Some noob questions

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tomrl101tomrl101 Frets: 1
I got a guitar last month and I've pretty much started from zero. I barely know anything about the guitar itself, and even less about pedals and effects thingies. I've got an Epiphone SG and an Orange Crush 12.
Is there a small number of pedals that are used for many songs? Like an essential set? And are there cheaper brands that don't cost more than my guitar?
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  • JohnnysevenJohnnyseven Frets: 905
    edited April 2018
    Used Boss pedals are a good place to start, i'd go with something like a BD2 which is very versatile (from light overdrive to full on disortion) - i'd worry about other effects later on.
    My trading feedback can be seen here - http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/58242/
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  • BBBluesBBBlues Frets: 635
    edited April 2018
    If you've been playing for a month forget about pedals, just practice like mad and have fun.

    p.s behringer pedals if you want to ignore the above 
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  • sgosdensgosden Frets: 1993
    I'd also say, focus more on playing basics than diving I to pedals. 

    That being said, If all the songs you wanna learn have distortion/over drive, you'll more likely enjoy learning and playing those than dull clean bits. 

    Can t say I've ever heard the distortion channel or a crush amp, but would guess there is a boss drive pedal that might sound better / more inspiring.

    What sort of music you into? 
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  • EricTheWearyEricTheWeary Frets: 16253


    Having access to different sounds can be inspiring but it can also quickly become a rabbit hole down which your time and money goes and you’re left playing Mustang Sally through £10k worth of gear.

    As a generalisation you can play the notes for most things without chasing a replication of the sound as well. Actually I’m struggling to think of an example to the contrary but, say,  Albert Lee who sometimes uses a delay pedal to effectively double his notes ( so for every two notes you hear one is him and one is the pedal) so if you were trying to duplicate his style exactly you’d need a delay pedal. But if you’re playing Albert Lee solos note for note after a month you’re a fecking prodigy and we need to be asking you questions...

    If you haven’t done so play around with the controls on your guitar and amp. With various combinations you should be getting dark and bright clean tones, crunchier sounds and more heavily distorted ones. There are demonstrations of the different sounds the amp can do on the Orange website. This will cover you for a wide range of music without spending an extra penny. 


    There are are some pretty affordable multi FX pedals and pretty cheap individual pedals from brands like Ammoon. There are loads of these cheap Chinese brands. It’s a bit of a crap shoot in terms of quality and reliability, a lot of these are the small micro type so can’t hold a battery so you need an appropriate power supply as well. 


    Used Boss pedals are a good place to start, i'd go with something like a BD2 which is very versatile (from light overdrive to full on disortion) - i'd worry about other effects later on.
    Lots of used Boss pedals out there so if you buy used and don’t get on with them you can resell without a big loss. Reliable, well designed and with accessible battery compartments you see them on pro boards often enough. 

    So, probably nothing really that’s essential. If there’s a particular musical style you want to develop there might be things you want to learn a bit about for future reference. What style(s) are you interested in? 

    Tipton is a small fishing village in the borough of Sandwell. 
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  • skunkwerxskunkwerx Frets: 6838

    See as a beginner interested in all these things, a fantastic place to start would actually be an amp.


    Hear me out... 


    I presume you have a pc or laptop though.. 


    Lets take a boss katana 50 for example. 

    £200 but you instantly have access to 50+ In built effects to play with AND a much better and futureproof in my opinion amp. As a side note, that amp has recently almost decimated the home practice amp market.


    That way you can experiment, find out what you like and dislike, have 4 channels for you to save favourite sounds to, + the panel controls themselves. 


    It will save you a headache and money initially, and you’ll be able to sell it on if you wanted, very easily. 


    The reason I say it will save you a headache if you’re new to effects and stuff in general, is that there are a few things you wont know about yet. 


    Things like power supplies, patch cables and effect order. Noise too. 


    First up, power supplies. 


    Bought a pedal? Well you’ll need to power it. 

    You got 3 options really. 


    Some pedals have a space for a 9v battery to go in. 

    Pop a battery in and away you go, for a while.. til it runs out.. 

    Some pedals use more power than others, therefore some pedals will last longer on a battery than others. 

    Have you seen the price of 9v batteries though?

    Some pedals don’t have space for a battery at all. 


    The upside to powering a pedal from a battery is that a battery is a very clean source of power. What I mean by this is, you wont get any additional hiss, hum or bullshit through your amp that some other power supplies can cause. 


    The other option for powering pedals is using an AC adaptor. This is a mains plug for it. Unlimited power, and if you’ve bought a good quality one, its again a very clean source of power. 

    The downside is that it takes up a plug socket in your wall, only powers one pedal, and costs you £10 (generally). 

    Boss branded ones are £25. 

