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Post by Pete aka shouldb on Nov 18, 2014 9:22:41 GMT -7
I have been introduced online to the Sonuus Wahoo, which looks like it could be a VERY interesting pedal shop.sonuus.com/product_info.php?products_id=30&osCsid=41371412f8af84f6f134e59cf7f5baddIt combines wah, envelope filters and pitch bending in an interesting package, with proper analogue signal paths and digital control. I like it so far. BUT, when you look at their sales pitch videos, all they talk about is how INCREDIBLY complex and vast it is - THOUSANDS of sounds, all of which are INFINITELY adjustable, with HUNDREDS of presets, and all of which are INFINITELY adjustable....... Patch bay this, USB that, MIDI the other, blah, blah blah. I'll tell you what..... when a maker of digital stuff for the guitarist actually gives me something I can understand, AS A GUITARIST, not an engineer, which gives me something akin to a Michelin Star restaurant menu, not a 30 page "food assembly" place menu, and does those few things REALLY well, THEN I'll pay attention and give it a go............ Someone really needs to explain their potential customer base to them, because I just lost interest completely.......
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Post by southmusic70 on Nov 18, 2014 11:32:44 GMT -7
Pete, the fact that some of Dr. Z's most sought after amps have three or fewer controls on them says that a lot of the kind of digital complexity you are describing may not even come close to being utilized - or really even need to exist, for that matter.
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Post by djbrothers on Nov 18, 2014 11:57:48 GMT -7
Couldn't agree more. I wanted an all-in-one modulation unit so I grabbed a Strymon Mobius. Sounds great, recreates just about every sound imaginable, but I may have to get a degree in something other than Commerce to figure out how to use it properly.
THIS is why I love the Ray more and more every day...
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2014 12:06:20 GMT -7
Doc asked us if we wanted on board digital reverb at one of the Z-Fests. The answer that afternoon was a clear 'no'.
Every time you are going through a digital pedal you are going through 2 convertors. One A to D and then the other D to A. In a pedal that costs from 100 to 400 bucks I can tell you those convertors are not 'good'.
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Post by Jefferson on Nov 18, 2014 12:46:07 GMT -7
Doc asked us if we wanted on board digital reverb at one of the Z-Fests. The answer that afternoon was a clear 'no'. Every time you are going through a digital pedal you are going through 2 convertors. One A to D and then the other D to A. In a pedal that costs from 100 to 400 bucks I can tell you those convertors are not 'good'. thats a lot better than what i was going to say...
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Post by Pete aka shouldb on Nov 18, 2014 16:03:41 GMT -7
Doc asked us if we wanted on board digital reverb at one of the Z-Fests. The answer that afternoon was a clear 'no'. Every time you are going through a digital pedal you are going through 2 convertors. One A to D and then the other D to A. In a pedal that costs from 100 to 400 bucks I can tell you those convertors are not 'good'. Couldn't agree more............ and yet the digi mob tells us that's a GOOD thing! No, to quote Maestro Walsh, I'm an analogue man.....sorry, analog man, at least as far as my music goes
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Post by jammergreg on Nov 18, 2014 16:24:32 GMT -7
I have been introduced online to the Sonuus Wahoo, which looks like it could be a VERY interesting pedal shop.sonuus.com/product_info.php?products_id=30&osCsid=41371412f8af84f6f134e59cf7f5baddIt combines wah, envelope filters and pitch bending in an interesting package, with proper analogue signal paths and digital control. I like it so far. BUT, when you look at their sales pitch videos, all they talk about is how INCREDIBLY complex and vast it is - THOUSANDS of sounds, all of which are INFINITELY adjustable, with HUNDREDS of presets, and all of which are INFINITELY adjustable....... Patch bay this, USB that, MIDI the other, blah, blah blah. I'll tell you what..... when a maker of digital stuff for the guitarist actually gives me something I can understand, AS A GUITARIST, not an engineer, which gives me something akin to a Michelin Star restaurant menu, not a 30 page "food assembly" place menu, and does those few things REALLY well, THEN I'll pay attention and give it a go............ Someone really needs to explain their potential customer base to them, because I just lost interest completely....... Very Cool! But at the end Not for me either.
