What are the pedals every guitarist must have?

[Feral Feline]

FF FFS

You rang?


Cheers,
FF

 

[kristopher]

My must haves are a Reverb and a Tremolo. Cause my amps don’t have either.
When I gigged with a Fender Twin, an Overdrive was my must have.
I took the tuner off my board a few years ago. As I couldn’t trust the TC electronics tactile switch. After the switch on my Ditto started to fail, I knew the Polytune switch was next.
I use a clip on now.

 

[jcpst]

The other thing I use my tuner for is a kill switch.

If I could only use 1 non-tuner pedal, it would be the mercurial. Drives my amp in an excellent way plus the semi-parametric EQ

 

[giovanni]

Tuner, overdrive, octave down, envelope filter, phaser, dimension C, analog delays (I would say 5 but you can get away with 4), hall reverb, amp tremolo.

Edit: you may want a phaser before and one after the drive. Or a vibe first and phaser after. And for the drive, try a Klon, TS, Bluesbreaker, Dumble style and choose the ones you like best. Also I use a digital hall reverb because I’m not a fan of spring reverb. I don’t use fuzz most of the time but I think all guitarists should try one. Or two dozens. Oh and same thing for distortion.

What’s on your pedalboard? Wait, what are we doing?

 

[Noodles]

Tuner, OD. If the amp does not have tremolo and reverb, add a tremolo and delay. Done. Of course, my board has more and I’m constantly switching ODs…but, not necessary, just for fun.

 

[Alan W]

It’s so dependent on what type of music you play, and if it’s with others, what instruments they’re playing. I’m solo 95% of the time. And I have been enjoying a way over the top number of pedals—like enough so that 2 CIOKs DC7s ran out of juice. Then, just 2 weeks ago, I decided to pare it down to bare minimum. (And have really been enjoying it,)

tuner / volume pedal / boost-compressor / chorus / delay.

My amp has great reverb and a bias style tremelo–otherwise I’d absolutely want a trem pedal. Part of me misses having serveral gain stages (heck, I’ve been running 3 different delays, in different locations, on my big set up), but there is a slightly more immediate sound to everything. And, it’s less easy to get lost chasing a weird sound when you limit your options.

 

[usernamename]

I meant specific pedals (timmy, ocd, bigsky etc), not pedal type.

Some kind of volume pedal is always useful. I run mine pregain so it can both swell and control distortion.

Bluesbreaker based pedals are really useful. right now my whole drive section is a jhs morning glory and a wampler pantheon. Both bluesbreaker derivatives and both of which have PCBs available here. With them together its basically a more versatile king of tone without magical diodes (if they even matter).

Chorus has always been my go to for modulation. Walrus Julia, Redwitch Empress, EHX small clone.

are there volume pedals that dont suck tone?
How do the morning glory and pantheon compare/sound to the boss blues driver?

Tuner, overdrive, octave down, envelope filter, phaser, dimension C, analog delays (I would say 5 but you can get away with 4), hall reverb, amp tremolo.

Edit: you may want a phaser before and one after the drive. Or a vibe first and phaser after. And for the drive, try a Klon, TS, Bluesbreaker, Dumble style and choose the ones you like best. Also I use a digital hall reverb because I’m not a fan of spring reverb. I don’t use fuzz most of the time but I think all guitarists should try one. Or two dozens. Oh and same thing for distortion.

What’s on your pedalboard? Wait, what are we doing?

oh man thats a lot.
i cant afford a klon, are there any clones? :snickers:
but srsly, is a klon better than say an ocd or similar?
I'm trying to learn which pedals are the ones worth building, becaus there are so many options you dont know where to start.

Does anyone know if jhs going to release a totallynotaprcampaignnotanotadumbledumble

 

[Aentons]

The switch to turn on the built in distortion

 

[Einzeln]

I meant specific pedals (timmy, ocd, bigsky etc), not pedals

You have to build them all to know what you like. And then keep building.

 

[Markus Kersius]

Boss SD-1 for sure.
With R10 bridged and a blue led.

 

[PunchySunshine]

are there volume pedals that dont suck tone?

VPM-1 Volume Pedal Mod for Ernie Ball Volume Pedals - Zeppelin Design Labs

Feature-rich volume pedal upgrade mod. Digitally controlled ananlog signal path. Available as DIY kit or ready-to-play.

zeppelindesignlabs.com

 

[jcpst]

How do the morning glory and pantheon compare/sound to the boss blues driver?

The morning glory and parthenon are both blues breaker derivatives, and the blues driver is a different circuit from those. As far as the build, the PPCB cobalt drive layout is for 1/8w resistors and has no SMD pads for the J201s. The morning glory and parthenon are simpler builds.

And now to get super scientific. I think the blues driver is “woolier” and sounds ok at lower levels gain settings. As far as the blues breakers, I’ve only ever used the Protein pedal blue channel. I would call it “crispier”

 

[JTEX]

Brake pedal and gas pedal. Optionally a clutch.

 

[Alan W]

VPM-1 Volume Pedal Mod for Ernie Ball Volume Pedals - Zeppelin Design Labs

Feature-rich volume pedal upgrade mod. Digitally controlled ananlog signal path. Available as DIY kit or ready-to-play.

zeppelindesignlabs.com

Yeah, that’s the one! I never thought I’d want more friction in my pedal. (He gives directions on how to add a bit of drag.) Squeak free, multiple pot curve simulations, limiters, the works.

 

[Guardians of the analog]

Besides a tuner, a good simple delay pedal and a simple TS/SD-1 style as a boost will get you 90% of the tones you need to rock.

 

[PunchySunshine]

Yeah, that’s the one! I never thought I’d want more friction in my pedal. (He gives directions on how to add a bit of drag.) Squeak free, multiple pot curve simulations, limiters, the works.

Yeh yeh, it's Jedi level zero friction fo sho!

 

[Paradox916]

Besides a tuner, a good simple delay pedal and a simple TS/SD-1 style as a boost will get you 90% of the tones you need to rock.View attachment 98519

We can build a bunch of pedals but almost always seem to circle back to exactly this. assuming one has a decent amp/preamp.

 

[HamishR]

Some good suggestions, but all assume that we want to sound like you! This sounds more like "what is your favourite pedal?".

For example I don't mind the Rat but it never worked terribly well in my rockabilly band. Same for the Tubescreamer - well, that never worked in any band I played in. Never played in a band where a fuzz worked. Wah? I'll never play in a band where that worked! Compressor? Never found a use for it yet.

Some folks don't even use a tuner. The Beatles didn't use them. I suspect they might have if they'd been available to them though! Plenty of bands I have seen over the years who seemed not to have a tuner.

I have plenty of pedals I love, but I'd never say any of them are "must haves". Only if you want to sound like me. And that's something I struggle with daily, so good luck!

 

[MattG]

I’d say the Boss BD-2 isn’t necessarily a must have but a rite of passage. I’m assuming most people who ever took more than a passing interest in pedals have experienced a BD-2. So if nothing else, it makes sort of a common touchstone among pedal enthusiasts.

There’s no shortage of folks for whom the BD-2 is all they need, including famous guitarists and pros.

It’s not my favorite by any means, but I could make it work if it was my only option. It’s fairly versatile, being at least ok at a number of things. Really good at volume knob cleanup and pretty good IMO at the dirty boost/edge of breakup thing. Fairly neutral EQ.

 

[DailyDovetails]

I'm going to say an EQ preferably 2 of them one before the preamp and one after. I keep wanting to use all these other overdrive and distortion pedals but finding this with a 2 channel amp does pretty much everything i want.