Official Guitar, Amp, Pedals, and Gear Thread - Page 5

Squier Tele and MicroCube.

The one to the right is a Volume pedal. The 2 bottom pedals are delays/echo. The 2 top pedals are overdrives. The little white pedal is a tap tempo for my DD-20 delay. And of course the tuner. The Timmy and the Space echo are gone now.

interesting, I don't see volume pedals like that any more.

it's personal preference, but I never use the built in FX on the Vox. I prefer to set a standard amp tone, usually decently clean, and then use pedals to alter the sound.

But to be fair, I don't use very many pedals or effects. Boss Turbo distortion (not made any more), Big Muff (a classic fuzz), Keeley compressor whenever I jam with a group, and an Ibanez WH-10 Wah (one of the best wahs ever made, but made no longer). I have used the Vox for a chorus effect, it was nice. Some reverb is nice too.

I should probably do that one day. The amp presets have effects on, but I'm not sure why. I always click the bypass button and either enjoy the unadultered preset or simply select the preset to get the tone I'm looking for.

And usually that tone is "80's British" (Marshall) but with the gain way down for that beefy clean tone that I love.

Oh, and I haven't messed with treble/bass/mid, etc for years. they're all somewhere in the middle, I don't get it when people obsess with these things.

It's an Ernie Ball VP jr. They make a wah now that looks the same, but it's black.

So did I say I'm a little out of date with this shit? I am. Very exciting, it's not unusual to see originals going for $300-400.

I am looking for a small amp to use at home, maybe at church/small settings. Any recommendations? I was looking at AC4TV and was hoping to stay in that price range. Not looking for anything too loud or too "dirty." Would like a nicer clean tone and I am partial to tubes. Thanks for any help you can give!

The guitar will be whatever my uncle doesn't mind lending me until I decide to buy one.

I like the Fender Pro Jr (although not a lot of headroom) a lot, and it can be had cheap. If that's not loud/clean enough I think the Blues Jr is ok (better than the Hot Rod stuff).




Depends what you're trying to do. This whole thing is about tone. Being that you're new, your ear won't be as discerning. Best way to explain it- the fewer links in a chain the more organic the sound. All things being equal an amp with a single tone control will sound and react better than an amp with a Treble, Middle and Bass tonestack. It will feel more dynamic to the player, as additions have to be made to the circuit to account for the extra controls.

At the same time, many situations require an amp with more control than a single tone knob. So you have amps with multiple tone contols, cut controls, presence, bright switches, mid boosts, etc. This is all to change the EQ. Then you have things like master volumes and gain controls. Back in the day, to get a distorted sound out of a tube amp you would simply turn it up till it distorted, but people wanted that distorted sound at a lower volume, so the gain/master control was added. So in a modern amp we have multiple controls for the tone shaping, and additional controls to dial in how much overdrive we need.

Then you have effects, some of them (like reverb and tremolo) are built in on some amps, some are not (like delay, phase, flange, etc). What pedals do are help you achieve things that your amp won't do stock. Some of these are effects (if your amp doesn't have reverb you can use a reverb pedal), and some of these are to try and change the inherent character of the sound. You can think of them as advanced EQ. The majority of the pedals on the market are overdrive/distortion pedals. They're good for say, trying to get a Marshall sound out of your Fender. But the deeper you get (into the boutique realm) the more specific they get- trying to get your Deluxe Reverb to sound like a JTM-45. Or a tweed Deluxe. Or a Trainwrek Express. Or like a Deluxe Reverb, just turned up more than you can do at the gig/home/studio.

What was the question? Oh yeah, will you need pedals with a Valvetronix. Consider everything I just told you, then consider that the Valvetronix is an amp that models all of the above. Think about how many links in the chain are in the processing of that thing. So the answer is, no if you're happy with the stock tones of the Vox. Yes if you want an effect it doesn't have (such as an envelope filter or octave fuzz). And if you're not happy with the stock tones of the Vox, yes you can try and add some pedals, but at some point it's better to simply get a real amp and start from scratch. Not that I'm against modelers, I've owned and used them, but if you're getting really specific and trying to nail a sound, then you need to go with the real thing. I liken it to CGI in movies- it's close and getting closer (and might fool a lot of people), but it's simply not there yet.

this is true. It's what I and most others end up doing. But for now, I think the Vox will do a fine job for what you're looking for. In due time.

57 P-bass (reissue)
67 Tele (original)
59 Bassman (reissue)

Can you explain what exactly a compressor does? I've never used one, so I'm curious.

smooths out the guitar through the amp. The big highs get toned down, the big lows get a little clarity. Similar to an EQ. The end result will be a fuller and more balanced tone.