I wish it were that easy to just sign up for it Beeps. I'd be in too! There's only like 4 problem people here that really need to be controlled...that's what makes it all suck so bad. I've learned something else...for the most part, this place isn't a place to hang out on like it used to be. The best bet for people is to use it when they need it. Have a problem, post it in the main forum....you'll get 30 responses that will help fix you, and don't come back again until you need the place. Shame it's that way...at least to me. I really enjoy it here and absolutely love taking part and helping others. But....a few people know how to push the right buttons and it makes it an unpleasant experience for me. Sooner or later, I too will disappear.

I'm all for freedom of speech and great debates...but man, the few trouble makers that come around here have really ruined the place. And it's a simple fix if the higher powers would just hire some unbiased people that have a clue that are trustworthy and here all the time to silently control things. One of the 4 people I'm thinking of has totally altered his ways and is way less confrontational...but the other three....man, they've taken turns having problems with just about every person on this forum and have yet to be banned.

Beepster


I've had very few problems here but I've seen lots of dumb crap. The crappy part is the negative spiral that occurs. Someone takes a dump in a thread and then the cool guys get sucked into it when they should just point and laugh. ;-p 

Amen Beepster  

No way Man!!!

Life is to short to let that kinda stuff slow ya down.

To many good people here to let a few off moments of others to drag you down

Time lost like that is time you will never get back.

But on the other hand, youcant hold it in either so I believe its good to vent it off as we have all done from time to time  

Anyway, No I wasnt put off by anyone that night and I did appreciate where you stood with it, just hated to see it turn into that ya know 

Thanks Bud  

OK, just to add some votes to the cool side... my locker currently includes the following pedals:
Danelectro Tuna Melt
Deltalab Effectron III
Digitech Whammy WH-1
DLS Chorus-Vibe
Dunlop Cry Baby, Rotovibe
Electro Harmonix Big Muff pi, Deluxe Electric Mistress, Frequency Analyzer, Micro Synthesizer, POG, SmallStone
Ernie Ball Volume Pedal (x2)
FoxxRoxx Captain Coconut, Paradox TZF
Geoffrey Teese RMC-3 (w/Foxrox buffer)
Guyatone SV2, WR2
Hughes & Kettner Rotosphere
Ibanez AD-80, CS-505, EPP400, SD-9, UE-405
Lexicon Vortex
Line6 DL-4
Maestro Boomerang, Envelope Modifier, PS-1, Sustainer
Mutron III, Bi-Phase, Octave Divider, Phaser
MXR DynaComp
Peterson Strobo-stomp
Pigtronix Attack-Sustain, EP2, Philosophers Tone
Proco Rat
Roger Linn Adrennalinn
Seymour Duncan Shape Shifter
Snarling Dogs Black Dog,  Erogenous Moan, Mold Spore, Tweed E Dog
Subdecay Prometheus
TC Electronics Chorus+ Pitch Modulator/Flanger
Tech 21 XXL
Thomas Organ Cry Baby
Vintage Tone Project Dan Armstrong Orange Crusher
Voodoo Labs SparkleDrive
Yamaha SPX-90


No, I don't use them all at the same time, but I have two pedal boards that I populate as required for different projects. In the studio I have been known to have quite a few of them hooked up at once<G>!


And there are a couple pedals left on my wish list - pretty much everything from Pigtronix, Randy's Revenge (yet another ring modulator), and the Retrosonic CE-1 clone... the DLS will do a LOT, but it won't quite cop a CE-1, and I'm going to trade up from my Pog to the Pog2.

I think I need help!

Funny... I don't think I've sold a pedal since 1977... I'm pretty picky about the ones that I buy, and I tend to keep them around. Back in 77 I sold a bunch of stuff, including an Echoplex for like $50, and I was glad to get what little I got for them. At the time I could not sell the Big Muff Pi, so I kept it. Now I'm glad I did!

Beepster


I've had very few problems here but I've seen lots of dumb crap. The crappy part is the negative spiral that occurs. Someone takes a dump in a thread and then the cool guys get sucked into it when they should just point and laugh. ;-p 

Ain't that the truth!


We need more smileys......

Early '80's I had a Marshall stack, a Gibson Sonex, a Boss Chorus, and one of these;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnQmb5X9FBo

DeeringAmps


@McQ
Beautifully done!
BUT, the octal socket is a 6V6, not the rectifier; no?
I gave up pedals in the late 60's.
Once I had a LP>Marshall 100w Stack, what else did I need?



Tom

Hi Tom,


The best part about knowing you prefer the EL84 and EL34 over the 6V6 is the idea that I may be able to afford another pair of NOS 6V6 before they all run out.


