If you said, "A line from the song Summer of '69, by Bryan Adams, released in 1984," you get 15 bonus points. If you said, "I remember you talking about your first electric guitar, Jim, and saying it made your fingers bleed," you get an additional 10 bonus points for remembering stuff that I tend to forget. Or, maybe try to forget?
While setting up at Mark's yesterday, he handed me a multi-effects pedal and said, "Give this a try today - let me know what you think."
For those readers who aren't guitar players, you plug your guitar into this pedal, then run a line out to an amp or PA. This pedal will simulate different amps, speaker cabinets, and effects, giving you far more options than a typical pedalboard set up with a variety of individual effects pedals.
A month or so ago, I was reading that "guitar amplifiers are becoming a thing of the past, depending on the venue." Oh, you'll still need an amp for practicing and playing at small venues that don't have a sound system. But, if you are playing someplace like the theater at MIM, you could walk in with your guitar (or use one of theirs) and this pedal, and the sound guy will hand you a line to go from the pedal, and you are ready to go. Well, after a sound check. And for the record: most guitar players prefer to use a guitar that is familiar to them.
If you are still using an amp or a smaller PA, the pedal can make your guitar sound like a vast number of amplifiers and dozens of effects (like reverb, chorus, flanger, wah pedal, distortion, over-drive, etc, etc). If you've listened close, some guitar players have a "signature sound," usually having to do with a particular tone. Or, you may want a clean, mellow sound for one song, and a "crunchy" tone for the next. And then something that sounds "airy" (with reverb and a flanger) for the next. And... you get the idea.
I was impressed. Mark said, "Take it home and give it a real shake-down."
I did. And today, I spent hours trying it with different guitars and amps. It is impressive; especially for the price. My fingers are sore. I also spent time going through the User Manual for this. You could spend WAY too much time listening to over 50 amp simulations, then pairing that with another 50 different speaker cabinets, and then try permutations of about 60 different effects on each of those. If my math is correct, that's about 150,000 options. The thought of wading through all that makes my head hurt.
Realistically, most players with find a dozen or so amp/cabinet/effects combinations they like and set that up so you can get to them pretty quick with the foot switches.
When I last looked at any of these multi-effects pedals, the costs were about 4 to 10 times the cost of this unit. Yes, it is considered an entry-level pedal, and as such, it doesn't have a lot of the bells and whistles (like a touch screen and the ability to easily assign a selection to a foot switch). "You mean, like 150,000 options isn't enough??" LOL Coming from a guy who has used only a few pedals over the years" yeah, this is more than enough options.
I did run this through three different amps, my small PA, and with 3 different guitars - I could get a good sound easily. I had to chuckle, though, when it made my small Marshall amp sound like a Fender Twin Reverb. (Guitar players will get a kick out of that previous sentence.)
When playing an acoustic guitar, most players would like the plugged in sound to be as close as possible to the pure acoustic sound. That isn't easy to do. I have used an acoustic "tone shaping" pedal for years. And for the record, an amp made for acoustic guitars has a very different tone from an amp made for electric guitars. With an electric guitar, selecting the right amp is what gets a player to the sound they prefer. You may have seen photos of the guitars I play... I also have different amps to use for the particular circumstances.
Will I add one of these to the gear I use? We'll see. I may need to let my fingers have a break... but, I have music with my local guys tomorrow.
