Your best and worst pedal hot takes? 🔥

vigilante398 said:
Sounds like you need some new mics, my dude.

I had been recording direct and using plugins for amp sim and cab sim for years because "it's so easy to get a great sound." Then I invested in a set of Cascade Fathead II ribbons mics. SM57 up close with a Fathead a few inches back and slightly off-axis instantly sounded better than anything I had done previously, without even adding EQ or compression.

Nowadays I've starting using an Aston Stealth instead of the SM57, and I've added a small diaphragm condenser a couple feet back to get some more "air" from the room.
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I love my set of Fatheads! Two or three feet in from on the cab will definitely get you that "amp in a room" sound...you'd better like the sound of your room, though.
 
Hmm. I am not a youngster, but I may be an outlier in re amplifiers. It's my roots, though. I am a synth guy first, and FRFR (more or less) is the amp I've had for 40 years - a Peavey KB100. It's not pristine, it's loud when I want it, but keyboards don't necessarily want that tube sound. Except when they do, and that's why I started building pedals. I also have been DAW first for 25 years (about as soon as Digital Performer came along), but I appreciate real knobs too.
To not be a total outcast, though, I bought a used '82 Peavey 212 Classic a month ago. I now have a hybrid (SS Pre, Tube Power) amp that can, in fact, make my electric guitar scream. And I have NEVER turned it on when my wife is home, because I don't play it quietly.
 
Nostradoomus said:
If I don’t feel it in my stomach and/or balls I don’t feel it.
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same.

before i knew better, i grabbed a cheap $100 bugera power soak as a remedy to playing tube heads through a 4x12 in a very small room (3x3.3m).
this served well, especially when i was heavily into modifying a 2204 JCM800 kit build and trying all the typical mods, and probably saved myself a fair bit of hearing damage.
then i decided i deserved a nice reactive load box.
i ended up getting a Fryette Power Station 100.
it’s heckin awesome, and incredible what it can do (i did look at the oxbox, but wasn’t really into paying extra for UAs IRs that im not gonna use).
initially i was stoked with how you can make an amp even more beast with the ‘depth’ and ‘presence’ type toggle switches. basically makes up for all the EQ undesirables when playing at lower volumes and gives you that extra control.

having said that, to echo some of the sentiments above, despite how cool the power station is, nothing sounds (or feels) better than the amp straight into the speaker cabinet and letting ‘er rip (within reason).

i had plans for all this shit i was gonna do with all this convenience.
but idk what happened, i just don’t really use it anymore.

to be fair, having a good master volume makes a really big difference.
my 40w and 50w builds have very spiky and annoying MV controls and always feel too loud.
my 100w SLO kit build is a dream. such an easy MV control. i think that might have a lot to do with it.
 
The Fryette Power Station is bad ass. I considered that and the Waza Tube Amp Expander before getting the OX Boxes. I just didn't want to get an amp for my amp, but I understand the use cases. 150W RMS or more was a requirement and not all get that high (but these three do).

The OX Box works for me because I am really heavily invested in post amp effects. I want nearly all my modulations, delays, reverbs after the power amps. I am also a synth guy (Access Virus Ti2 forever). I stopped playing guitar for quite a while but came back for certain (heavy) sounds. My rig runs into my drum machine, a Analog Rytm Mk II, so it can hit the analog compressor for glue in there. But before the Rytm it goes into a NABC+ stereo sidechain analog compressor so I can do those big sidechained effects where the kick drum is swallowing the universe. I want that to happen in real time, not just as recording post effect.

It's really Mick Gordon's fault I am back into guitars. The video for BFG Division made pause and consider that perhaps I needed that dirty girl back in my life.

 
jcpst said:
The Mick Gordon stuff is cool. But what were all the extra strings for on that guitar?
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I bet they ring out sympathetically and add to the beautiful cacophony. On my Ibanez neck thru baritone that's in Drop B I have a dampener up on the head to help stop that haha.

This guy is another inspiration for me:


I would love to get into DIY custom controllers etc. Maybe after I've built every pedal and every amp.
 
All these new releases lately having me feeling like the gear industry is lost. First up is the whole artist signature models. Joe B has like a million signature models of pedals, amps and guitars for a guy who claims gear doesn't matter. So he gets a guitar and amp release. Fender releasing a non fender parts guitar for Tom Morello is major clown energy.

Why is lovetone coming back? Who is that for? All the people who would have used that 30 years ago are using digital stuff that's way less musical and convoluted. The JHS muff 2 that sounds like, a muff, is very on brand. The strymon Fairfax also feels like every boutique drive the past decade, like a wet duck with a piezo on its ass after taco Tuesday.

Mainly it feels like all the gear is made for wannabe social media guitar influencers aura farming dopamine for likes on 30 second reels. I'm officially in my "I hate gear" phase I guess. This is why there are no new rock bands, just whinny emo, indie atmospheric noise nonsense.
 
Blackboarcult said:
Amen to that. And while we're at it:

I love distortion, that's the only thing I care about, really... But I freakin hate distortion pedals, and I freakin hate AIABs.

In the last years I might have breadboarded 50? 70? distortion pedals, not a single one has passed muster. There is always something wrong with the mids, or it sounds too fizzy or too muffled or too congested or too fake in a way that can't be dialed out with its own controls or the TMB of my Bandit's clean channel. Yes, I can enjoy playing thru them for a bit, yes, some of them are brilliantly designed or cleverly voiced, but none has sounded good enough to qualify as a tone I'd like to record through, much less build, because I'm lazy. I'd rather use my puny Laney TI15, which is not my ideal tone but still sounds nicer, more natural.

It has taken me far longer than I care to admit to understand the importance of voicing and how pedals couple to an amp, and it is only when I simulated my amp on Spice and figured out how to "defeat" its inherent voicing with an external circuit that I started coming up with distortion designs that I ACTUALLY love and play through, and that sound right to me. Only then I can tailor the mids to have the TMB of my amp react more or less like the amp I am trying to ape, or reduce the upper-frequency hump so it doesn't sound like someone is squeezing a horse's testicles with pliers. But here's the catch - those are voiced to MY amp. It is virtually impossible to design a pedal that will sound like a JCM through a Princeton AND thru an AC15 AND thru a Sunn Coliseum, no matter how many idiotic/finicky/counter-intuitive knobs you add to the sucker.

There have been dozens of own designs and mods or riffs on an existing design that I have considered sharing, but I haven't done so because of that. A fella 10.000 km away will build it, run it thru the clean channel of his Traynor or Matchless or whathaveyou, it will not sound as intended, and disappointment will ensue because, through his rig, it won't be what I described it as. I'm far too self-conscious for that.

Yes, of course, you have full-fledged preamp pedals, defeat the amp's own preamp and run it through the effects loop, Bob's your uncle, but then what's the point of having a clean channel that I love, and what's the point of having an amp at all, just get a Pedal Baby or a Mooer or whatever, or just run it through Cubase, IRs and other assorted devilish gear that makes our lives more complicated by giving us exactly what we want.

Biggest lie in the industry? "...ALL THE WAY TO HOT-RODDED MARSHALL TONES". 'kay mate, but through which amp?

There, I said it, now please feel free to roast me for my subjective opinion :p:p:p
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Parametric mid controls and undistorted amp.

If the amp TS is passive, set controls near minimum.
 
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