    Heard of daisy chaining? Well I’ll go into this a little later. 


    The third option is a dedicated pedal power supply. Known as power blocks, bricks and some but not all, isolated power supplies. These are magical boxes of joy for us pedal freaks. They plug into 1 mains outlet on your wall, but will power multiple pedals! The downside is they are the most expensive option. They come in varying forms, some with 5 outputs (therefore able to power up to 5 pedals), some with 10, etc. 

    Generally with these there are 2 types. Isolated and non isolated. I’ll explain this in the next section. 


    But there are things to watch out for regarding power. 

    Here I’ll talk about daisy chaining and noise, and isolated vs non isolated supplies. 


    First of all daisy chaining. 

    This is the act of taking one Ac adaptor and powering multiple pedals via it. 

    You can buy a daisy chain lead which has 5 barrel plugs on it. It simply transforms your 1 plug to 5. 

    The benefit of this is that it still only takes up 1 spot on your wall plug, and its cheap. 


    For example this ac adaptor: https://www.andertons.co.uk/boss-psa-230es-power-supply-for-boss-compact-pedals


    And this 5 way daisy chain: https://www.andertons.co.uk/stagg-sps-dc-5m1f-pro-5-way-dc-daisy-chain-pedal-cable


    The downside is, if not done correctly it can cause problemos such as extra noise to come through your amp. Not something you really want. 


    I have heard that its most likely to cause noise issues when doing this if you’ve daisy chained a bunch of different type pedals together. By type, I mean analogue and digital here. 


    The other thing to bear in mind when doing this, is that the ac adaptor will have an mA rating. Thats the total milliamps it can give. 

    Lets take the Boss PSA (power supply adaptor) for example. 

    Here it is: https://www.andertons.co.uk/boss-psa-230es-power-supply-for-boss-compact-pedals


    That boss Ac adaptor is rated at 500mA. 

    This is the total milliamps the Ac adaptor can put out. Do not exceed this! 


    Why do you need to care? 

    Well every pedal draws an amount of mA’s. Some, like this Golden Plexi by Tone City only draws 15mA. https://www.andertons.co.uk/tone-city-golden-plexi-overdrive-pedal


    You can happily power that Golden Plexi which draws 15mA with that Boss power adaptor which can put out 500mA. 


    The pedal will only draw the mA it needs. So the fact that the power supply seems like insane overkill isnt a problem at all. All safe. 


    Some digital pedals like this Boss Rv-6

    are more power hungry and will draw 65mA.  https://www.andertons.co.uk/boss-rv6-compact-reverb-pedal


    You probably wouldnt want to daisy chain a digital pedal and an analogue pedal together for risk of the aforementioned possible noise issues, but lets just say for example you did decide to daisy chain a bunch of pedals together, you would need to ensure that you add up ALL of the pedals mA ratings and make sure that the total does NOT exceed the mA output of the power supply you’re using. 


    Finally, most pedals require a 9v centre negative 2.1mm barrel plug for their power. Not all though. So always check you have the right power supply before connecting it!

     Some pedals have centre positive connections, others need 12v or more. 

    Unlike mA’s, if you plug your 9v pedal into a 18v power supply, your pedal will get all 18 volts through it and most likely die an instant death. 


    I mentioned isolated power supplies and non isolated power supplies. 

    Well daisy chaining is a prime example of a non isolated supply. 

    It means each pedal isnt isolated from the next, and thats what mainly causes noise to happen. 

    The only easy day, was yesterday...
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  • skunkwerxskunkwerx Frets: 6838

    Here is a fantastic example of a dedicated power supply that is also isolated: https://www.andertons.co.uk/strymon-zuma-effect-pedal-power-supply


    Its an extreme example but I have one and its truly all I’ll now need. 

    9 outputs that give out 500mA, and they are all fully isolated. 2 of its outputs have selectable voltage too. 9v, 12v or 18v. 

    It powers all 9 of my pedals (some digital, others analogue) silently. 


    Thats just an example of a dedicated power brick that is isolated. 


    Here is a much cheaper but not fully isolated power brick: https://www.andertons.co.uk/t-rex-fuel-tank-classic-10-way-pedal-power-supply


    Only 2 of its 10 outputs are fully isolated, the other 8 share the same ground. 


    Here is basically a daisy chain in a box: https://www.gear4music.com/Guitar-and-Bass/SubZero-Polaris-Micro-Power-Supply/1IQS?origin=product-ads&campaign=PLA+Shop+-+GENERIC&adgroup=GENERIC&medium=vertical_search&network=google&merchant_id=1279443&product_id=70948d1&product_country=GB&product_partition_id=425697989996&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2u74voad2gIVzJPtCh0RFAr3EAQYEiABEgL3XfD_BwE

     


    Cheap but could be noisy. 



