Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on January 3, 2017 at 2:33pm

Bill,

What sound are you looking to add to your blues?

Distortion? Metal buzzcock grind? Chorus? Reverb (swampy or surf)? Flanging? Creamy tube break-up? Slapback tape-style delay? Fuzz? Octaves?

That's why there's loads of options: because there's...lots of options. And everyone's tonal Holy Grail is different, because everyone's ears and brain are different.

I'm not trying to be facetious; I'm trying to get you to narrow your focus to what you want, or think you want, so we can help.

One thing you might find serves you well is to spend a self-indulgent afternoon at a local Guitar Center, testing various pedals and multi-effects units, to help you benchmark the tone you're looking for.

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Permalink Reply by Blues Frog on January 3, 2017 at 3:39pm

I gotta agree with Ron on this one. It depends on the sound you're looking for.

That being said, the next question is, are you looking to build from a kit or from scratch? There are several kits out there and some sites have sound bytes from the units to get an idea of what it sounds like. Check StewMac out. It might be a start.

Another option is to build an amp with built in presets, like this one I built

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/video/mah-3-demo?xg_source=activity

Just throwing ideas out there....

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on January 3, 2017 at 4:29pm

And let's not forget the type of pickup your using. Piezos don't always work well with distortion and fuzz. I have a few of both. Never try a piezo with any of Devy Ever's fuzz boxes. : (  So if your looking to go low desert punk or psychedelic you might consider standard pickups. Even if it's just half of a P-Bass pickup set. Never had any real trouble with any echo or reverb. Vibe, chorus or flange. Just distortions and fuzz. On the distortion side I have everything from a Dan Electro 'Daddy-O" to a Mesa Boogie V-twin tube. Not much luck with any of them. 

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Permalink Reply by Timothy Hunter on January 3, 2017 at 11:51pm

i know this guy is in Australia but even Shane has been posting his pedals...

http://www.diyguitarpedals.com.au/shop/

for a few bucks you could pickup something like a digitech RP50/55 etc.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=rp50&_osacat=0&_from=R...

there is one there with a $20 buy it now....  these things are not the greatest ever but come with 40 preset effects and 40 you can program yourself... not hard to program and there are many libraries of patches on the web..

cheers from downunder and a happy 2017

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on January 4, 2017 at 12:50am

If your really liking the old crunchy stuff a Boss BD-2 is a great way to go. However I've found it way cheaper as a pedal than any clone you could build. Here's a link to that pedal and one to a BYOC version. 

Boss BD-2 blues drive.

BYOC version

You can go to ebay and find these cheap.

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Permalink Reply by William Wright on January 5, 2017 at 3:31pm

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Permalink Reply by William Wright on January 5, 2017 at 3:45pm

Thanks guys for all the information, about guitar pedals.

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Permalink Reply by William Wright on January 5, 2017 at 3:44pm

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Permalink Reply by LongJohn on January 5, 2017 at 6:35pm

William -

I'll second the idea of a multi-effects pedal or a modeling amp.  The digi-tech pedals are cheap - some of the effects are a bit cheesy, but with a bit of tweaking they can provide some pretty cool sounds.

I picked up a Fender Mustang modeling amp off Craigs a few years ago for less than the price of just one name-brand pedal.  Lots of useful tones available.  My buddy the tube amp snob sheepishly admitted that it sounds pretty good.

My $0.02,

  - John

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Permalink Reply by Timothy Hunter on January 5, 2017 at 9:55pm

i currently have a half rebuilt combo amp that the original solid state amp died. so i have built a modern 20W LM1875 amp module as the power amp and i dug out my old RP50 and pulled the board out. goung to use it as the pre amp and effects stage. feed into the power amp. not sure yet if i will need another gain stage between them.. time will tell. the tiresome part is relocating 13 Leds and 7 switches... from the RP50 to the front panel...

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Permalink Reply by Timothy Hunter on January 7, 2017 at 12:33am

also the cool thing about them as well. these are cheap and not too bad. you have 40 factory sounds and 40 for whatever you want. 

practice is for when you fiddle... i found factory patches i liked and copied them to the 40 user presets so instead of having to go up 5 to the next patch i can just go up 1.  i dont think i ever used more than 5 constantly..  one of the patch library sites put all of the submitted patches into a spread sheet for download... 

Oh, the other thing i like about this is it has a drum machine in it... also good for practice, keep you honest with timing..

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