The essential pedals

[marcbc]

In your mind what are the essential pedals every working guitar player should have, Like overdrive, wah, ect. Im just tryng to build a pedal board that has just enough to get by not alot of cray stuff just a the bare bones!

[Teleglide]

For me - clean boost, low gain dirty boost, delay, tremolo, wah.

I can also be happy plugging straight in to a Fender amp with reverb.

[tomorrowstars]

I've always got a compressor, buffer, mosfet booster, low gain overdrive, and delay/reverb.

[mlove3]

essential?
none.

get a two channel amp with a built in overdrive, screw the rest.

wah, chorus, and reverb are SO overused.

[Kestrel]

Originally Posted by marcbc

In your mind what are the essential pedals every working guitar player should have, Like overdrive, wah, ect. Im just tryng to build a pedal board that has just enough to get by not alot of cray stuff just a the bare bones!

What kind of sound are you after? What style of music do you play? That will determine the kind of pedals you need, but it's really up to you to define what your "essential" pedals are.

[surfoverb]

boost/compression-Sexdrive
distortion-Timmy
delay-Carbon Copy
fuzz-BYOC MKII

[ReIgnition]

You've got to honestly determine what kind of music you 'like' VS what you're

going to be playing - or they might be the same.

i.e. For delta blues you could go into a low watt tube amp without pedals... if

you know the venue sizes you'll need to be sure you don't overpower the room

with too many watts trying to push a larger amp into overdrive.

for heavier stuff you may want to add OD's, fuzz etc...

[marcbc]

Thanks!
I guess the music i play is what people call "alt country" like drive by truckers and kathleen edwards! and i play alot ALOT of bruce!

[Ben Harmless]

Originally Posted by marcbc

Thanks!
I guess the music i play is what people call "alt country" like drive by truckers and kathleen edwards! and i play alot ALOT of bruce!

Pfft. Then get an overdrive, maybe a delay - and then practice.

That's the great thing about alt.country through Bruce. It's all based in roots music so you don't need piles of pedals and junk to make it happen.

One of my many bosses fronts an alt.country/americana band and just plugs his Esquire into an AC15 - no need for anything fancy. He's also the biggest Bruce fan I know if that means anything.

[Tele Fan]

I go with tuner-boost-OD-tremolo-delay. I play country and rockabilly mainly and that does it for me. If it wasn't for Duane Eddy tunes I could do without the trem.

[jjkrause84]

Essential for me would be an OD and an analog delay. I can do what I do straight in but would lose a lot of very cool stuff and textures for different songs without the delay. Even though my current group tends to do pretty pop-y sort of songs (As chosen by our pop-loving lead singer and her boyfriend the drummer) they let me put in psychedelic accents pretty generously (considering) and I simply could not do that convincingly without my delay.

[guitarzan13]

Originally Posted by mlove3

essential?
none.

get a two channel amp with a built in overdrive, screw the rest.

wah, chorus, and reverb are SO overused.

[Hiker]

OD - Verb - Wah (forum threads with 'show me your pedal' seem to have at least one pedal, sometimes the volume flavor-important to note, if you're not headed for a gig, you might forget the tuner, and keep it simpler/more economical), that said, my Boss Flanger is fun, YMMV...

[Tonemonkey]

Originally Posted by mlove3

essential?
none.

get a two channel amp with a built in overdrive, screw the rest.

wah, chorus, and reverb are SO overused.

2 Channel Amp!!!!!!????

One Channel Class A old tube amp, straight in cranked, roll it off with your volume!

You don't need no fangled 2 channel amp. Jeez...get back to true tone.

[4 Strings]

Essential pedals? None, just straight into a Champ, Deluxe or Bandmaster depending on the size of the venue, the need for cleans vs. crunch et.c.

Fun? A low gain OD, Wah, Verb, Tuner and Trem.

[Bozo Bus]

Originally Posted by Tonemonkey

2 Channel Amp!!!!!!????

One Channel Class A old tube amp, straight in cranked, roll it off with your volume!

You don't need no fangled 2 channel amp. Jeez...get back to true tone.

AGREED!
Just don't forget to cap (.022) that axe off, to keep from losing the highs.....
FWIW....
PEACE

[Little Ricky]

#1 - Tuner
If your amp is too loud to crank, then a basic OD pedal, like a tubescreamer.
Then, a Delay, which I use for slapback, but at shorter/quicker settings you can sometimes get chorus and reverb sounds out of some of them.
I like clean for the rockabilly and country I do, so I'm fine with just a tuner and delay, and I'll sneak in a tremolo when the band ain't looking

[AngelStrummer]

For me it's wah->compressor->dirtbox->delay

[marcbc]

SO after reading all these i decide maybe ill go with a tuner, a od and a delay! Any suggestions on what ones to get? i got a boss dd3 and a zakk wylde overdrive in a package deal on Craigslist but i think i might be able to do better! maybe tube screamer and a line six dl4? what do you think?

[RomanS]

No need to get such a fancy delay as the Line6 for those types of tones (though this one would work, of course...) - anything slightly analog/warm-sounding will do, like one of the inexpensive Danelectro models, or the Artec SE-ADL; if you want to spend more, i'd get something like the MXR CarbonCopy, BBE TwoTimer, Cmatmods Deeelay, or one of the Malekko Echos, maybe the Marshall Echohead - the Boss digital delay would be the very last one on my list, I'd get anything but that one for alt.country; you might also want to wait a bit for first reports about the brand-new Electro Harmonix Memory Toy to come in...

