What Guitar effects Pedals to get?

[Green Man]

Here is my son's wish for Christmas:

Boss DS-1 Distortion Pedal ($39.00) · Boss CH-1 SUPER Chorus Pedal ($89.00) · Boss LS-2 Line Selector/Power Supply ($68.73 - $79.00)

Disclaimer: I know nothing about guitar pedals.

Would it be better to just get him a multi-effect pedal like the Boss ME20?

I guess I would also question whether Boss is a reputable name brand to be looking at. I am interested in quality long-lasting components.

My target range is ~$200 - $250

 

[Vehemence]

Text

 

[Q]

I have a Boss DS-1, I don't play anymore but get something better. It gets boring after a while.

Oh and yes Boss is a good brand

 

[vshah]

you can probably pick up a used boss gt-6 for that price, mine has served me well for the past 6-7 years. the GT series is way way way better than the ME series

how old is your son?


edit: there are a bunch on ebay for under 200

 

[Green Man]

my son is 12
I'm a little leary of gifting used. I'd rather pony up a few extra $
but it doesn't look like the GT-6 is available new, or that it would be close to my target price.

 

[RocksteadyDotNet]

Big Muff

OD-3

 

[vshah]

Originally posted by: Green Man
my son is 12
I'm a little leary of gifting used. I'd rather pony up a few extra $
but it doesn't look like the GT-6 is available new, or that it would be close to my target price.

the gt-6 is an older model, now replaced by the gt-8, which is 499 new, so a bit expensive. but, given that your son is 12, i would recommend a few good stand alone pedals - distortion, wah, and delay maybe? Multi effects pedals require a lot of tweaking and experimentation to get a good sound/the sound you want, so unless you're willing to help him with that i wouldn't recommend them for a 12 year old (the boss GT series at least - that's all i have experience with).


edit: i second the OD-3, that's a fun pedal

 

[Eli]

What kind of music does he play?

I <3 my Boss MetalZone.

But probably wouldn't be appropriate unless he likes metal.

 

[A Casual Fitz]

The multi-effects pedals are great but not as cool as building a rig of quality dedicated pedals like boss makes. It's your call though, I'm sure if he spends the time to figure everything out in the ME20 he won't be disappointed.

 

[Jesusthewererabbit]

Originally posted by: dNor
Text

Winner! You will love this pedal! Especially when he turns everything to 11!

 

[Fritzo]

A multieffect pedal might be just the thing you're looking for. The Boss model you mentioned will have all of the sounds you mentioned and more. A buddy of mine has been using a Zoom G2 for a while and claims he can't live with out it.

I've been using a Line6 M13, which is probably the best effects setup I've ever used (it's more of a super stomp box than a multieffect pedal though), but that might be out of your price range.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

I liked my boss

 

[TechBoyJK]

Originally posted by: RadiclDreamer
I liked my boss

yep

metal zone ftw

 

[jemcam]

The Ibanez TS-9 is pretty much the gold standard. It's been around forever and is used by many big artists. Hey, if it was good for Stevie Ray Vaughan, it's good enough for me.

Ibanez TS-9

EDIT, oh yeah, I forgot to mention, that besides the Ibanez distortion pedal, all my others are boss pedals. They're indestructible. Another good one is the Boss loop station. Boss loop station It's nice if you want to record your chords and then play the lead over them. It's pretty fun and you can layer lots of loops on top of one another with a tap tempo and a wide selection of drum backing. It's a blast and I love it! It's good for even beginning guitarists because you can go into your instructional books and strum the chords while recording and then play it back while you play the melody on top of your own chords. It's a great instructional tool also.

FWIW, good pedals retain their original value very well on ebay. I've bought and sold many pedals on ebay and lose very little (if any) money on each one, particularly if I keep the original box and instruction booklet.

You can't beat Boss pedals.

 

[jemcam]

Also, how long has he been playing? Is he a beginner, or is he looking for a specific sound, as in what artist? That will tell you which way to go as far as pedals. There are pedals that give a metal sound, slightly overdriven blues sound, classic rock, etc.

Also, what kind of amp and guitar? Some amps don't do pedals that well, although most do.

 

[imported_Imp]

The echo effect is awesome, although I'm not sure about any specific pedal.

 

[jemcam]

Originally posted by: Imp
The echo effect is awesome, although I'm not sure about any specific pedal.

It's called reverb and I highly recommend this Boss pedal. You can get any kind of echo from very slight to excessive with this one.

I bought this one first and hated it.

The RV-5 is great. The FDR-1 sucked balls as far as I was concerned. I know the FDR-1 is supposed to be replicating the sound of the Fender Deluxe Reverb, but it was really "boingy" and I know that's how they sometimes sounded, but it was unpredictable as far as I was concerned. I played it for a friend of mine who actually had a '65 Fender Deluxe Reverb and he was amazed at how well it replicated the sound, and he said, "yeah, that's exactly how they sounded". Unfortunately in my opinion, they replicated the bad sounds with the good to my ears. The RV-5 lets me dial in any type of reverb I want, and yes, I can get the "boingy" reverb out of the RV-5 if I want it by using the selector button.

