Pedals affecting Tone????

Jam10

I know a lot of people here have a bunch of pedals and I have about 7 of my own but I was wondering........do you think having a lot of pedals is better for your tone or do you think just running your guitar straight to your amp (if you have a good amp and guitar) would have a better tone? I know tone is all personal preference but just wondering people's opinions on this topic. I had a discussion with another musician on this topic. I personally like having pedals in my chain, where as this other musician I was talking to preferred just using guitar to amp.
What is everyone's thoughts?

Thanks

xtremehardy388

Jam10 wrote:

I know a lot of people here have a bunch of pedals and I have about 7 of my own but I was wondering........do you think having a lot of pedals is better for your tone or do you think just running your guitar straight to your amp (if you have a good amp and guitar) would have a better tone? I know tone is all personal preference but just wondering people's opinions on this topic. I had a discussion with another musician on this topic. I personally like having pedals in my chain, where as this other musician I was talking to preferred just using guitar to amp.
What is everyone's thoughts?

Thanks

Coming from someone who has a ton of pedals that AREN'T true bypass, a LOT of my tone is lost. I love having pedals but I sacrifice tone. Having pedals KILLS the tone of your guitar.

exhausted

Pedals are definitely a balancing act. They open a lot of possibilities but can mask the character of the guitar and amp once you accumulate a few. And then there's the fact that certain pedals sound different depending on others around them, even when those are off, due to buffers etc.

But most definitely they impact the character of the signal when off.

I've actually read Cornish's whole argument against true bypass as well as some rebuttals. There is certainly no consesus. Depends on what you play too. Most shoegazers aren't concerned about pure clean tone for instance.

I wouldn't record with a bunch of unused pedals in the chain but then again, sometimes they sound different on their own like I said.

who's_pearljam?

Well, they DO have an effect on tone. That's what they do!
I think the end result is what counts. Focus on the sound that you want. There are so many variables that factor into the sound, starting with what's in your brain,
How you play,
The guitar and pickups you use,
Your approach to playing it. Attack on the strings, bending and vibrato style etc,
Your strings,
Your pedals
Your amp,

Your ears!

There is no right or wrong except for the end result. I have a ton of pedals from over the years, but I prefer to have several different boards for what I'm playing at the time rather than having one line of 40 different pedals lined up.

I love Nels Cline's and Adrian Belew's tone. They run through a pile of pedals, boutique, and regular, and the end result is a great tone.

I also love Muddy Water's tone. Telecaster, whatever amp at the time, later on, a Fender Super Reverb, thumb pick and three bare fingers and he got that growl from his attack and mojo. No pedals.

mccreadyisgod

I don't feel like I have any significant tone loss through my board, and I don't believe any of them are true bypass. I do know that my tone improved tremendously when I got my Pedal Power 2 to power everything, rather than using individual 9v batteries in each pedal. But other than that, no problems here...

You'll notice that for every guitar player out there worried about true-bypass and buffered circuits, there are 20 who aren't. I'd say most of the tone junkies have good tone, sure, but there are other players who aren't tone junkies with good tone, as well. And occasionally there are some obvious offenders, guitar players and pieces of gear alike, that deserve a universal thumbs-down. But, for the most part, it's just one piece in a many-faceted puzzle. If you want to sound like Hendrix, do you practice more, or do you get your Arbiter Fuzz Face true-bypassed? It's a silly proposition.

In all reality, I'd probably have better tone if I cut back to just my tuner and two tubescreamers (the bare necessities), but I don't plug in and think to myself, "Man, my tone is getting drained." There are lots of great arguments for a less-is-more approach... Angus Young, no pedals; Clapton, just a wah; BB King, no pedals... Then again, look at Johnnie Greenwood, who doesn't use any buffers or true-bypass mods or routing boxes, and yet his tone is appropriate (if not quite unadulterated). You could go nuts and have a bunch of custom routing for true-bypass and such (look at Jerry Garcia or Eddie Van Halen or Tony Iommi's rigs from the last time they toured).

Ultimately, you just gotta decide how important they are. I think that I've adjusted to whatever tone loss or tone suck my rig has, and that has ultimately become part of my tone.

mccreadyisgod

exhausted wrote:

I wouldn't record with a bunch of unused pedals in the chain

That does bring up a good point... on a lot of guitar recording sessions, I would make the guitar player choose which pedals were needed for the song (or even section of the song) we were recording at that moment, and then build a custom pedalboard for just that session. I don't know how much of an improvement it makes in the final product (many tracks mixed together and then mastered), but one doesn't take chances when it's all for posterity...

exhausted

All fuzz faces were / are true bypass

mccreadyisgod

exhausted wrote:

All fuzz faces were / are true bypass

Not being a fuzz fan, I wouldn't know...

