$1000 Guitar Pedal Budget. What Shoud I Buy?

[brandondrury]

I'm considering the idea of dumping about $1,000 in guitar pedals, but I'm

not even sure where to start. These will be used exclusively for recording.

I need TONE!!!! I like character and I don't have a problem at all with

"weird". Ideally, I'd buy vintage pedals that will go up in value or at

least hold their value.


Here's what I have now:
I have a MXR Dynacomp which gets used a lot.

I have the yellow Boss overdrive that I like to use with the gain on 0 just

to add / change the character of the guitar I'm recording.

I have a Boss Delay / Reverb pedal that is broken.

I just bought two vintage, beat up MXR 10 band guitar EQs which seam to be amazing after using them yesterday.

Any suggestions / recommendations?

Thanks,
Brandon

[guitar junkie]

well of course you gotta have a good wah!

and i see a lot of guys using the Line 6 delay and most of them swear it is the best product they make... great stuff comes from the guys using it so i take their word.

electro harmonix seems to have some really nice stuff, the holy grail reverb is awesome!

everybody uses a Boss DS 1 at some time or another... but the number one pedal i see all my big shot acts using in any stage that i work on these days is the Ernie Ball volume pedal.

Snarling dogs has this one pedal that seems to be really awesome for tones... i think the name of it was the verytone or something like that, with a strat and three pickups and a switch it gave you 60 sounds!


don't ask me why i know so much about guitar pedals.... i play acoustic guitar unplugged any way :

[Guitar Guru]

Here's an article Guitar Guru Wrote On The Subject

Brandon / Moderator

http://www.recordingreview.com/artic...ts-pedals.html

[Superdude]

Two esential guitar pedals:


Ibanez tube scremer

Good Wah Wah ( I recommend Morely's Bad Horsie'. Its great on blues!! )



These SHOULD be no.1 + 2 on your list man. You can get anymore character than a combination of these two.


Some good funk style pedals too.


(Is it for you or the bands you record?)

[brandondrury]

Is it for you or the bands you record?

Well, it's mostly music that I'm producing. I do have some songs that I want to finish writing and record, but most of what I'm doing involves working with others.

The overdrive pedals are probably last on my list. Between my 4 main amps, I usually have that handled pretty well. I have a Boss overdrive pedal and a few Danelectro overdrives that were given to me.

I'm looking for more "interesting" type of sounds.

Brandon

[guitar junkie]

i have seen some really awesome stuff done with that Line 6 pedal, have seen it on more rigs in the last year than almost ANY other pedal... guys are using its little recorder and making a phrase up on that and then reversing it and laying something else.... it always amazes me the stuff guys are doing with that unit.... then some guys i know have gotten some wild stuff out of a Big Muff from Electro Harmonix

it does something.... i don't really know what all but the tones guys are getting are really meaty sounding.

the volume pedal is under rated because some really amazing intros have been created with them....

also if you have a hard stop in a song you can really kill your signal fast with one....

a good funky spring reverb unit would be cool too!


IF YOU REALLY WANT TO FIND THE WEIRD STUFF then check the pages of Musicians Friend ;D

[Superdude]

Another good one is Dan electro Reverese delay----It rules!

[guitar junkie]

i guess i should clear this up...

During the summer I work as a stage hand with the big boys!

Charlie Daniels
STYX
38 Special
The Jets

and a good many others as well...

during the rest of the year i work with indie bands, the guys who really go into weird wacky guitar sounds....

the big boys seem to plug into anything be it a Pod or a Fender Twin...

but the Indie guys have to have tubes and the whole nine yards...

these guys will buy more pedals than any other group of musicians i can think of!


while myself here would rather play acoustic i set up rigs of all kinds with all sorts of freaks, ask them questions about their toys.... the big guys seem to work with some run of the mill stuff and just play really. really well! while the Indie guys seem to want to just use weird tones and not play anything to hard...

so i see a bunch of rigs a year, when given a chance i ask what they use....

if you check out a rock band or a country band that has stuff on the radio right now.... a lot of them are saying Line 6 because it saves them so much time....

you ask a little indie underground band (that is so underground they don't have a name because that would give them something they could market) what they use and they either rattle on and on for an hour.... or they say "this guy in town works in his basement and mods pedals for a living"

so all in all you are just going to have to do what it takes...

what a buddy of mine told me, i like to think that he is one of the most original guitar players i know...

rack up some big money to throw at the pedals you are going to use....

buy them one at a time, learn how to use them, be able to work with 100% of what they offer, otherwise you will be just spending a LOT of money on pedals you may never really master as a group

[Superdude]

Very true

[brandondrury]

Tremendous post, Guitar Junkie. There was quite a bit of wisdom there!

I like the idea of buying one pedal at a time to fully learn it. The same goes with guitar amps or microphones. You have to take your time and really use that one toy for a while to learn it's ins and outs! The idea of buying one delay pedal and finding out everything it can do seams appealing. If I don't like what it does, I send it back or sell it. No harm done.

I think I'll take that approach!

Thanks,
Brandon