I'm glad there's other popular tubes cause I sorta like the 6V6 myself, and as I'm sure you know, very few can handle the voltage in a Deluxe Reverb... so I like the idea that they may not be so popular.






The good news is, I have some EL84 and EL34 amps here as well, not as cool as the stuff you make, but good enough to hear the warm crunch.


Good times.

:-)


all the best,
mike

Bristol_Jonesey

Ah! NOT a Boss fan.

Not on purpose mind you... well, not on purpose against Boss. Everyone I knew had Boss pedals back in the early 1980s, and I didn't want to use the same pedals as everyone else, so I gravitated towards Ibanez. After that it was more that the pedals that really spoke to me were not the mainstream stuff I found in local music stores. I do have a Roland Space Echo RE-301, is that close enough? It isn't on the list because one of the heads failed, and I haven't gotten around to replacing it yet. Might go do that tonight!

Oh, and I guess I blanked it out because it's painful, but I did sell a pedal about ten years ago - a Prescription Electronics Experience - and I regret it still! Maybe why I stopped selling any of them. It wasn't so much that I had grown tired of it, but I had picked up the Captain Coconut, and I had so much fun with the fuzz face and octavia sections that the Experience pedal seemed redundant. DUMB! I really need to get one of them again!


Yeah, I need help!

This is just my personal observation, but I'd like to know if anyone else has noticed. 

Most of the guys I work with that make a living playing guitar live have pretty cheap pedal boards. I ask all the clients what they use for patch cables, power supplies and pedals. Guys that have "people" often don't know what cables they use. They send a guy out to buy a bunch of cables for the tour and don't spend time agonizing over the capacitance etc. They tend to use readily available pedals from Boss and Voodoo labs. If they break, off goes the roadie to the music store for another.

Studio guys and hobby players go for the expensive stuff like evidence audio cables, clon pedals and vintage uni-vibes. Double this for lawyers. They buy Dumble amps and 59 bursts.

I think pedal boards are similar to studio rigs. It's not so much what they are, it's more about what a given individual can coax out of the gear on hand.

ampfixer


This is just my personal observation, but I'd like to know if anyone else has noticed. 

Most of the guys I work with that make a living playing guitar live have pretty cheap pedal boards. I ask all the clients what they use for patch cables, power supplies and pedals. Guys that have "people" often don't know what cables they use. They send a guy out to buy a bunch of cables for the tour and don't spend time agonizing over the capacitance etc. They tend to use readily available pedals from Boss and Voodoo labs. If they break, off goes the roadie to the music store for another.

Studio guys and hobby players go for the expensive stuff like evidence audio cables, clon pedals and vintage uni-vibes. Double this for lawyers. They buy Dumble amps and 59 bursts.

I think pedal boards are similar to studio rigs. It's not so much what they are, it's more about what a given individual can coax out of the gear on hand.

Great post, John! So true too! I'm one of those guys that buys good cables and stuff, and then buys back-ups of everything. So if I have a problem, I have extra stuff waiting in the wings. I learned years ago that I should always have 2-3 of the same EVERYTHING so that if something goes down, it's right there with me. That's another cool thing about the big rack...something goes down, it takes a second to change to the aux patch set using different pre-amps.
 
As long as we can pinpoint where the problem is, (which we always have) I can sort issues out in about 2 minutes or less. A power amp dies, I have another ready to go on another circuit within my Bradshaw. Bradshaw main pedal dies, there's one my roadie has on the side. Wah pedal dies, the Dunlop Rack allows for 6 pedals to be used at once...so I have plenty. Wireless transmitter dies, I got a box of them. Receiver dies, instant change over to the other unit.
 
You get the idea. One of the coolest things I added which most would think is stupid to get excited about...lol...but I have a Juice Goose line conditioner that eliminates all power packs and turns them into phone like looking ends. You kill all hum possibilities and free up so much space for other things to plug in...it's just unreal. Those dumb things are the cause of hums and other oscillations 9 out of 10 times.
 
But your right in what you say about just making things work. I've seen some really freaked out systems in my time as I'm sure you have. The most remembered, was a guy that came into my studio one time with some Laney amp or something. I hate those....I have never heard one sound good other than when Warren DeMartinni from Rat used one years ago. But anyway, he had this pedal board....unlike anything I have ever seen. There must have been...and I kid you not....50 pedals on this thing set in all different directions just to fit them all in!
 
Well needless to say, I cringed when I saw this stuff and just knew I'd be greeted with "shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE oooooooooooooooowwwwwwwww huuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm"
 
He turns on and plugs in....the above is exactly what I heard. I'm thinking...oh man, this is gonna be a loooong night! He hears all this noise and says...ah man, I know why this is happening...sheesh, I forgot. He opens up a bag and puts like 5 more pedals on the board. LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm just shaking my head and ready to go out there and make something out of this mess myself.
 
