electric must haves?

[HereIGoAgain]

That should start you off nicely. I'm always looking for new pedals myself.

[Taylorplayer]

Matt:

Very nice! What do they lead to? An amp or a PA?

Nice looking gear!

Taylorplayer

[HereIGoAgain]

Originally Posted by Taylorplayer

Matt:

Very nice! What do they lead to? An amp or a PA?

Nice looking gear!

Taylorplayer

Thanks. I plug in to the tuner, and the output of the Micro Amp goes to a tube amp. I don't think I can go direct with my setup. The Digitech analog distortion pedals and the digital effects pedals do have a "Mixer" output as well as an "Amp" output. You could go direct with those.

[Taylorplayer]

Originally Posted by HereIGoAgain

Thanks. I plug in to the tuner, and the output of the Micro Amp goes to a tube amp. I don't think I can go direct with my setup. The Digitech analog distortion pedals and the digital effects pedals do have a "Mixer" output as well as an "Amp" output. You could go direct with those.

Just curious... what tube amp do you have?

[HereIGoAgain]

Originally Posted by Taylorplayer

Just curious... what tube amp do you have?

I use a Laney VC30 2x10. My "bedroom" setup is the red MXR set as it appears, the amp on the clean channel, clean volume just enough to hear it correctly.

[John M.]

A whole lot of fine guitar players go right into an amp, so it really depends on you needs. I would suggest you start playing and listen carefully to what you're getting. If you have a sound in your head you can't get with your rig, AND if t's a pedal that can fix that, get the pedal then.

That being said, there are some core pieces a lot of folks use but it's dependent in part on the music you play and your plaing style. Most country guys want a compressor. Most blues players use few effects, but those who are after the Stevie Ray thing want one or two tube screamers and some kind of Univibe clone. Top 40 guys needeverything to copy originals, so someting like a POD or Line 6 amp is a real world answer. In the 80's, everyody had to have chorus. It's very fashion and style driven stuff, and pedals are definitely flavor of the day.

For me, an excellent investment has been a Carl Martin Quattro. It is single floor unit that has a compressor, two stage overdrive, tremelo (they make a chorus version) and analog delay. I'm trying out a V-Stack Tweedy to add the capacity to run direct or into an acoustic amp, and a strobostomp tuner is on the front end. The unit is so transparent, I can run an acoustic or reso through it with excellent results (even distortion for my National with a magnetic pickup). For my eclectic tastes this rig, running into a good tube amp, is excellent.

I have to agree on the comment about the T5's. I've played a couple and after 30+ years of classics electrics I couldn't get them to sound right in my hands. If your after something unique, anything goes, but if you're after classic tones, it usually ends up that you need some kinf of variant on classic equipment. For guitars, a combo of a Fender (tele or strat) and a Gibson (335 or Les Paul) are the typical do all sets. I use a variant of the Tele/335 combo and find I can get just about any tone I need.

[smorgdonkey]

Les Paul
Tele
Strat

[makikogi]

Considering that I am a bit of a tone nazi I really do think eventually I will end up buying a straight up electric, but I really did want the versatility of the T5. I have a bit of a acoustic venture with the T5 as well as I just bought a dtar wavelength UST and will be installing that into the T5 whenever it arrives. I wish I could afford to buy a T5 & electric but obviously that would be very expensive.

[dthumb]

Originally Posted by John M.

A whole lot of fine guitar players go right into an amp, so it really depends on you needs. I would suggest you start playing and listen carefully to what you're getting. If you have a sound in your head you can't get with your rig, AND if t's a pedal that can fix that, get the pedal then.

amen on that one!....not that i would call myself "one of the real fine guitarists" (by any stretch) but, i find many times my amp, set up carefully and chosen accordingly can do pretty much everything i need.
i recently got a windsor studio that offers so many options it is mindboggling...then, just to completely confuse the issue, i split my signal between it set "dirty" and a blues, jr. set "clean" with a bypass and boost switch on the blues, jr...whoa!....stereo !....and even more choices...clean and dirty at the same time or selectively!...imagine that....
mostly, it made me appreciate the simplicity of the blues jr. and the complexity of the windsor..either one stands alone just fine.

[MattM]

Assuming you will be playing modern worship music, it helps to understand that most of these guys seem to be obsessed with U2; therefore, the Vox is a good start, and you really need a delay that can get you the right sound...the DD-20 is great, but the DD-5 will do very nicely, is simpler to operate, and is actually what many of those guys are using (as demoed by Carson in his videos); also, the DL4 sounds great and is really popular. Another thing is that you may find yourself a bit limited with one distortion/OD. You may look into having a couple so that you have access to a greater variety of sounds. Most of the people who play Vox set the amps up clean or slightly dirty and use OD pedals. Favorites are the Fulltone OD pedals ($$) and the various iterations of the tubescreamer. The Visual Sounds overdrive pedals are also popular, and many come with a decent compressor on the same pedal.