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Post by BritInvasion on Nov 18, 2014 17:58:52 GMT -7
I totally agree. They should realize less is more. It just makes it all the more difficult to find the sound you want , and impossible to remember how you got it!
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Post by Maddog on Nov 18, 2014 19:01:20 GMT -7
It's kinda like the complicated instruction manual that comes with each Z amp.......... Oh, wait!!!!!!!
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Post by Pete aka shouldb on Nov 19, 2014 0:14:35 GMT -7
I totally agree. They should realize less is more. It just makes it all the more difficult to find the sound you want , and impossible to remember how you got it! I went through the Line 6 stage, and hated it, and the other guitarist in my last band insisted for years on playing a Line 6 POD of some sort - and he had to have a special playlist at every gig with the POD settings listed so he could remember what sounds he was supposed to be using. He forgot that at one gig, and was just useless all night. As soon as I see those numeric LED displays showing Bank and Number, my heart freezes! I have no trouble dealing with this stuff in other areas of my life (I work in technology for goodness sake!), but when it comes to my guitars, no chance!
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Post by Deleted on Nov 19, 2014 8:06:25 GMT -7
The only digital stuff I've like the sound/ease of use on is From Strymon. I've had 3 of them thusfar, all with great sounds, and a good (and simple) user interface.
Seems like once you start getting into multieffects units, the UI gets more complicated, and the sounds get less useful.
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Post by "Z" Steve on Nov 19, 2014 10:57:31 GMT -7
It took me a long time to conquer the "rack mount" effects, including midi, so I don't need that head ache in a pedal. Minimal knobs on an amp and maybe 4 with a DIP switch on a pedal - that gets me to where playing is a joy and I can now try to remember the signature licks for the next song.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 26, 2014 7:34:12 GMT -7
Digital isn't going to die. It's only going to get better. I have been using the Eventide Timefactor and Space for ages now and I love them. I wouldn't be able to do live what I do without them and the control they offer. And without my programmable MIDI looper I would be tap dancing all night and play a pretty awful set.
Digital works if you know how to use it. And they can sound great for live. Studio on the other hand, I don't even bother with effects other than overdrive. I leave all that for post-production. Let the mix engineer deal with that stuff. Oh, and that's all plug-in based.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 26, 2014 7:57:23 GMT -7
And when you play with a click track and backing tracks, being able to MIDI sync tempo is a life saver!
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Post by benttop (Steve) on Nov 28, 2014 6:05:50 GMT -7
Yeah the Eventide H9 is sounding pretty great here, and with my iPad as the control interface it is sufficiently easy to operate. The one thing I can criticize is the huge number of utterly unusable factory sounds, but those are easily dispatched.
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Post by southmusic70 on Nov 28, 2014 6:40:18 GMT -7
"Utterly unusable"
That sums a lot of it up.
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Post by bloozeman on Nov 29, 2014 9:41:26 GMT -7
they do it as a marketing tactic. To make you believe that if you have just their one pedal that you can get any sound in the world with just that one pedal. Its all about marketing
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Post by Pete aka shouldb on Nov 29, 2014 13:39:02 GMT -7
they do it as a marketing tactic. To make you believe that if you have just their one pedal that you can get any sound in the world with just that one pedal. Its all about marketing And that's my point EXACTLY! In the world of consumer electronics, quantity matters, but in the music world only QUALITY matters, so I think they are missing a huge trick here......... Pick 10 sounds and do them REALLY well, and promote that. Keep the bazillion other sounds in reserve for the computer geeks to play with (no criticism if that's anyone's thing, just not mine). Stop promoting the quantity and focus on the quality....... You can't have it both ways.
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Post by limenine on Nov 29, 2014 14:29:32 GMT -7
^^^ reminds me of the old engine builder's saying: Pick any two: Fast, Strong; Cheap.
