I set it up for two clean sounds and two crunch sounds and there it sits. I got a Katana amp a couple years ago and it sounds fine but I don't like editing sounds on the PC, so I haven't explored that much.
My complaint about everything to do with electrified music generally boils down to the user interface. It takes a little work, but once you take a preset and dial it in to your liking, you're all set. The Mooer lets me load 3rd party presets (some of the Choptones stuff is quite good) and speaker IRs. Buzzy, way too much gain, just way over the top, especially the high-gain stuff. The all-in-one units are just a lot easier to carry around and I don't get caught up in comparing 9 different distortion units and trying to decide which one sounds best.ĮTA: 3 Chord Genius is right - a lot of the stock amp models are worthless for anything other than a starting point to make your own presets. I've got a bunch of old stuff in a box somewhere, but the last stand-alone pedal I bought was an EHX B9 pedal.
I never got into the boutique pedal scene. The two units and an M-Audio expression pedal all fit onto a Pedaltrain Classic.
Nowadays I'm using a Mooer GE-200 for amp modeling and limited effects (excellent delay and their tri-chorus is really good), plus a Mooer Red Truck for more effects (a shot of reverb when I need it, slap delay, tremelo and two different boosts). Starting with a Line 6 Flextone XL with floorboard (excellent amp, still have it) and a kidney-bean Pod through the XT Live (love it, still have it) and HD500 (couldn't sell it fast enough) to the Vox Tonelab (I've got three of them, but their floorboards wear out quick) and some DigiTech thing with excellent effects but horrible amp models. Since the late 90s, I've been an all-in-one kind of guy. Get a clean, turn it up and use the box O' magic to do the rest. Straight to a P.A or, as you put, be amp agnostic.
From the low end Joyo character pedals, through to the full blown, bells, whistles and tiara equipped digital floor unit behemoths, they're all easier to cart around than some hulking great combo. It's the future, or at least an acceptable version of it. The stock presets seem geared to home use, and need some tweaking for when the volume gets fun, but when a careful ear is applied to them, setting them up correctly, great things can happen. I've played with many folk who use the Boss floor units, and they manage to get a great sound time and time again.Įven the maligned Line 6 POD is capable of greatness once the owner has overcome the urge to turn everything on and realises that playing through a P.A is rather different to the spare bedroom. Providing the temptation to use every dang thing the unit has to offer at once is resisted, some great sounds can be had. Let's leave chops out of it for now, but what do you think of these multi-pedals? Of course pouring that sound on top of a nice amp, I would guess you could be amp neutral at that point. They are almost pre-set for various sounds. I know some of those pedals, you can turn it to "welcome to the jungle" and just rip in. I have a number of pedals and always trying to find a sound that works and with considerably less effects. I know gain covers up a lot a lot of ills and this guys sound had a lot of it a well as delay, reverb, etc.īut it makes me rethink my setup. I was across the room and really didn't get a good look at the rig before we wrapped up. And he was a good player to boot.I was a little jealous of course. Played through some kind of a Halfstack as well. The host and lead guitar player had played together before.The rest of us hadn't.Īnyhow, the LG had a pedal that NAILED all the tones for the hard rock stuff we played: Led Zeppelin, Guns and Roses, etc. I went to a jam the other night and played bass, so I was already out of my league with people I didnd't know and playing stuff I'd never played.