Which pedals to add to my collection?

[GuitarIv]

Hey everyone,

so I finally put together a solid setup of gear I'm satisfied with and need some ideas what to add pedalwise in the future. I attached pictures so you have an idea of my current "pedalboard". Right now I have my basic needs covered with a Tubescreamer (I seem to prefer the Bad Monkey over my Ibanez TS-9DX for some reason, rhythm stuff just sounds tighter with it), a Tuner, a Looper, a Wah, a Noisegate and an Ibanez Delay. Everything is powered by the Fuel Tank Chameleon.

Now next on my list is the Carl Martin Octaswitch to eliminate tapdancing and a Mad Professor Underdrive to effectively give me a 3 Channel setup with my JCM 2000. A Reverb pedal will find it's way into my home as well since the ENGL Savage doesn't come stock with the effect (NAD coming in as soon as I have that mean fokker repaired, it sounds great but makes poping noises during warm up) and I feel like an EQ pedal would be cool as well.

So right now these are the pedals I have in mind:

Masterswitcher- I hate tapdancing. I have my mind set on the Octaswitch already.

Underdrive Pedal - same as rolling back the volume on the guitar. Gets you back into clean territory when playing crunch, since the Paul Gilbert Detox EQ is off the market it's gonna be the Mad Professor. Blue already recommended it.

Reverb - I'm probably going for the Boss one since I don't wanna shell out too much money. If I was rich I'd take the Strymon BigSky in a heartbeat.

EQ - Boss GE7 or the MXR 10 Band EQ.  Which one's better?

Volume Pedal - Just in case. Don't wanna go overkill on the amount of pedals so that one's optional.


Any other ideas? I'd like you guys to recommend stuff I may have missed, brands and maybe alternatives to the things I have listed. What I basically need is this: atmospheric cleans (reverb + delay), AC/DC to GnR Crunch (OD + Marshall already covers this), tight crushing metal rhythm (Savage + OD) and lead (Wah, Delay and OD do the job).

Basically just gathering some advice from people round here who are knowledgeable, fire away, thanks! 

Cheers

[Dave Sloven]

I use the MXR 10-band.  The Boss 7-band has a good rep though, and you have to remember that the MXR needs 18V and is a big bulky pedal.

I have the Morley Little Alligator volume pedal and find that I don't use it much at all.

I use a Boss Line Selector to cut back on the tap dancing but it does suck a bit of tone.

I can recommend EarthQuaker Devices reverbs (I have the Ghost Echo) as a reverb that works well with gain.  Not exactly your surfer rock reverb but great for doom metal etc

[GuitarIv]

You're always the first one to reply AO, is it just me or has this place become quiet? 

The 18V won't be a problem since the Fuel Tank has a fitting output (as you surely know, one of your threads got me hooked on that power supply in the first place) ^^

I read some reviews regarding noise issues and tone coloring both with the Boss and the MXR, the Danelectro Fish and Chips comes up often as a cheaper alternative, any experience with that one? Money sometimes doesn't equal tone, the Bad Monkey vs. my Ibanez TS is the best example for this.

The Boss Line Selector has caught my attention more than once, might be handy to have an additional switching option at hand. Gonna look it up, maybe I can find one used - will check out the EarthQuaker Devices as well. I mostly play atmospheric passages with Melodic Thrash/Death stuff ala Sylosis and Revocation. It needs to fill the room haha 

Another thing people seem to like is the BBE SonicStomp to "remove the blanket" from your speakers. Nile apparently uses the JCM2000 DSL 100 Heads with that combination and they do sound rather evil.

Cheers

[Toe-Knee]

I have a Rubadub reverb that is half built that you can have for £50 if you want. I'd obviously box it up and do artwork etc as you want it.

I know that you said you were set on the octaswitch but have you seen the G-Lab GSC units? They're great and very affordable.

http://www.thomann.de/gb/g_lab_gsc3_system_controller.htm?ref=search_rslt_g+lab+gsc_228480_1

[Dave Sloven]

The Danelectro has a good rep for noise but it has that horrid plastic casing.

I have the MXR 10-band before my ISP Decimator G-String II in the effects loop, so noise isn't a big issue.  I have heard some noise from that thing, but not as much as from my MXR 6-band EQ.

I have a couple of LS-2s, they are a useful piece of gear.