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Post by Papa Juan (lanier816) on Dec 2, 2014 9:09:00 GMT -7
I think a lot of digital companies have guys like Adrian Belew, Robert Fripp and Trent Reznor in mind. Some players are like mad scientists with that stuff. I recently picked up a Strymon BlueSky, I had thought for a minute about the BigSky (for options) till I watched the demo, yikes! And on the Line 6 point, I try to steer myself and others as far from that glitchy crap as possible, we had two guitar players at church once that both loved Line 6. One had he pod, it would sound like he was changing radio stations during the song because he wouldn't mute or remember what his settings were. The other guy used the HD foot switcher thing but only utilized the 1987 preset, his tone would've been right at home in Warrnts "Heaven", other Han that he was hell to play with, nothing's worse than a wrong note on a 3 second delay.
I think if you've got a small studio some of these digiproducts can really work. Fractals Axe Effects is pretty awesome, not my style but a great product for sure.
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Post by kustom250 on Dec 2, 2014 10:06:44 GMT -7
they do it as a marketing tactic. To make you believe that if you have just their one pedal that you can get any sound in the world with just that one pedal. Its all about marketing Yes and no. When I worked in a music store the VAST majority of people who bought the digital stuff never left the basement, so having a bunch of sounds WAS exactly what they were looking or. It wasn't a gimmick. If you're not on stage and don't need to worry about getting 2-3 good sounds quickly it's fun to have 2-3 hundred sounds to mess about with. Even a company like Strymon is gonna have most of their gear end up never leaving home. I do have a Line6 M5 on my bass rig and a TC delay on my guitar board....I use exactly 2 presets on the M5 and 1 on the TC. It was fun to mess with them the first few weeks because they had a ton of sounds in them. If I was just fooling around in the basement it would still be fun to play with all the sounds they have. But on my gigging boards I really only have a use for those 3 sounds. So yes it is marketing to some degree. But you might be surprised how many non gigging, no internet posting players who are out their who like messing around with 100 different sounds that don't have any need for a pedal that works on stage.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2014 13:23:17 GMT -7
So I was going to add this part to my earlier response, but decided against it. I've changed my mind now.
Due to having a small child, and less time to get loud with an amp, I recently purchased a brand new Avid 11Rack. It's actually pretty awesome. Tons of amp/cab models, miking options, and all the effects you can fathom. Here's the thing, though: the factory presets are terrible. They all seem to be amp>compressor>distortion>EQ>chorus>flanger>delay>reverb>cab sim, or something similar. Just way too much stuff. Each preset shows off how much the thing can do, rather than what sounds good.
But, you get rid of all that extraneous crap, and go amp>reverb(?)>cab, it actually sounds pretty good. And, I discovered that you can plug your regular pedalboard into the effects loop, and it sounds good! So, I saved two presets: One is a Fender Super into a 4X10, the other a Marshall JTM (I think) into a 4x12. Both sound like what they are, and work great with my pedals.
It's really useful for recording, and I can play plugged in any time now. No, its not like playing a Z, or any other good tube amp (BTW, whoever figures out how to make this tech work properly with the guitar volume knob is going to make a mint), but it works. The sounds actually fit great into recordings, too. Its a whole heck of a lot easier to get this to sit in a mix than a miced amp.
I know we guitar players are typically a conservative lot, but the digi stuff isn't all that bad. I wouldn't want to mess with this onstage, or even at a band practice, though.
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Post by dixiechicken on Dec 5, 2014 7:13:51 GMT -7
DC here! Interesting discussion - lols. Though I agree that having pedals or effects that has hundreds of sounds/settings is way overkill (at least for me) Digital effects in my opinion have a place when i comes to reverb echo flanger chorus and those types of effects. To my ears pedals from T-Rex TC Electronic and like companies - digital ones - are superior to analog dito. As an example I have never liked the spring reverbs in any guitar amplifier I have played. Granted it's debatable if a spring reverb can be considered a pedal (admittedly my experience is sure to be limited compared to many brothers - lol )
I my first bands we were rehearsing in the basement of a school air-raid shelter with concrete walls and floor - the accoustics were horrible. The spring reverbs remind me too much of that - cant stand it - no offense, but there it is Cheers: Dixiechicken!
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