Multi-Effects - Option Paralysis

[DetroitBlues]

I've been trying to get more versatility from my pedal board without going overboard with dozens of pedals.

Thought I'd go the route of a multi-effects route so I can get different reverbs, delays, modulation, compression....

Instead I ran into option paralysis.  At first I was going to use a TC Electronics Plethora X3 or X5 as it has 3 to 5 different effects you can switch on and off like an individual pedal.

However, that version requires a 600mA output and the most my power supply offers is 300mA.  I returned it in favor for a Boss M3 Effects Switcher.  

This was even worse!  You can load hundreds of banks, run you own individual drive pedals in/out, decide if you want to put anything in/out before your drive pedals.  But as I discovered, creating you own banks is a challenge, sorting the pedal order, avoiding switch banks if you only want to switch a pedal/effect on/off.  Limited to 2 Modulation effects and 2 internal drive effects.  It became too much to use.  There was no way I could effectively use this pedal live.

I've gone back to regular pedals.  I am going to try a Wampler Terraform for different modulation effects as it seems to function a lot simpler for live use.  May investigate some different Reverb/Delay units that offer more options.  We'll see I guess

 

  

 

[rwinking]

I have not used a pedalboard in years. Now I have a bunch of the Helix stuff, a Quad Cortex and also the Pleathora X5. They are all similar once I got used to them. Since I rarely use the modeled amps I have plenty of computing power to run as many FX as I need. Setting up pedal order is easy, with the QC being the easiest....take my finger, put it on the effect and move it to where I want it. The line 6 stuff is simple too but doesent have a touch screen. It is way easy. It's like having a bunch of different pedal boards and I can just call them up as needed. The paralysis for me is deciding which of the many reverbs or boosts, DDLs, Choruses. etc. I want to use, But once I found my favorites, it was easy to save them and pull them up whenever I need. Most of these devices also have a favorites place to store my fovorites effects and my favorite settings so I don't have to tweak whatever I pull up. Of course there are FX I will probably never use but they are there in case someone asks me for a strange ass sound for a song.

All of my units have an FX loop or two so that if I want to incorporate some outboard pedal or two it is easy. I can even switch them on and off through the unit.

Since I still use tube amps, even the digital boost pedals sound great.

I use the Helix rack for most of my gigs. If it were to go out, I carry either the X5 or Quad Cortex as a back up and they take up very little room in my bag.

The learning curve was steep a few years ago but I got the hang of it now. It was well worth the work.

Thanks God for youtube, though, as anything I have been confused on , there was a video to unconfuse me.

[Kuz]

When I was the Praise Band Director at church for 6 years, every Sunday I used my Boss M8 looper and LOVED it.  I could store (on the unit and store to my computer) all my patches for all my songs.  Before each Sunday, I would just download the the stored songs (and their patches) to a separate bank and the songs were done.  We did a lot of songs weekly (a lot for a Praise Band) 8-11 songs each week and each bank was a song, within in song I had the 4-5 patches I would use.  A bank was a one step (up or down) and the patches was one step to control 4-5 pedals all at once... NO MORE TAP DANCING.  And mostly importantly, since I saved each song to my computer, the work flow was simple & easy and I didn't have to program each song & it's patches every week.  Just download them from the computer and done.  We did over 130 songs so having all my songs & patches saved was wonderful.  Plus with the Boss M8, it acted like a muli-effects unit BUT you are using your great sounding analog pedals.  Personally, I have never heard a mult-effects unit that sound good, give me my analog pedals over digital effect units anyday!

[mars_hall]

Tonex pedal then download the appropriate models you want

https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/tonexpedal/#nl_form_area

 

[tbonesullivan]

I found that the Plethora X5 was more manageable if I used up slots with things like noise suppressors and a switchable loop for an overdrive pedal or wah. I also like it because it is somewhat limited in what you can do, and comes with some great presets.

I however also have watched some videos on people who have massive pedal boards and effects setups, and I don't know how they do it. I have enough trouble dialing in a nice tone for just overdrive sometimes.

[rwinking]

I have always liked rack stuff. With a pedalboard you have to either tweak with your feet or bend over and tweak. I started using the old Ibanez UE 400 rack FX (all analog!) back in the late 70s or ealy 80s. I have  the switches on the floor but can add/subtract stuff by turning around instead of bending over. My Helix is the rack version and even with the Quad Cortex I keep it at waist level and use a floor midi switching system to change FX.

I do use the Plethora X5 for really simple gigs where I only need a couple of basic tones. The Hall of Fame reverbs in there are stellar as are the delays

[bobmeyrick]

On 11/15/2024 at 3:08 PM, DetroitBlues said:

However, that version requires a 600mA output and the most my power supply offers is 300mA. 