Tuenr: that's the easy one: Korg Pitchblack, absolutely no need to look elsewhere, nothing comes even remotely close in its price-range!

OD: For alt.country something Tubescreamer-ish, like a Digitech Bad Monkey (as the budget option that sounds pretty good), or at least soemthign that's focussed on the lower to mid gain levels (Barber LTD, Danelectro CoolCat Transparent Overdrive, Marshall Bluesbreaker II, Fulltone Fulldrive II, etc.)

For me a tremolo pedal is also essential for alt.country playing (but not for Bruce!).

[jjkrause84]

Originally Posted by AngelStrummer

For me it's wah->compressor->dirtbox->delay

Huh, funny....I go Wah > OD > Delay as well.....cool!

To the OP.....first and foremost decide between digital and analog delay. I love the sound of analog delay and I don't think it would be too unfair to generalize and say that digital delays are more flexible/versatile but analog sounds better (WAY better). I use a Carbon Copy and love it to death.

[garytelecastor]

Tuner, Compressor, Clean Boost, Dirty Boost, Delay.

[k tone]

marcbc,

Stick with the DD3. I had an Echohead and then a SMMH on my board and they got replaced by my old MIJ DD3 for long delays. Straightforward, nice repeats, industry standard, it really rocks. I do have a MXR CC on there as well for slapback. I also like my Bad Monkey alot for OD (price is nice as well).

[Doc]

Originally Posted by marcbc

In your mind what are the essential pedals every working guitar player should have, Like overdrive, wah, ect. Im just tryng to build a pedal board that has just enough to get by not alot of cray stuff just a the bare bones!

Depends. Wah, couple of dirt pedals to move from cleanish to dirty and a delay and a tuner. Currently I use a Turbo Tuner, 535q, Screw Driver, Lunar Module, Dirty Little Secret, Top Fuel and DD7.

[tazzboy]

Depends on the style of music that I am playing.

[RomanS]

I'm really surprised about all the wah recommendations - I can't think of a single alt.country song where a wah pedal is used prominently...???

[telechaser]

This one



Just kidding. My essentials below.

[pinkspider]

my current essential pedals go:

- Digital delay (DD-7) for clean passages
- Analog delay (Carbon Copy) for dirty tones and solos
- Tremolo (Coolcat trem) for loads of things
- Dirtbox (FulldriveII) for boosting amp or standalone overdrive
- Tuner (Pitchblack)

These 5 pedals change every time, but most of the time I will be happy with just a dirtbox.

Stick to your DD3 and zw overdrive and move on from there. Would recommend the Pitchblack too for your tuner choice. Carbon Copy also gets my recommendation as I really love using it with dirty tones, sits beautifully in the mix.

[ledet]

I prefer to have overdrive, distortion, chorus, wah, delay, compressor and a tuner. Very basic. :)

[surfoverb]

Originally Posted by marcbc

SO after reading all these i decide maybe ill go with a tuner, a od and a delay!

Tuner: Boss TU2, or Korg pitch black
OD: Bad Monkey, ts808 reissue, Dan Electro TOD, THrobak OD, Barber LTD
Delay: MXR Carbon Copy

[Pickalittle]

See my post today: "Proven guitar/pedalboard/amp set-ups"

Essentials:
Korg Pitchblack tuner ($80)
Fulltone OCD ($143)
Boss DD-7 Delay ($160).

[IggyT]

1-compressor (HBE retro CPR)
2-sometimes low gain OD (Transparent OD) sold my 808!
3- Delay (Carl Martine red repeat)
at other times I will use another pedal..vibe..tremolo..chorus..wah...phase..but rarely..if a tune calls for that effect...
but my current sound is based on Comp and delay at very subtle levels...with some amp reverb.
iggy

[flipside]

I'm pretty sure I can get by with just the one on the right though.

[Jimmy WebPage]

Whatever is essential for your sound.

All LOVETONE pedal names make me think of FABIO.
* Meatball - envelope filter/follower
* Big Cheese - fuzz
* Brown Source - overdrive
* Doppleganger - dual LFO phaser/vibrato
* Wobulator - dual LFO tremolo and stereo panner
* Ring Stinger - ring modulator, octave fuzz, simple analog synthesizer
* ? (Flange with No Name) - stereo flanger, multi-function time/stereo modulation effect, simple analog synthesizer
* Cheese Source - combination of the Big Cheese and Brown Source in one unit




If you think about this question in a wider context most pedal manufacturers have models that cover this basic range. They are kind of essential. Just like Fabio.

[Guitarmoog]

Originally Posted by mlove3

essential?
none.

get a two channel amp with a built in overdrive, screw the rest.

wah, chorus, and reverb are SO overused.

I agree about the overuse of the Chorus and Reverb (not sure about wah), but I think that, even with a 2 channel amp, some sort of boost pedal is incredibly handy to have.

You can use it as a volume boost on the clean channel, for solos or when switching to a guitar with low-output pickups, to OD the input of the drive channel, or, at higher settings, to boost the drive and volume of a drive channel. One pedal can effectively turn a two channel amp into a 4 channel amp. Very handy indeed.

While your there, you may as well get something with independent boost and drive, like a Box of Rock. Apart from a tuner, the most useful pedal I've ever used, and the one I take off my board and put in my guitar case when I'm going to have to use someone else's amp. It also effectively turns a single-channel amp into four channels if everything is set up right.