    Notable brands are strymon, t-rex and Voodoo labs. 

    Walrus audio are apparantly good too but not cheap.


    Using a quality fully isolated power supply will result in a much better experience, and shouldnt sound any different to if you were powering all your pedals via 9v batteries! 



    So thats power covered. 

    Next up is pedal order. 


    Theres no right and wrong here but there are good places to start. 

    Generally certain pedals sound better infront of other pedals. 


    By all means experiment, you wont hurt anything. 


    For a general example, a lot of people prefer a distortion pedal before your reverb pedal. 

    So guitar > distortion > reverb > amp. 


    Now if you did it the other way around ran your reverb into the distortion, I bet it wouldnt sound so good. 

    Of course if you only ever switch on 1 pedal at a time, order is completely moot. 


    The upside of the katana amp is that whatever effects you choose to play with, you dont have to worry about order.  

    You can turn on a gain effect, a delay and a reverb and it would sound cool. 


    Certain effects generally sound better after dirt, and some sound better before. 

    For example I think Octave pedals sound much better before dirt, and chorus/reverb/delays after. 


    So you could buy a reverb pedal to use with your Crush amp, and it will sound fine on the clean channel. But if you switched to the gain channel, things could get mushy, because you are effectively running your reverb into your dirt. 


    Some amps have effects loops, which I wont go into, but very basically it enables you to use your amps gain with pedals that should go after gain, by placing the pedals in a certain point in the chain. 


    With more pedals, you’ll need more patch cables too. Little expenses add up. Then you’ll need a board to put the pedals on.. 


    The upside of having many seperate pedals is that you can control them on the fly, use your feet to turn them on or off at will and they look cool. Lol. 


    I currently have a board with 9 pedals on. 4 flavours of distortion, a chorus, a delay and an octave with a bypass loop and a tuner.

    Spent loads and its cool but, well a couple of the gain pedals are redundant and I bought them because of addictions. 


    Oh, when you delve deep into it all, theres all sorts of shit like true bypass vs bufferred, using buffers in an all true bypass board, how many buffers to use, where to place them... 


    Hope some of that was useful dude. 

    Not by any means trying to turn you off of effect pedals (sometimes called stomp boxes). But rather just passing on all the stuff I wish I had known. 


    The only easy day, was yesterday...
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  • siremoonsiremoon Frets: 1524
    It's not clear to me whether you have had previous playing experience and have just got a guitar, or, if you are just beginning. 

    If you can play already then clearly the situation is different but assuming you're just starting then my view is that you should forget all about pedals for the moment and concentrate on playing and developing your technique.  Maybe consider getting a tuner pedal but nothing else.  The world of guitar effects is a minefield and it's probably a good idea to have some idea of where you are going and what sound you are looking for before diving in, and that takes time to figure out.

    I suggest you concentrate for the moment on learning your way around the instrument and being able to play the open chords well and the transitions between them.  There's a whole load of songs you can play with these.
    “He is like a man with a fork in a world of soup.” - Noel Gallagher
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  • pintspillerpintspiller Frets: 994
    Are there any bands or styles of music you want to replicate?
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  • fandangofandango Frets: 2204


    Having access to different sounds can be inspiring but it can also quickly become a rabbit hole down which your time and money goes and you’re left playing Mustang Sally through £10k worth of gear.

    ^^^ Wisdom for EricTheWeary ^^^

    As a beginner be very, very wary of spending time and effort in playing around with additional kit, pedals, etc. Likewise down the cul-de-sac of initially pointless effects like phaser, univibe, chorus, etc. As a beginner there is NO substitute for learning chords, notes, riffs, solos alongside some theory. And if you get the balance right, after a while you'll be in a far better place to make sense of how any particular effect will fit in to what you want to play.

    It's all just noise until you can string together some chords into a song, or can play a solo all the way through. Then it becomes music. Then think about fx pedals.

    The most important thing to consider is that effects are going to mask the accuracy of what you're playing.

    It might seem counter to the comments you want to hear, but in the beginning being able to discern clearly any mistakes in finger positions as you strum or hit a single string, and making the necessary corrections, will do far more for your playing ability than hooking up overdrives, delays, etc.

    My first amp was a Vox Voxtronic VX20+ with all the buttons, effects, and permutations. It didn't help me progress one jot, and was a severe distraction to learning. So I flogged it and got something simpler, and I got on with focusing on becoming a better player. The effects came later as I understood what I wanted to sound like.
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  • Chris_JChris_J Frets: 139
    As some have already said, focus on practice first, then focus on practicing some more :)

    I'd been playing 20 years before I bought a pedal
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