Hmm, my Plethora X5 came with 600mA power supply. I suppose you have to consider what you really need in terms of effects. I remember Robben Ford saying in an interview that all he really needed was some reverb and a bit of delay, though now he has a new pedalboard courtesy of Dan from That Pedal Show. This made me consider what I really need - reverb, delay, chorus, tremolo and a Univibe-type thing. Pitch-changer and/or octaver is nice but not essential.

Consequently my main "board" on the Plethora is Viscous Vibe > Corona Chorus > Pipeline Tremolo > Flashback 2 Delay > Hall of Fame 2 Reverb. All of these are in the effects loop of the amp, and I'd be unlikely to use all of them at once. The MASH footswitches are useful, e.g. for changing the speed of the Viscous Vibe. 

It's fun to have a chorus into a delay into a reverse delay into a reverb into a looper, but that's not something I'd use on a gig 🙂

[rwinking]

I have also enjoyed Pete Thorn's compresser. There are a lot of cool verbs on that Plethora X5. It's nice that you can set it up to run stuff via 4CM.

I use those pedalsnakes for that so I only have one cable running at a gig.

[rockabilly69]

When I started my new band, I thought I would be the plug straight into the amp guy, but I assumed the other guitarist would be playing all the solos, while I covered the rhythm. But as I wrote some of our newer songs, I found that I wanted to play some of the solos, and some of the songs had us trading solos, so I brought my pedal board into the equation, and frankly I'm glad I did, because I think our sound is a bit more consistent. Also it's nice to have trem and delay along with various flavours of overdrive. My board is...

Ernie Ball Volume Pedal Jr

Peterson StroboStomp Mini

Red Witch Glassio Fuzz

Durham Sex Drive

Origin FX Revival Drive Custom

Boss RE20 Delay

Voodoo Labs Analog Trem

Dr Scientist Reverberator

Edited November 19 by rockabilly69

[t0aj15]

I've been using this https://www.fractalaudio.com/vp4/ for my tube amps for a couple weeks now, it's a great sounding unit with a truck load of efx.

[rockabilly69]

my board...

 

[Dick Seacup]

The only multi-effect I've ever owned is a Digitech GNX-4, which I think they discontinued maybe around the time Columbus discovered the New World. Would I say it was awesome? At the time, yeah. It does way more than I've ever bothered to figure out. Have had a ton of fun with it; for my purposes it's been great. But, I think any time you go "all-in-one" you make compromises. The question becomes, "Are you ok with those compromises?" 

Edited November 20 by Dick Seacup

[t0aj15]

1 hour ago, Dick Seacup said:

 The question becomes, "Are you ok with those compromises?" 

With a unit like the VP4 there are no compromises, only improvements on pre-conceived notions of what used to be considered great. This unit takes it to another level.

[rockabilly69]

Just now, t0aj15 said:

With a unit like the VP4 there are no compromises, only improvements on pre-conceived notions of what used to be considered great. This unit takes it to another level.

Any piece of equipment has compromises. Take it out on a stage a few hundered times a year and you'll find them

[t0aj15]

But that also stands true for every piece of gear in you rig.

[DetroitBlues]

On 11/16/2024 at 1:07 PM, Kuz said:

When I was the Praise Band Director at church for 6 years, every Sunday I used my Boss M8 looper and LOVED it.  I could store (on the unit and store to my computer) all my patches for all my songs.  Before each Sunday, I would just download the the stored songs (and their patches) to a separate bank and the songs were done.  We did a lot of songs weekly (a lot for a Praise Band) 8-11 songs each week and each bank was a song, within in song I had the 4-5 patches I would use.  A bank was a one step (up or down) and the patches was one step to control 4-5 pedals all at once... NO MORE TAP DANCING.  And mostly importantly, since I saved each song to my computer, the work flow was simple & easy and I didn't have to program each song & it's patches every week.  Just download them from the computer and done.  We did over 130 songs so having all my songs & patches saved was wonderful.  Plus with the Boss M8, it acted like a muli-effects unit BUT you are using your great sounding analog pedals.  Personally, I have never heard a mult-effects unit that sound good, give me my analog pedals over digital effect units anyday!

I have no doubts those are amazing, but needing a computer to set them up and if how to quickly adjust on the fly seems challenging if you aren't intimately familiar with the units.  But I'm not dragging around a computer for live play.

I've gone back to analog (mostly), this time I have my drive pedals going to the front of the amp and a pair of digital pedals, Wampler Terraforma (chorus, flanger, phaser, etc) and a Universal Audio Del-Verb (delay/reverb pedal) through the effects loop (there is an interesting path where as I have the phaser go in front of the drive pedals).

 

[t0aj15]

5 hours ago, DetroitBlues said:

I have no doubts those are amazing, but needing a computer to set them up and if how to quickly adjust on the fly seems challenging if you aren't intimately familiar with the units.  But I'm not dragging around a computer for live play.

I

 

While using a computer is optional it's not required, particularly once you set it up the way you want.

[rockabilly69]

16 hours ago, t0aj15 said:

But that also stands true for every piece of gear in you rig.