[ELK]

If you want to spend less money and deal with fewer cables, consider the Boss ME-50, a multi-effects unit that contains many of Boss's classic effects in an all-in-one package.

[franchelB]

Originally Posted by makikogi

Ok so I'm starting my venture off into the electric world. I will primarily cover worship music at my church. Here's what I got on my list right now:

In my possession: these pedals were bought years ago for my acoustic rig, they will now reside in my electric rig:
Boss super chorus
Digiverb
Digidelay (although would like to sell for a DD20)

Currently in transit:
T5 custom
vox ac-15
furman pedal board
Keeley Blues Driver

short list of effects but don't know if necessary:
keeley compressor (or other good compression pedal)
keeley katana (don't really know what this does, but everyone raves about it.....)
boss ge-7 (or other good eq pedal)
Boss dd20 (or other good delay pedal)

There's not really anything I can do about the stuff that I already have/on the way. But I would like some advice on the "short list". If there's a pedal in there that really isn't needed for my purposes or overrated and if there should be other pedals included in my electric rig I would love some advice.

thanks....

I think you have plenty to deal with...
Personally, I'd try to keep it to a minimum! Not that the Digidelay is an awful delay pedal ('cause I have one myself), but I'd get rid of the Digitechs for a something that I would really want...whether is something complex like DD20 or something simple like Ibanez AD9.
Try as many of these effects as you mentioned, and see if you feel that you need a compresor, booster, or an eq pedal! I have a modded MXR Dyna-"Ross " comp pedal that I barely use as a booster pedal. I had a DOD eq pedal that I got rid of, after a few years of use.

[dahn8]

Vol pedals are great for volume swells. Or...if you put it after your dirt boxes, its a good way of getting higher gain sounds at lower volumes. its not as great tonewise as just letting the amp rip, but it is useful at least in a church setting where stage volume is limited.

You dont need it--and i dont know how it will sound with an AC15--but i'm loving my ZVex Box of Rock. theres a cheaper Vexter version (still pricey) and a expensive USA version but they sound the same to me (i got the vexter). It has a great Marshall-esque OD to distortion sound. But it also has a very nice boost in front (modified super hard on). so its like two pedals in one

[jonlee]

the guy who plays electric at my church says all he would need is a boss DD-6 and an ibanez tubescreamer.

but then again, he's paying for it out of his pocket and he's only in high school so yeah.

we're currently using a boss GT-6 and a DD-6 and it works just fine for everything from hillsong/united to david crowder.

[romo]

I agree with the micro amp. Pretty decent clean boost for not much money. I don't currently have one since I built my own boost pedal. The best clean boost I have tried is the RC Booster but its probably twice the cost of the micro (maybe worth it but I still ended up selling mine).

As far as overdrive pedals they all sound so different depending on your amp and guitar. There is no way to know what you will like best unless you just try them. If you stick with used gear you can often buy and sell without losing any money so I'd give several a shot. I've heard good things about the Keeley modded stuff but I don't own any. Some other options for overdrives would be the Xotic pedals (AC and BB) which are pretty nice and can be had used at decent prices. My current favorite is the TIM which is an amazing deal for 150 bucks but you've also got a 10 month wait list. I hear the Zvex stuff is good also...I've wanted to try a Box of Rock for a long time.

It looks like you've got most the things I would consider "necessary" covered. A good OD pedal that works with your amp, a chorus, delay, clean boost. The only other I wouldn't go without is a wah (yes even for worship music) and a volume pedal (for swell type ambient effects).

Somebody made the comment to read reviews and only buy pedals that you absolutely must have...I personally think this is pretty much impossible. Buy stuff used, try it with your rig and sell it if its not working. Overdrives in particular can be tricky to match with an amp and you won't know for sure what you will like unless you just try it. I'll just give a quick example: I bought the Xotic pedals and a Tim because of the reviews calling them "transparent" or "amp like" or "preserves the tone of your guitar and amp" etc. Sounded like junk through my Fender Pro Reverb, while a Tube screamer, which I didn't think I would like because most people say it colors your tone a lot actually sounded good through the Fender. I've since had two other amps, a Marshall and my current Dr Z which sounded like crap with a tube screamer but worked really nice with the Tim. Anyway, I'd say experiment and try different stuff. Good luck!