I know of effects pedals, but know nothing about them. I mean, I've got some info in books, but what should I look for, what's a reasonable price, what should I avoid, what do I need to know before I talk to a salesman at the Guitar Center who will want to sell me everything under the sun?

I've found most of my pedals make good door stops. I'm back to: guitar > cable > volume pedal > cable > amp that gives me the distortion character I want.

I would think that almost any style and sound can benefit from a chorus and Reverb pedal. For distortion I still like the classic RT Box, but it isn't necessary for every distorted sound, just a lot of musicians from my favorite rock bands used it. A good delay is nice as well.
A lot of the multi effects processors have a lot of what you want in one package. I like the Roland and Boss stuff in that regard.
Make sure if you do get something like that that is be the easy to switch from one sound to the next during songs, and between songs during a gig. Flexibility can be limited with them if you aren't paying attention, and that's where a good set of pedals shines.

But start with the basics, like a good amp, then basic pedals first. No need to get phasers and flanges and ring modulators up front. Just stuff to add a little tone and body.

It really depends what you have and what you want as far as sound.

Are we talking delay (echo), reverb, distortion, gain, EQ, Wah, Harmonizer/Octaver, etc...?

Does your amp have an effect loop?

I have a few pedals and a rack mounted fx unit, as well as what is in recording software.

The pedals are fun when you just want to have some stomp ready on off when jamming.

The only thing I use regularly is the MXR EQ pedal, lets me get the sound I want into and out of my amp, trim off the sub base or scoop mids etc..
I wished I had got one much earlier.

The best tone will come from just the amp as far as gain is concerned, if you want straight up distortion, pedals or solid state amps will do it.

Some of the amp modeling pedals and fx units are sounding pretty good these days and are very portable.

Since I don't play out anymore, these days when I want effects, I don't have a pedalboard full of stompboxes.
I break out my POD XT. All manner of effects, amp models, and cab sims, in one programmable unit.

But even that's getting more and more rare because mostly it's just guitar > cable > amp.

I once downloaded a demo of Guitar Rig.

I thought it was fucking awesome, it would be great for travel or just rocking out of your computer if you are only going to be playing out of a practice amp anyway, it has so many Amp head, Cabinet, mic, effects options, it seems it has virtually all of them.

What's wrong with you people? No pedals? Nothing wrong with having options. Wah, overdrive, phaser, chorus, delay. I have so much crap I can't even remember what I have. Even have some fuzz pedal that some guy in France built me. Then the rack gear. Love the rack gear too.

This is my new pedalboard project.

http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_1_148/1333687_New_pedal_board_project.html

I'm partial to Boss pedals. I have a Metal Zone, Digital Delay 8, and a Super Chorus. Sometimes I use all, sometimes none. I've also got the Vox Clyde McCoy Wah and a ZW Wah (my favorite)

Seeing those VTMs makes me wonder of I shouldn't get mine going again, throw a few stompboxes in front of it amd call it good, instead of messing around with that MIDI stuff for practice/gigging.

Go to the gear page forums all the info you could ever need.

First off, OP, your screen name is awesome.

Second, I've seen a lot of guitarists spend a lot of money on a lot of pedals chasing their dream sound, which they could have gotten right off the bat by spending that money on a really good amp.

Stuff at GC is usually fairly priced, so it's not like you're going to get majorly ripped off on a pedal. But it so depends on what sound you want, etc. as to what you should get or avoid.

But IMO, there's no use in trying to perfect your guitar sound until you're at the stage where you are ready for gigging and/or studio recording, and when you're ready for that you probably are beyond a bunch of pedals to create that ideal sound and have moved into a quality amp anyways.


As a drummer I relate it to these guys who will ask me if they should switch from Evans heads to Remo heads to get that huge sound. And I look at them and tell em, "Dude, you're playing a 15 year old Pearl Export kit. Sweating the brand of head for your upcoming recording session is not the greatest of your concerns."

If your rig is buster, pedals won't make it sound good. The better your rig is, well, the less you'll need any pedals to sound good at all.

You're dead on right. Most drummers unfortunately don't know how to tune a drum properly, which is a shame. And yes, a good drummer can make an old export sound OK if you A) know how to tune and B) know how to play. A good friend of mine called me into his studio to tune his beat up export, and I got it sounding about as good as you can make it. BUT, the best drum tuner in the universe can only make an Export sound so good, and that kit will sound like butthole next to a top end kit tuned by the same guy. I managed to make my Tama Rockstars sound great for years, but I could never make them sound like my DWs.

And that was my point with the comparison. can you make a bad or average rig sound good with pedals? Sure you can. But it's often harder and more time consuming than making a good or great amp sound good.

But yeah, back to the hijack, I wish more drummers would spend some time on learning to make their kit sound optimal. The art is dying tho, because everyone just resamples everything in the studio with out of the box drum samples, and I hate that shit.