Sounds like you need an EQD Ghost Echo.  They are a great reverb for what you are doing.  Either that or their Afterneath, which is more expensive but combines a delay with the reverb.  The actual reverb sounds very similar to my Ghost Echo (a friend of mine has an Afterneath and as soon as I heard it I thought he had an EQD), but I already have a Carbon Copy and didn't want to spend the extra $100 for that model.  The Ghost Echo is available on ebay for US$165.  I got mine from this guy: link

[GuitarIv]

Tony: would I need to finish the Reverb myself? I have some solid soldering skills but never worked on anything besides guitar electronics. Cash is tight right now so I won't be buying anything anytime soon, just making some plans for now. 
The G-Lab looks nice, will check it out. It's somewhere in the ballpark of the Octaswitch pricewise, having Midi as an additional option is very cool though, thanks!

As far as noise is concerned my NS-2 takes care of that pretty well, it does color the tone but I like the change it makes. Only downside is it cancels out the Looper, might have to rethink my signal chain again. If the MXR shuts up in conjunction with a noise gate I might just as well snag it.

Cheers AO, will check those units out!


Another thing that came to my mind today whilst playing my Strat is a Compressor to even out some of the clean stuff: I know Keeley makes some solid units, any other suggestions?

Thanks for all the help so far 

[Slartibartfarst42]

The Boss GE-7 is excellent and easily available on the used market. I'm no huge Boss fan but for EQ I don't look any further than the GE-7

For Chorus, check out the Joyo Future Chorus. It's beyond tiny, it's cheap and gives a pretty impressive chorus sound. I was very pleasantly surprised.

For Delay and Overdrive, see if you can find Hardwire pedals. The quality is incredibly high and both offer tremendous tones. The Overdrive is like the Bad Monkey but better. For Delay I currently use a T-Rex Play Back, which is tremendous value but the Hardwire was better.

[Jackalicious]

If I am not too late, I would recommend the Walrus Deep Six for a compressor if you are still wanting one. I had it for awhile & it was a beautiful sounding pedal, what it did on my cleans was brilliant. They are a bit pricey but you can get good deals on Reverb.com.

By the way, I bought (and sold) the majority of my pedals there so you should most definitely browse there when looking at purchasing any pedals. There is no need to spend so much on a brand new pedal you can get for much cheaper used. All the pedals I have sold were in great condition if not mint so you can let the previous owner take the new cost, warm it up a bit & sell it to you haha,

[Dave Sloven]

I have just bought a Boss RC-1, which is a simple looper.

I can't wait to try it out!

[Plenum n Heather]

You may want to look at the Neunaber Expanse pedals; they are like a 'lite' version of the Eventide H9; you can load the pedal with a variety of reverb/modulation algorithms.

[GuitarIv]

Thanks for all the answers, I got myself some fairly basic stuff right now used like the MXR 10 Band EQ, a Boss RV-5 and a Mad Professor Underdrive brandnew. For now my pedalboard is finished (apart from the mess with the cables I had at hand, pedalboard build with properly cut cables will follow as soon as I have the cash), I'll upgrade when time and money is right. Attached a picture 

Cheers

[Dave Sloven]

I've since bought a second volume pedal, this one a Boss FV-500L, which has an expression jack that I use with either my PS-6 or my DD-7.  I still don't use it as a volume control.  They make two versions.  The L is to use after a buffer, the H before a buffer (e.g., after a passive guitar and/or true-bypass pedals).  I tried using the Little Alligator again today in the loop before my Carbon Copy and Ghost Echo, it does some kind of swell thing but generally I don't find it to be very useful.

I have an RV-5 and an MXR 10-band.  They are very useful pedals.

[ericsabbath]

I was going to suggest the Pedrone Pentaswitch, as it's smaller and much cheaper, but I see I'm late

[ericsabbath]

I had my fair share of good parametric equalizers but ended up with a reissue TC Classic Sustain Parametric Eq, which is a compressor with a nice single parametric control cut/boost
it works really well in the front of my Marshall both as a mid cut to clean up a dirty channel or as a frequency/gain/lead booster
I like it a lot better than having a ton of adjustable faders and lots of added noise
it was way overpriced new (over $300), but I got it in a good trade pretty much for nothing and ended up ditching all my expensive maxon and ibanez overdrives
you could still get the original vintage version for a fair price

if I intended to buy something new, that would be the TC Spark Boost or the Pigtronix Philosopher's Tone Micro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3oCA_ui9aQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uywswAOwCU0

the Carl Martin parametric equalizer seems interesting too, if you know how to mess with the knobs

and... if you have lots of money to spend, there's always the Empress ParaEq

[kluson]

Thorpy Peacekeeper is one great pedal!