Planning a pedalboard on a budget!
Planning a pedalboard on a budget!
Good day guitar players of Lemmy, I'm planning a pedalboard for when I can afford them, to color my playing after years of using a shitty Zoom multi-FX pedal. I want to actually use "proper" separate pedals for easier dialing in of tones and being able to actually change the order of the effects. Now, I'm saying "budget" and I REALLY do mean budget. Where I live, anything involving guitars is insanely expensive. What you might think is a cheap easy to get pedal like a Boss effect, costs $200 or more down here. So I've been looking around for the true budget choices that still sound competent. I currently play an Ibanez through a Roland Cube 30 amp.
With that out of the way, let's begin: I want to play doom metal and adjacent heavy styles of music. A super clean tone is not too important to me, neither are stacking of ambient pedals and delays. I like versatility, but I want to dial in my own tone that I can use for my favored music. I also want to keep the board small in pedal count, I was planning on 5 max, but I might need a couple more slots, if anything to fit in a tuner pedal.
-First, I need a good fuzz pedal. I have been looking around, and I really can't find a fuzz I like more than the DOD Carcosa. Or anything that sounds quite like it at a cheaper price range, so that's probably what I'm going to go for, and also will be the most expensive pedal on the board. The only alternative I'm willing to consider, is a big muff clone of some sort. Also I hate the Hyper Fuzz box of bees sound.
-Second, a distortion pedal. I'm pretty set on getting a RAT type pedal, but again since even the ProCo is expensive here, I'm going for an alternative. Currently at the top of the list is the Joyo Splinter, as it can sound pretty much exactly like a Fat Rat (at least in video reviews it does). Alternative consideration is a Boss DS-1 style pedal, but I'm pretty sure i want a Ratty sound.
-Third, is the first pedal I am not 100% sure of. I love the sound of Orange amps. I run my stuff through a simple Roland Cube amp, that can emulate several other things, but not an Orange. So in the interest of doing that but also not buying another amp, I want an amp-in-a-box pedal. The Joyo Oxford Sound is exactly that. The idea is to dial it in for a very characteristic Orange crunch sound, and then push it with the previous two. might turn it completely off for clean sections.
-Fourth in the path, is some sort of modulation pedal. In the interest of versatility, I'm going for a multi-mod. Can't really decide if I want to stick with a chorus, phaser, flanger or tremolo, so I want all of them in one. Candidates for this are the Behringer FX600, Caline Multimod or similars.
-Fifth in the ideal signal chain now, is my simple ambience. A singular Delay/Reverb pedal would be ideal. Currently between the Caline Ragnarok and the Sonicake Levitate. Taking suggestions of other options here. Being able to toggle each individual effect is important, tap tempo is nice but not necessary.
But, there are other effects I consider. Like I mentioned before, a tuner pedal is kind of necessary, and can double as a mute button after my distortions.
-An overdrive pedal. I don't feel like it is necessary, but everyone and their mother says they have or need one, so I have to consider it. Would potentially substitute or push into the Orange amp simulation. If I have to use one, I think I like the Klon style pedals, and there's tons of cheap clones of that around.
-A boost pedal. But not necessarily a straight flat boost. As a doom guitar wannabe, of course one of my idols is Tony Iommi, and his tone used a treble booster into a Laney amp. My other guitar hero, with a searing and captivating lead tone, is Rory Gallagher, who ran a treble booster into a Vox amp. As I understand, it's what made both of their tones so wide and clear, with aggressive mids and highs for leads. But it is also an effect that was used to solve a very specific problem: old tube amps darkened when they were pushed too hard and loud. Modern amps, solid state amps or amp simulations don't necessarily suffer from that. Or I could just set up a bright sounding low gain overdrive to keep always on for a similar effect. This is the one I'm least sure about. Also it might require me to apply a noise gate at the end, increasing the total pedals on the chain not by 1 but by 2!
On a final note, I also might want to learn bass at some point. And bass players' #1 effect is compression. So I might have to get one of those someday too. Wouldn't use it on guitar, as it does the opposite of what I want.
Either way, after this whole wall of text, I thank anyone who read all of it. What advice can you give me? Both on pedal choice or usage? Do you think it is possible to sound something in the middle of doom metal and bright blues leads? On a budget? That's what I want to know.
Keep in mind that a huge part of Iommi's sound comes from his false fingertips. You can get close to it by putting some glue on them.
Personally I would recommend looking into Simulated amps/effects, or learning to build your own pedals. Pedals are prohibitively expensive, and those avenues make them significantly cheaper.
I'm a big fan of NeuralDSP's ampsims, and there are tons of free Effects simulators for pretty much any pedal you'd want.