He turns the thing on.....it's quiet as a church and the sound was incredible! LOL!!! He had took a few of his pedals off the board to use for something else and had forgotten they were disconnected and not completing the chain...hence all the noise and crap. Hahaha! But man, the tone was really awesome considering the board literally looked like a city. Hahahahaha! So you just never know....I'm sure you can attest to some weird rigs through the years. Trust me....I can too...uggh!
 
In the early days, I was stuck between a good 80's processed tone (like an in between of Randy Rhoads, Tom Scholz and Eddie VH) and couldn't make up my mind. So I lumped a bunch of crap together and created something pretty cool using the first version Rockman, a tube Screamer, a heavy metal pedal and an old Rat. Of course there was a noise gate as well as a hushIIC noise reduction unit....and as you can guess, I was one heck of a good tap dancer to boot! Hahaha!
 
I'll tell you though...I got one VERY important lesson out of using all those pedals that to this day, is a great habit that I'm glad I have. Can ya guess what that might be other than the fact that I have cleaned up my act and my sound? LOL!
 
When you have that much crap going on, you gotta really know how to work a volume knob. I'm so fast with turning my volume knob off and on, it's a part of my style now. In the studio, I can literally play without a noise reduction unit because I can turn my volume knob down so fast between passages where you start and stop. It's really a great habit to get in especially live when you turn up a bit and the drive you use can become feedback in between parts of songs where you stop. Lots of guys just leave their guitars open during those times and you can hear the squeeling in between....I soo hate that! Totally unprofessional in my opinion.
 
So though I don't get noise or anything, sometimes you pick up some hums from the lights or whatever when you plug into an outlet at a place. You know how bad some of them can be. It's nice to just jump on that volume knob and shut the darned thing up in an instant...and has really become a cool habit to have. The downside is...I'm constantly cooking volume knobs at least once per year. Part of that is probably due to me doing this habit of mine while the other is doing stuff like Cathedral in my Van Halen tribute band where you have to really use the volume knob swell technique like mad. But...if it weren't for my pedal and tap dancing days, I'd probably not have gotten into the good habit of controlling my sound from the volume knob...so it worked out to my benefit. :) 
 
LOL @ "the biggest racks"!!!! Hahahaha!! That was good...I'm crackin' up over here. :) Wish you didn't live so far from me John, I got soo many things I could send your way for repair or modification. We're hurting in this area for guys like you. :(
 
-Danny

dxp


Hey Danny, remind me never to get on your bad side... Lol

The 112 questions\points of interest in your earlier post provide plenty food for thought. 

What I currently use is a line 6 spider valve MKII.
(2) 12" Celestion vintage 30's.
Not sure if you are familiar with these amps or not.
16 amp models and built in effects.
I have found that I do not care for the effects all that much.
The longer I play thru this amp it seems the less I like how it sounds.
I will say the class A model has some warmth to it when playing clean, but add any built in drive and it just feels muddy.

Perhaps it is just me running out of talent when it comes to fine
Tuning any sounds from it.

I don't think my ears are what they used to be...

I wonder if anyone here likes Boss pedals??  :)

Tom:  that pic was great! Old school man.
Drummers, generations come and go and yet they remain unchanged...
Don't get em wet and keep them out of the light.

Spider is a good front end. I'd ditch the 30's....for some reason bro, I absolutely hate those speakers more than any speaker...ok wait...JBL's are the worst for me...but those 30's...in all my years, I have NEVER gotten good tone out of them. Every client that has come into my studio with one of those, has driven me crazy to get a good tone out of. They are just way harsh and abrasive. I can't believe people mention those speakers and say "they are really warm". Furthest from the truth in all my years working with them. I'd definitely change them first and foremost brother.
 
 
 
 
The reason you like your amp as you play.....is because the highs are piercing you at first. As your ears get used to the high end, they get less sensitive...and this is actually, ear fatigue.
 
 
 
 
As far as running out of talent, no, that's most likely not the case so don't even think like that. :) It is easier to say "yeah baby, that is a great guitar sound" than it is to literally create one. LOL! That said, it's best when you know how and what to listen for. This is usually the biggest issue. Some guys think loads of gain are what their heros use when in reality, they use less gain than they think. Others substitute treble for gain, so the sound is super raspy and brittle. You have to get that right happy medium of good mids to keep the tone thick, and enough highs to allow the sound to cut without being too piercing.
 
 
 
 
Bass is also an issue for guitarists. They are always trying to go for this huge, thick tone....and think woomfing low end is the fix for it. That is the first thing a soundman or recording engineer is going to dial out. If you chug on chords and feel bass, you're using too much. The idea is to round out the tone with lows, not make it whoomf to where it's entering bass guitar territory.
 
