Pedals and guitars.

shaunm

There's a good few discussions on here where people discuss using pedals with amps but do you find that some pedals work better with different types of guitars? Do you have a drive pedal you love with your strat but hate with your LP or a wah that sounds brilliant with your Tele but not on your SG?

mike_l

Yes and no.

If I'm playing my Strat, I like the Distortron and Mr. Ed, whereas if I'm playing my ESP I like a higher-gain pedal....

 

Also, I (probably others) play differently when I'm playing a different guitar.

shaunm

I have a strat and a modded epi Sheraton that I use. Both are great blues guitars however the epi I find is not as well suited to phase pedals as the strat. The strat also seems to work very well with a wah. The Epi seems to react really well to boost and OD pedals, the tone becomes really thick and creamy

mike_l

I use phase (MXR Phase 90's) with both S/C and 'buckers without any issues, same with wah.

Boosts/dirt is a little different as some are meant for massive high-gain scooped sound which (usually) sound better with a humbucker, some are low-mid gain which sound better with singles.

The individual player has the biggest say on how these sound, I know I tend to hit the strings pretty hard, so even a low-mid gain pedal sounds pretty beefy.

 

shaunm

I agree, playing dynamics have a lot to do with it. It's not that the phase and what don't sound good, they do but they don't sound as good. Something about the lower amount of mids in a strat that makes the phase and wah shine to my ears.

samzadgan

The main thing i have found is that fuzz sounds better with my p90's and distortion sounds better with humbuckers

shaunm

I've just found out my P90 epiphone Sheraton sounds great with a Fuzzface

Corvus

I do find different guitars/pups like different pedals. Especially drive pedals, which is my reason/excuse for changing them around often. At least in part I think it might be what kind of ground you want to cover. I want open drive with a tight percussive bottom end, which shows up differences pretty quick, where consistently good fuller distortion is easier to get across the guitars.
Sometimes it's surprising, like I have two different types of Filtertron here and it can be totally night & day how they behave on the same pedal.

joeyowen

The biggest difference isn't guitars, but how hot your pickups are

Take a phase 90, with single coils it's a nice pedal but with a HH setup, you can find it starts to clip and a little bit of gain will creep in, which can be undesirable.  Same could be said for Wah pedals, which is why some have adjustable body controls or trim pots.

Drive pedals too, you are going to get a clipp'ier (if that's a word) sound with hot pickups, because there is more signal coming into the circuit.

I have a strat and an LP, and I do have to make adjustments when I switch over, or use the volume control on the LP a little more than usual

crunchman

joeyowen said:

The biggest difference isn't guitars, but how hot your pickups are

This.

It's especially true of drive pedals where you want a light crunch.

Jeremiah

I would say that most of my pedals work better with single coil guitars than humbuckers, but I'm slowly being forced to conclude that I just don't like humbuckers very much.

Corvus

I find it's more than how hot the pups are, for instance one pedal (5F6) sounds very nasal with a fuzzy soft bottom end, with one variety of Filtertron, yet another variety is sharp and spanky at the same settings. In terms of amount of drive, output definitely makes a big difference, but in tone & response there's more to it.

Voxman

shaunm said:

I have a strat and a modded epi Sheraton that I use. Both are great blues guitars however the epi I find is not as well suited to phase pedals as the strat. The strat also seems to work very well with a wah. The Epi seems to react really well to boost and OD pedals, the tone becomes really thick and creamy

@shaunm - I have an Epi Sheraton II and upgraded the pups to Seymour Duncan SH1 '59's which I really like, so was just wondering what mods you've done to your Epi Sheraton?

shaunm

@voxman I have put BK Mississippi queens in mine, I've also changed the switches and pots yo better quality gear. Other than that a good set up and a set of 11 Elixir strings and the jobs a good un.

57Deluxe

Oh yes - the Dano Cool Cat Drive is perfect with a Les Paul but not so great witha Strat. Howvwer, the Cool Cat transparent Drive is fantastic with the Strat and is OK with the LP, but the drive is better - more Marshall... the Transparent drive, more Fender