I play a lot of Stoner/Doom/Sludge myself, and the only physical pedal I found I've needed is a good Fuzz. Here's my board as an example (apologizes for the wiring mess):
That's a MIDI footpedal at the bottom. It controls all my simulated effects/amps. The Boss LS-2 just splits my signal so I can send a clean signal to Rocksmith. I also just noticed I have 2 taps labelled, that's a mistake. The one at the bottom-right is actually what enables a Whammy Pedal.
Edit: I forgot to mention that this would require you to purchase an Audio Interface. They're about the same price as a single pedal though, which in the long run is much more affordable.
Yeah, the main thing that drove me away from multiFX modeling pedals was how ass most of their Fuzzz simulations sound. I guess I could do the same as you did here, and get a Carcosa and punch it into such modeler. It is a different avenue entirely. Can you play live with this rig tho, or only into the audio interface plugged into your computer? I'd like to be able to at least jam with a band in a studio or garage type deal, and I can't be limited by a computer for that.
Either way, getting a Carcosa and punching it into the front of a modeler could be a good idea. Does it play well with simulated distortions and amps?
Modelers with a cab sim can run direct into studio monitors or mixing board. I think without a cab sim you can still run into the amp FX loop return to go through the power amp and cab.
I have a laptop I've loaded up with Ableton Live that hosts all my plugins/simulators. From there I can sent a signal to a mixer/PA, just make sure you're using an IR loader for cab simulation as well.
I've found no problems using real pedals and simulated ones. If you want you can also send the output from the interface into a poweramp and use a real cabinet if you prefer. I love how versatile, portable, and cheap this setup is.
I've often heard that Fuzzes just don't work well when digital. I don't know how true this really is, but I do know that Carcosa (and my Frost Giant Soma) sound just how you'd expect when using a Sunn Solo or Orange Rockerverb Simulator.
Now, I know you said 'actual pedals', because you want to be able to reorder the signal chain. But you're under a tight budget, and budget trumps desires every time.
Have you looked into something like the NUX MG-30? That's what I use, it's easy to dial in a tone, and you can reorder the blocks on the digital signal chain pretty well (though there are certain limitations with that which you likely won't have problems with). Though digital, the sounds are great.
Plus, it has an FX loop, which allows you to extend the sound further with extra pedals. This FX loop can be inserted anywhere in the digital signal chain as well!
I recommend you give that a look, watch and read the reviews. :)
Okay I took a good look at some videos on both the NUX MG-30 and the Boss GT-1 and they do seem pretty decent. At least better than my old Zoom G2.1u, which is REALLY showing it's age with effect modeling quality nowadays. One thing I think I forgot to mention in the main post, is that I REALLY want the "Orange Sound" with my rig. And I looked up the MG-30 manual, and it has literally everything else that I might want... EXCEPT for some kind of Orange modeling... So, now what? I guess that with this I could pare down the pedalboard down to 3: the NUX, a Carcosa fuzz, and some sort of Orange simulation. Which seems to me to defeat the purpose. Is it possible to download additional simulations into the NUX off the internet?
At least one other cool thing the NUX has, is bass effects and bass cabinet simulations, that will come in handy in the future.
You're right. Unfortunately, this doesn't have an Orange amp model, and you can't add new models.
However, I bet you can find an amp model that sounds close enough, and coupled with the ability to add your own IRs, you can dial in a tone that sounds close enough, or even identical.
NUX MG-30 Models List: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iWnRDk8BLcDSwimSgCJYzqmrXuy03vV8/view?usp=drivesdk
If you're still interested, this group is a treasure trove of info (and you could ask the people there what they did to get an Orange sound). That's where I got that PDF file from. People also share IRs and patches they made.
NUX MG-30 FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/nuxmg30group/?ref=share&mibextid=aE13LE
Worst case scenario for the MG-30: buy an actual Orange amp and the MG-30 can still be inserted in the amp's FX loop for all its digital effects. Hey, you saved tons of money by not buying actual pedals anyway ;)
I could look into that. The first thing I really did when going after these pedals was look into more modern (compared to mine) multiFX pedals. I saw that there's a ton of these new chinese brands pedals with many amp simulations and this IR thing, which apparently is a better way to model mic'd up cabinets. I initially considered them, but ended up choosing to go individual pedals anyway. Like I said, I'll look into that NUX MG-30.
+1. Unless you're a stickler for tone and the physicality of pedals (which is fun and cool, I admit) a digital multi FX gives you 95% of the sound for a fraction of the budget. I have a $200 (in the US) Boss GT-1 and I still can't find a good reason to upgrade from it.
Another upvote for the Boss GT-1 here. It's a fantastic unit if you're a busker or just travel a lot with your instruments. I use mine when I'm camping since you can use AA batteries to power it, and it has a standard 3.5mm audio output that I can plug into any speaker system.
If you insist on layering, I second everyone's GT-1 recommendation.
If you want a physical pedal, I'd recommend BYOC Large Beaver or Little Beaver. They have great fuzz and clarity.