Yeah but I can live with those compromises. And my response was to your statement there are NO consequences of the Fractal. In the real world there are plenty! I can't deal with menus on digital units where I have to reset my FX to the venue, and I play in a ridiculous amount of different venues a year, and in the venues where we get a soundcheck, the room totally changes when all the bodies get there. On my pedal board I change everything I need in under a minute or two, and if one pedal goes down, I can still use all the other FX, if a digital modeler, preamp/FX unit goes down,you lose all the FX. And a backup unit would be too expensive ($700 for the cheapest VP4). Although I love having a few gain/drive pedals along with the Origin FX Revival Drive on my board, the only FX I really need are volume pedal, tuner, trem and delay, everything else I can cover from my amps. And before you think I'm a luddite who doesn't know his way around technology, I've owned a recording studio most of my adult life, with the last 20 years being computer based, so I've programmed more pieces of menu driven gear and software than most people will do in a lifetime of gigging. I recorded plenty of songs, (with amp and FX plug-ins) where there were no amps in the room or pedal boards, but I will still take a pedal board (with as many analog FX as possible) everytime, and a killer tube amp!  That said, I've seen many people use Fractals/Kempers/etc and they sounded just fine, so there are many ways to skin a cat so to say, I just prefer my way!

 

BTW I do have a compromise board where I use an HX stomp to program all the 'verbs/delays, and modulation FX..

 

 

 

Edited November 21 by rockabilly69

[rwinking]

An HX Stomp or HX FX  or Plethora X5 can be had for the price of a good pedal. I have had my Helix go down and I was up and running in a few minutes.

Someone mentioned something about needing a cumputer to program things. I think I might be faster on the Line 6 than hooking it up to a computer these days. Same with the Quad Cortex. Once you understond one of these units the others are similar enough to figure out with very little trouble. Kind of like Cubase or Protools. It may take a little time at first but once you understand some basic stuff it's a lot easier. 

And I am not some young digital punk. I am an old analog guy who grew up with analog FX and analog studios. I do combine digital and analog. I use protools but use mostly analog preamps, compressers, etc. And many of them have tubes.

I have one all Digital rig but 90% of the time I use tube amps with digital FX.

 

And Daniel. I love those Mission Engineering Xpression pedals a lot!

[rockabilly69]

47 minutes ago, rwinking said:

I am an old analog guy who grew up with analog FX and analog studios. I do combine digital and analog. I use protools but use mostly analog preamps, compressers, etc. And many of them have tubes.

I have one all Digital rig but 90% of the time I use tube amps with digital FX.

And Daniel. I love those Mission Engineering Xpression pedals a lot!

 

Sounds like we work pretty much the same in the studio, behind me is a Blue Robbie, Manley VoxBox, 2 Universal Audo LA610A(s), Sebatron VMP4000e, and an Presonus/DiMaria ADL600 and there's also 3 channels of NEVE pres  And besides a bunch of good solid state mics like the U87, and U89, most of the other mics are tube (LAWSON the one I'm singing through, VIOLET, NEUMAN, etc). But even then though, the recordings still see a fair share of digital plug-ins. 

I just don't like digital on the stage 

That MISSION pedal is a volume pedal, but I do have and like their expression pedals.

[DetroitBlues]

16 hours ago, t0aj15 said:

While using a computer is optional it's not required, particularly once you set it up the way you want.

Right, but if I have to adjust to the venue, deep dives to change settings is difficult.

[Kuz]

45 minutes ago, DetroitBlues said:

Right, but if I have to adjust to the venue, deep dives to change settings is difficult.

There is no adjusting at the venue that you can't do on the fly, that is the beauty of it.  

If you call up a patch with overdrive, chorus, & delay; if you want the delay off, then just step on the button where the delay is looped to the Boss and it is off.  Same with the other pedals, just step on the board and turn them on and off.  But the basic patch with 1-8 pedals on or off as you like can come on.

If the delay is too long or the OD has too much gain, then reach down to the pedal and adjust the physical pedal.  No menus to surf through like the all digital-sh*t.  You are using your ACTUALLY pedals but you can set up patches for songs and still edit the patches by just turning pedal on or off.  Regularly, I would add an extra OD to a patch I thought was perfect for the chorus to give it more punch.  Or if the two OD pedals I had made for the patch were too much, then I just stomp one off on the Boss.  It's just a looper where all your pedals are available in any order and on or off as you choose.   All the "editing" on the pedals (level, gain, amount of delay or chorus) you just reach down and do like on a traditional board.  You can even use keep the delay length & repeats different on different patches thru midi.   I don't really gig my electrics anymore, but I couldn't live without using a Boss M8 or Gigrig G3.

Look at the rig round downs of popular touring guitarists.   Unless you are only using a couple pedals, everyone is using a looper of some kind to program patches for songs.

[DetroitBlues]

I think I have a lot covered here without compromise now.

[bolero]

Nice!

The Millenium Falcon is essential IMO

[big bob]

Small board