Pedals are cool...but you have to see which will work for you. For example, I stay away from anything that is going to drastically alter the sound of an amp. You either like that amp just as it is, or you don't.
 
 
Tube Screamers are awesome at spicing up an amp to give it a litrle more kick. This work well with Marshall's just about all the time on the older models. The newer ones have more of a gain stage, so you usually don't have to do much with drive other than maybe add a Tube Screamer without using the gain knob. The output knob as open as possible until noise comes in with the gain on the pedal down to 0, tweak the tone knob to taste, and a newer Marshall or even the newer modern gain amps will come to life.
 
 
I've also had great results with the Boss Compressor Sustainer. Very clean and more of an over-drive than a compressor. As a matter of fact, it doesn't really compress at all. I use these in the same way I would the Tube Screamer...but because this pedal has such a low noise output, you can use a little of the gain in it and it will really bring some nice results to the tone without making it drive out and sound like a run on sentence when you play. If you get any pedals, stay away from the distortion types and go more for over drives because that amp has a pretty sick gain stage as is.
 
 
But in your situation, I really feel a new cab or new speaker will make an incredible difference as the Spyder valve amps have quite a bit of kick to them from the ones I remember trying. That Peavey Vyper is something else though bro...definitely worth checking out. That still amazes me. The other thing you could do...is post up a few sound clips of what you're getting. I know I can definitely talk you through a few things to try if I hear what you're getting. You can always email me or pm me with the files if you don't want to post them publicly. Think it over...we'll figure something out. :)
 
 
-Danny

"Tube Screamers are awesome at ****ing up an amp to give it a litrle more kick. This work well with Marshall's just about all the time on the older models. The newer ones have more of a gain stage, so you usually don't have to do much with drive other than maybe add a Tube Screamer without using the gain knob. The output knob as open as possible until noise comes in with the gain on the pedal down to 0, tweak the tone knob to taste, and a newer Marshall or even the newer modern gain amps will come to life. 
      I've also had great results with the Boss Compressor Sustainer. Very clean and more of an over-drive than a compressor. As a matter of fact, it doesn't really compress at all. I use these in the same way I would the Tube Screamer...but because this pedal has such a low noise output, you can use a little of the gain in it and it will really bring some nice results to the tone without making it drive out and sound like a run on sentence when you play. If you get any pedals, stay away from the distortion types and go more for over drives because that amp has a pretty sick gain stage as is."





These are the two pedals I recommend to my home enthusiast friends when they figure out that they want to replace their practice amp with a nicer rig.

Each time they have gone out and bought the pair they come back with a story about how the sales person expressed that they had made two very savvy choices.


:-)


For myself, my home made amps get those sounds ITB. While I'd list these pedals as favorites I don't reach for them as often as I used to.


Those 2 pedals and a Fender Champ are enough to rock out... I've made drummers beg for mercy. With those 2 pedals and Fender Deluxe reverb and you can tear a new hole in the universe.


I have all that happening ITB now... but I still like those pedals a bunch when I break out the Fenders.


best regards,
mike

Someone earlier seemed to have questioned the practice of keeping the speakers as clean as possible and making sure the signal going into them is proper. Using speakers that color your tone always will color whatever they reproduce. That's perfectly fine if you want to sound the same all the time. However, keeping the speakers transparent, it opens up the opportunity to use amp simulators in the signal chain. So if I want to modify my sound, I can. It doesn't have to sound the same. Also, something about the new multi-effect pedals is that they eliminate a ton of the noise introduced by all the short little cables in the signal line.

pistolpete


Someone earlier seemed to have questioned the practice of keeping the speakers as clean as possible and making sure the signal going into them is proper. Using speakers that color your tone always will color whatever they reproduce. That's perfectly fine if you want to sound the same all the time. However, keeping the speakers transparent, it opens up the opportunity to use amp simulators in the signal chain. So if I want to modify my sound, I can. It doesn't have to sound the same. 

Good point. I like my JBL D130s because they are like this... they are versatile.


But, I also like the speakers that Weber made for me where I specified the winding, magnet size, magnet material, cone material, cone ribbing design, and dust cap choice so that I could get just the specific color that I like... when I'm looking to like that sort of thing.


I very much enjoy the color that a purposefully selected speaker adds to the overall sound. I don't think you can get speaker color (for lack of a better word) from anything but the speaker and so I own more actual guitar speakers than foot pedals... cause I like the contribution they make to the sound.

Also, something about the new multi-effect pedals is that they eliminate a ton of the noise introduced by all the short little cables in the signal line. 

FWIW I think the shared power supply and the internalized control of ideal impedance bridging (either real or modeled) is the reason all in one units seems less noisy. The cords are just taking the blame.


:-)




all the best,
mike