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I'm thinking of getting a little more serious with playing electric. What would be good effects to start out with?
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You can probably find this same discussion before if you search the forum.
It basically depends on what sound you want and what kind of amp you have. The most basic answers would be distortion, overdrive, delay.
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I know a lot of people don't like them but I'd recommend getting a multi-effect unit. They let you try out a little bit of everything.
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Originally Posted by Shift I know a lot of people don't like them but I'd recommend getting a multi-effect unit. They let you try out a little bit of everything. For a while I was one of the effects snobs that thought you couldn't get as good of sounds out of multi-effects units as individual pedals. Thus, I started building my pedal board slowly, purchasing individual effects whenever I had the extra money. Well, I was just getting to the point where my effects board was getting annoying to have to carry around with me, and I had the opportunity to start playing at my church. Well, we're not allowed to use amps, so I had to get something with amp modulation. I had heard great things about the POD XT Live, so I decided to sell all of my pedals and purchase one. That was definitely one of the best guitar-related purchases I've made (almost up there with getting an all-tube amp )
Multi-effects units, if you get a good one, can sounds VERY good. I definitely recommend going for one of those as opposed to buying a ton of individual effects. Then again, if you really don't like multi's, you could purchase a cheap multi (like the Digitech RP80) just to see what effects you like and use the most. After you know what you want, you could sell the unit and purchase the individual pedals.
That being said, I personally vouch for the POD XTL.
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i like single effects for the analog advantage.i don't think i would have the patience to use an XTL...
if you want singles, start off with chorus, delay, and distortion if your amp doesn't have distortion already.
i recomend the visual sound H2O pedal, since it bundles both chorus and echo(delay) for a good price. for distorion, i can't really say. i ended up getting a tubescreamer, but those are a little expensive for a first try. then again, you wouldn't have to upgrade later if you have th money now.
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You could go to pawn shops and car boot sales and pickup random pedals there cheaply and see if you like them. Once their 3rd hand or whatever they generally keep their value, and may even increase. I saw a Danelectro pedal for £30 today. Maybe. I'm pretty sure the stance on this is, there is no particular pedals you should get, since you don't need anything for electric playing beyond a guitar with a pickup, an amp and a lead.
The fun part is finding out about what effects you like and which you hate, which are indispensible to your sound and which are just there to look pretty and make a little bit of a difference in that one song.
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I was planning to save up enough cash to build up my pedalboard a couple pedals at a time, overall, I figured by the time I had a few hundred dollars I'd complete my board... Then I decided almost on the fly to buy one of these PODxt thingies, since Casey and PianoMan were doing such a good job convincing me. Boy, I saved hundreds on an effects rig, and the PODxt Live is one of the most convenient pieces of gear invented!
However, Chris, I'd tell you not to spend your cash on one of these yet. Get an idea of what sorts of sounds you want first, so give us a style, artists you like, and I think we can approximate what effects you might want. Since, honestly, most electric guitar music is just a guitar and an amp.
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Ok, let's see. Judging by my playlist, I have stuff like Jimmy Needham, Tree63, Todd Agnew, Jeremy Camp, Casting Crowns, Sanctus Real, Jars of Clay (from the beginning up to Good Monsters), Kutless, Barlowgirl, By The Tree, Thousand Foot Krutch, David Crowder Band, Relient K, Hyperstatic Union, and yes I have some Hawk Nelson too.
I can't really narrow it down to a style. fairly ecclectic I guess.
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And what gear do you already have? (guitar/amp)
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I have a Prince HM-34X guitar. The amp I don't remember. I keep it at church as I can't use it in my apartment. I originally bought it off a friend with my 12 string. It's a piano/keyboard amp. So my friend said, it was better then a regular amp as it has zero distortion in it.
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Originally Posted by Chris Ok, let's see. Judging by my playlist, I have stuff like Jimmy Needham, Tree63, Todd Agnew, Jeremy Camp, Casting Crowns, Sanctus Real, Jars of Clay (from the beginning up to Good Monsters), Kutless, Barlowgirl, By The Tree, Thousand Foot Krutch, David Crowder Band, Relient K, Hyperstatic Union, and yes I have some Hawk Nelson too.
I can't really narrow it down to a style. fairly ecclectic I guess.
There's so many excellent pedals out there and so many different ways you can go, it really comes down to personal taste... For the sounds you are talking about I would recommend: Delay, overdrive, distortion, fuzz, compressor, and one good modulation effect to add some swirl to clean tones like a phaser or a chorus
Delay: The H2O is nice, but analog delay's won't sound as good with distortions if you need that. The EH Memory Man, Hughes & Ketner Replex and T-rex are also excellent delay pedals. On the lower end of the price spectrum the Boss delay's are decent, but will give you more of a digital sound rather than analog.
Overdrive: This is a milder distortion effect that emulates the sound of an overdriven tube amp. There are countless possibilities here! The standard appears to be the Tubescreamer and all of its imitators (Some of which are better than the actual original IMO). Look at an Ibanez Tubescreamer (preferrably a Keeley modded one if possible), a Fulltone Fulldrive II (My personal favorite). Some other excellent options are the T-rex Alberta, Chandler Tube Driver, Budda Zenman, and countless others.
Distortion: This is a heavier drive with more dirt and harmonics. My personal all time favorite is the Zvex Box of Rock! Awsome marshall in a box tone! Some other good ones are the T-rex mudhony and Dr. Swamp, Barber Burn Unit and Small Fry, Keeley ultra modded DS-1, Mesa V-Twin, again there are countless others!
Fuzz: This is a heavily saturated sound with lots of harmonics, you'll hear it a lot in Jars of Clay's music and David Crowder. Some really good ones to look at are the EH Big Muff (The standard, used by David Crowder Band... VERY saturated sound), Arbiter Fuzz Face, ZVex Fuzz Factory (Probably the COOLEST fuzz you can buy, but very touchy and takes some time to dial in), Fulltone '69 or '70, Keeley Fuzz Head, Frantone Cream Puff and Peach Fuzz, Fender Blender (CRAZY....)
Compressor: This is a standard tone shaping tool no guitarist should be without. You'll love what it does to your clean tones and how it smooths out your distortions. The best are the Keeley Compressor, Barber Tone Press, older MXR script logo Dyna-Comp, and Ross.
Modulation: Its always nice to have a good modulation effect to add some swirl to your clean tones, and some openess to your distortions. A chorus is an effect that rubs the original signal with one that is slightly shifting in pitch creating a swirling effect. My personal favorite is the EH Small Clone, but there are several other excellent ones out there. Phase is technically not a modulation effect. It works more like a wah pedal shifting through different frequencies (This is my personal favorite). The BEST IMO are the MXR Phase 90 and the EH Small Stone (Again my personal favorite), another cool one is the Boss PH-3 which has a cool step mode.
There are literaly infinite possibilities when you get into the world of stomp boxes. The best thing to do is go out and try out as many as you can and see what works best for you and then build from there. A multi-effects unit can be a good way to start however you will trade quality for quantity (believe me I hated effects like compression when I had multi-effects and didn't realize how awsome it was until I got a good quality one). In general you are going to find betterquality and much better tone when you get up into the more expensive boutique effects lines... you really get what you pay for IMO
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If you need a resonably priced guitar efects pedal check out the rp80