Best effect pedals for acoustic?

[fender69]

Looking to add an effect or two for solo performances. Nothing way over the top, primarily just to add a little color and for a textural change of pace once in a while. Anybody have favorite pedals that they like to use?

[briggleman]

My 3 favorite effects are Delay, Chorus, and BBE's Sonic Maximizer.

For Delay I am using SD Deja Vu (both digital and analog in one pedal)

For Chorus I am using the Hardwire series from Digitech. With those 3 pedals I keep my tone but I can sound like an orchestra or just a shimmering note.

Find the ones that work for you and enjoy.

[drive-south]

I use a Fulltone Choralflange with my acoustics. It does nice chorus and flange efx. I use these affects sparingly.

I have a few others that I generally use with my electrics including a Fulltone MDV2 which is a univibe clone. I also have a Vox Vibravox which does tremelo and vibrato. This is a very cool affect that actually does sound nice with acoustic, especially the vibrato. The univibe clone is a differant type of vibrato affect. I does a sort of phasy-sounding vibrato that I have used with my acoustics as well. When I play out I don't like dragging a lot of stuff with me and don't like having 3 affects in my signal chain, so I just use the Choral Flange.

I'd like to get a reverb that I can use with my Mackie mixers as neither have reverb. I have a couple of rack mount reverb units but I'm looking for something smaller that doesn't require a rack. Perhaps a Boss reverb pedal in the affects loop will do the trick.

[fender69]

Hmmm....didn't think about the Choralflange. I'm also an electric player and was thinking about getting one as I like having both chorus and flanging. Yes, all the effects are used sparingly - just to add a little texture.

Any more suggestions?

[giblet]

I use the Boss CE-5 Chorus pedal just to provide a little more full tone.

[dcopper]

The DigiTech Chorus factory gives nice chorus/flange options. The cleanest chorus I have used for acoustic is a Carl Martin Dual Chorus that has two actual chorus settings.
I currently use the new version of a BOSS ME70, which works well for me since most of my acoustic work is with a T5.
davidc

[M.D.Smith]

I have been so stoked using these 4 pedals the most.


These first three are from Digitech

[VintageToneGuy]

Originally Posted by fender69

Looking to add an effect or two for solo performances. Nothing way over the top, primarily just to add a little color and for a textural change of pace once in a while. Anybody have favorite pedals that they like to use?

Having played mostly electrics until recently, effects have been a big part of my sound. With acoustics, effects need to be set at minimal. I'm using a modded Boss CS3 to fatten the notes and create some 'sponginess' with the tone. I then use a Ibanez AD9 to make the tone sound 'wet'. I'd like to add a nice chorus or phaser eventually.

vtg

[franchelB]

I use:
1. MXR Dynacomp: just too add a little sustain.
2. Digitech Digidelay: I use the modulated delay with the tap tempo.

[vbf]

It appears as though I'm in the majority here. Delay, chorus, a little reverb, all topped off with a BBE sonic maximizer is exactly what I use. A little goes a long way and it's easy to allow the FX to override the sound of the guitar if not careful. You can pick up a decent padded FX pedal board and use a One Spot with a daisy chain to power em' all.

[Shadowraptor]

I have a Digitech JamMan Solo Looper on the way. Should be able to do really wild things with this and my ZOOM A2 Acoustic Effects Pedal

[makikogi]

for acoustics my opinion is the best effects are the ones that you cant hear. Light touch of reverb, something like an aura or mama bear just to the point where it airs out the piezo quack, eq pedals, nice preamps to make the sound nice and full. Whatever you choose use it sparingly

[Kabalan]

Originally Posted by M.D.Smith

I have been so stoked using these 4 pedals the most.


These first three are from Digitech

that lexicon it is cool!! i am a fan of lexicon gear.
i use tc electronic g natural (designed for acoustic guitar) plus a small tc electronic preamp eq.

[jayelcee]

I like to switch around among the effects I've got.

For compression (most times I'll choose the Maxon for its maximum transparency):



For reverb/delay (when I want more than my Loudbox 100's built-in reverb):



For distortion (or to just "fatten" things up a bit):



For phasing and flanging:





And for tremolo, EQ and chorus:



When I'm too lazy to set up any of the above, I'll just use a Zoom A2.

Or just a compressor.

[tbeltrans]

This post is rather long because I feel that any information I provide about what pedals I use is not very useful unless I also indicate WHY that pedal is useful to me (i.e. my criteria for choosing it).

For me, effects most useful for acoustic are (used sparingly) reverb, chorus, some form of EQ, and possibly delay. I have a TC Electronic Chorus Plus pedal. I like it because it can be extremely subtle to the point where you don't hear the chorus, just some "life" to the notes being played.

I have an Electro Harmonix Cathedral reverb. Again, it can go from extremely subtle to absolutely whacky (for those who like that sort of thing). I had an analog reverb tank, but it was a bit too dark. For acoustic, I think a GOOD digital reverb works well so you can control the brightness and retain detail. But the Cathedral has a blend control that lets you have exact control over how much reverb vs dry signal you are hearing, which makes for very subtle effect for acoustic.

I also have an Electro Harmonix Stereo Memory Man with Hazarai. This is a delay pedal, but it is so much more than that. It is a very creative pedal that is great for generating ideas for music composition. Like some other digital delay pedals now on the market, it has a 30 second loop function. But it can include whatever else the pedal is capable of in its loops (except reverse delays, since these must use the loop functionality). The interaction between the various knobs is very creative. I don't think the YouTube demo videos give it full justice. Again, with the belnd control, this can be a very subtle effect or over the top or anything in between.

Both of these Electro Harmonix pedals are interacted with much like an analog synthesizer where you are turning knobs to dial in various adjustments to effects, but the knobs interact in very creative ways. I don't really like all-in-one multi effects because I don't like going through menus and that sort of thing. It distances me from the direct case and effect that direct knobs on individual pedals provide. Also, I never could get a sound that I liked from Digitech pedals for some reason.

Also, I have a Boss GE-7 7 band graphic EQ pedal that I modded to change some of the center frequencies of some of the EQ bands and to get rid of the noise, since in its stock condition, it is too noisy for my taste. One important thing to know about the GE-7 is that it has a 1 meg ohm input impedance. For those who are using piezo pickups of any kind, this is a pedal you can plug directly into and get a good sound from. A graphic EQ pedal is a good thing to have in your arsenal to take care of smoothing out the overall sound of your acoustic and even attend to some problematic areas such as maybe a bit boomy bass.

Another pedal I find very useful for acoustic guitar (though it wasn't designed with that in mind) is the Electro Harmonix Knockout pedal. this is an EQ pedal with a twist (as are most Electro Harmonix pedals - built with a twist). It has three knobs - one is the level of the low pass filter that has a cut off at 85 HZ, one is the level of the high pass filter that has a cutoff at 6.5 KHZ, and the third is the level of the original signal. If anything can readily tame the midrange of the CA Guitars Cargo equipped with K & K Pure Western Mini pickups. This pedal was designed to focus on the midrange, which is where, in my experience, acoustic guitars often need help to control that range.

Tony