 

[jemcam]

Originally posted by: Green Man
Here is my son's wish for Christmas:

Boss DS-1 Distortion Pedal ($39.00) · Boss CH-1 SUPER Chorus Pedal ($89.00) · Boss LS-2 Line Selector/Power Supply ($68.73 - $79.00)

Disclaimer: I know nothing about guitar pedals.

Would it be better to just get him a multi-effect pedal like the Boss ME20?

I guess I would also question whether Boss is a reputable name brand to be looking at. I am interested in quality long-lasting components.

My target range is ~$200 - $250

I'd probably avoid the Line Selector/Power supply. I've heard they can introduce noise into your signal. It depends on what guitar though. If he's using a Fender Strat type guitar with single coil pickups, they get noisy.

 

[Platypus]

What kind of stuff does he play? I typically recommend avoiding multi-effects pedals because the quality is usually crap. If he wants tons of effects and isn't super into his tone yet then that's your best... but it's much better to buy a few quality pedals than an all-in-one.

There's nothing wrong with either option, its a matter of necessity. It's similar to buying a home theater in a box versus buying each piece separately... they will both do the job but one is going to sound better.

Is there a certain tone he is going for? What kind of gear does he have right now?

 

[Green Man]

He is a beginner, I bought the Fender strat for him in April and he has a lesson once a week.
His instructor has recommended he get some pedals so he can start experimenting with different sounds. I'd like to get something that will last him as his musical interest evolves throughout his teen years.
he's listening to stuff like fall out boy now.

 

[CptObvious]

Boss pedals are built like tanks (the stompboxes, that is...I'm not sure about the multieffects).

My recommendation actually would be to buy him a bigger combo amp with modeling effects built in. Pedals won't really improve the sound if he's playing on a dinky amp.

 

[Green Man]

his amp is a peavey envoy

 

[Fritzo]

Originally posted by: jemcam

Originally posted by: Imp
The echo effect is awesome, although I'm not sure about any specific pedal.

It's called reverb and I highly recommend this Boss pedal. You can get any kind of echo from very slight to excessive with this one.

I bought this one first and hated it.

The RV-5 is great. The FDR-1 sucked balls as far as I was concerned. I know the FDR-1 is supposed to be replicating the sound of the Fender Deluxe Reverb, but it was really "boingy" and I know that's how they sometimes sounded, but it was unpredictable as far as I was concerned. I played it for a friend of mine who actually had a '65 Fender Deluxe Reverb and he was amazed at how well it replicated the sound, and he said, "yeah, that's exactly how they sounded". Unfortunately in my opinion, they replicated the bad sounds with the good to my ears. The RV-5 lets me dial in any type of reverb I want, and yes, I can get the "boingy" reverb out of the RV-5 if I want it by using the selector button.

Reverb affects the acoustics and reflection of a sound. I guess it is a partial echo effect technically, but it has to do with how fat or full the sound is. It determines if you sound like you're playing in a large hall or in a small closet. Reverb is usually built into your amp, but you get buy reverb pedals as well.

Echo is a fading repeat of the same sound over a period of time. For instance, if your guitar went "TWANG!" the echo would be "WANG WAng Wang wang...." Same way your voice would sound if you yell in a canyon. The Echo-plex from the 60's-70's is probably the most famous device to do this, but it was quirky because it used a tape loop to do the echo. Your best sounding echo pedals are the tube driven analog echo pedals, but they tend to be expensive. Boss, Digitech, and Ibenez make some lower cost echo units. In recording, I usually add echo during processing rather than live.

Delay is related to echo (in fact, pedals usually do both). It plays back your exact sound once, but a specified time later. These are used to make you sound fatter or (with a large delay) like you're playing in unison with another person. The delay is usually set in ms (milliseconds).

There's also Delay, which is playback of your exact sound back after a specified amount of time.

 

[thomsbrain]

Boss makes tough, long-lasting pedals. They aren't going to be the choice of the pros because the sound quality isn't pro, but they are built like tanks and will stand up the abuse of a 12-year-old aspiring Pete Townsend. I would recommend them over brands like DOD or Electro-Harmonix because of the build quality issue alone. (Although Electro-Harmonix make fantastic-sounding pedals if you don't mind babying them and fixing them all the time).

As for combo pedals, they often don't sound as good or offer as much flexibility as stand-alones, but they do offer tremendous value. For a kid, they could be a great choice, since he isn't ready to dump thousands of dollars on equipment until he is older and playing semi-professionally. You can get one with lots of effects for less than $500. In comparison, my pedal-board loaded with semi-pro discrete effects cost me close to $800 together, and I only have only four effects and a volume pedal.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

FWIW, I never really liked distortion pedals. I thought I did until I bought my first real tube amp. For my foot-stomping I stick mostly to modulation effects like wah, flange, phase, reverb and delay. I've experimented with an overdrive pedal to provide an extra boost at times, but I don't find it particularly useful. IMHO, you'd serve him well to get him a true tube amp with a couple of channels, an fx loop and a footswitch.

This amp link will melt your face.