q]

Just a thought if you're going to be playing live - what about a tuner pedal and maybe a power supply?

[dheim]

i'd start with the obvious ones... distortion, delay
then chorus and overdrive
then compression and wah
finally the booster (i don't use it because i have got a 3 channel amp and use crunch for solos - my bugera 333xl has a very liquid and aggressive crunch channel, with a great midrange... it's indeed heavier than most lead channels i tried!) (but i presume you'll not use your amp distortion... you can use overdrive before distortion to boost you solo sound!)

[juansolo]

Talking VFM here (which is very much up my street ;) ), Stick a TC Electronics G-Sharp in your FX loop for delay/chorus/reverb duties. They're an utter bargain at the moment, there's a few up on ebay currently (one of which might be one that I have surplus to requirements :D ). Then I'd go for an overdrive pedal. Dunno which as I'm currently building a BYOC TS-808 clone. Can't recommend anything else as I haven't got there yet...

Oh, I had a Small Clone. Great for a watery chorus, very Nirvana... Bloody good little pedal actually, but I wouldn't swap it for my G-Sharp.

[dheim]

i've got a g-sharp that i use as a delay/reverb unit. i still have to set it properly but it's good and most of all very transparent... the only downside is that you have to choose if having chorus OR delay on, and i preferred an analogue chorus.

[Doadman]

I will be using my amp's drive channels, probably both of them at one time or another. I wanted the overdrive pedal to tighten up the distortion that is on those channels and a distortion pedal to push them further into Modern Metal territory. I emailed a number of companies about this, expecting them to suggest overdrives but they all said I'd need a full distortion pedal over my amp's existing drive channels.

As for the chorus effect; I'm no great fan of Nirvana particularly so I was looking at the Small Clone simply because so many people suggested it as a really good chorus pedal. The Hardwire seems good too so I could look at that, though that would have to be new or how about the Digitech Chorus Factory? Or maybe the Boss CH-1 as that should be everywhere on Ebay or is it not that good?