But I'm sure you get the point. Smartass.

Jam10

Good opinions here. Thanks. You're all right. It's really up to the individual playing the guitar. I really like my tone and I just have to not worry so much about what other people say or think. There are so many different variables when considering tone or amps or guitars.

mccreadyisgod

The guys I've met who've had the best guitar tone and the most electronically advanced signal paths have been session guitar players for pop-country acts. There almost seems to be an inverse relationship between tone-junkie-ness and the level of interest I have in the music.

And I'd like to see someone go tell Johnnie Greenwood to work on his tone:

http://guitargeek.com/rigview/510/

exhausted

ed o'brien's got even more on the floor. but radiohead falls into that category where pure guitar tone and really not as important as the colour created. the pedals are the instruments almost.

ediger

well like most people have said, it's all about how you want it to sound. That being said, the more effects you layer on, the less of your guitar and amplifiers true sound you're hearing.

Personally, I just run my guitar into a Crybaby, a phaser and a compressor and let my amp do the rest. Sometimes I'll put an overdrive pedal in there as well, depending on the guitar/amp combo I'm using. I get most of my guitar's tone coming through loud and clear set up like that.

ianvomsaal

Pedals do seem to subtract a bit from a true "guitar to amp" tone - however, many top
players these days use switching systems that bypass pedals when they're not in use.
There's a lot of companies that do them: Voodoo Lab, Carl Martin, Pedal-Racks, Custom
Audio Electronics, Analogman, Loop-master, theGigRig (I really like their Pro-14), & more.
Cheers . . .

- Ian

ediger

ianvomsaal wrote:

Pedals do seem to subtract a bit from a true "guitar to amp" tone - however, many top
players these days use a switching systems that bypass pedals when they're not in use.
There's a lot of companies that do them: Voodoo Lab, Carl Martin, Pedal-Racks, Custom
Audio Electronics, Analogman, Loop-master, theGigRig (I really like their Pro-14), & more.
Cheers . . .

- Ian

definitely the best route if you can afford it.

Mike_Muse_Rage

My pedals take away a tiny bit of high end but not enough to make me get rid of any. The main problem I have is extra noise added from each buffer but I'm hoping to get a couple more pedals true bypassed soon.

mccreadyisgod

ediger wrote:

definitely the best route if you can afford it.

No kidding...

http://www.guitargeek.com/rigview/258/
http://www.guitargeek.com/rigview/476/
http://www.guitargeek.com/rigview/615/

Also, it'd be nice to have Pete Cornish just integrate everything you love into one big box. But that can be expensive as well.

Eh... we all do what we can with what we've got.

xtremehardy388

Man, I love Tony

jcmark611

Here is my opinion....

If you have a cheap guitar and a cheap amp, cheap effects aren't going to hurt your "tone". Now, if you have a true '64 Strat and a vintage 1987 Marshall, cheap effects will absolutely ruin your tone.

Basically, if you don't scrimp on your guitar or amp, don't do cheap pedals!

mccreadyisgod

jcmark611 wrote:

Now, if you have a true '64 Strat and a vintage 1987 Marshall, cheap effects will absolutely ruin your tone.

That might not be the best way of saying what you're trying to say... a 1964 Strat is going to have some noises and buzzes and issues, the pickups might be a bit microphonic. A 1987 Marshall isn't going to have the most well-grounded chassis, nor the cleanest signal path. While desireable, the fact that gear is "vintage" doesn't mean it has a really nice clean electronic signal.

Now, if you had a $3000 Paul Reed Smith and a $5000 Bogner Ecstasy half-stack, I probably wouldn't put a Zoom 505 between them.

jcmark611

I'll take "Vintage" clean over "modern" clean every day of the week.:-)

mccreadyisgod

jcmark611 wrote:

I'll take "Vintage" clean over "modern" clean every day of the week.:-)

Don't get me wrong, so would I. The newest amp I have is 17 years old, and the oldest is almost the same age as my mom.

That said, older guitars and older amps have a lot more self-noise than well-built new boutique gear. So I was just saying that true-bypass makes a bigger difference on that stuff, not so much on vintage gear.

Piper At The Gates

I run my guitars, Les Paul, Strats, etc. through a 1965 AA165 circuit, Fender Bassman head and Mesa 1/12 cabinet. The tone is awesome. I run a maximum of 4 pedals at any given time and they are all high quality, true bypass models, ( Fulltone Deja Vibe, MI Audio Distortion, etc.). My tone loss is minimal with this set-up. I have tried using more pedals and cheap pedals, both of which had a significant drain on tone, so I think it's a matter of finding what works for you.
Oh, and the remark from mccreadyisgod about running the Zoom 505 with the PRS and Bogner made me laugh for about ten minutes, that was great.