A little advice from some fellow guitarists?

Katabasis

Katabasis

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Sep 24, 2003
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OK, so I've been playing guitar for around 4 years now, and have never yet used a pedal (for an extended period of time). Our band is getting closer to recording and performing live, so I thought I'd pick up a pedal or two.

Any suggestions?

I've heard the Boss metalzones are quite good...I know it's a bit overdone and all, but it IS a classic. Any opinions on this? Our music gets pretty extreme at times, so I would need something fairly powerful (and a little dirty) to give it the right sound. But I don't just want to muffle everything so no one knows what notes I'm hitting.

Anyway, any help would be...well...helpful. And appreciated.

Thanks.
 
Whatever your style is, don't get a metalzone. It's classic because it's so crappy.

You're looking for a distortion pedal?

EDIT:
I recently bought a Zoom Tri-Metal, which is a discontinued model because people didn't believe that Zoom can make quality products and therefore it wasn't a big success. Here are some reviews of the aforementioned D-pedal http://www.harmony-central.com/Effects/Data/ZOOM/TM_01_Tri_Metal-01.html
 
im not really a big fan of pedal distortions. most of the ones that i have tried have smothered the tone of the guitar. i have also never really sat down and tweaked around with one. but, recently i did purchase a boss ps-5 super shifter. this is the coolest little 150 dollar piece of metal that i have ever purchased. i can make some pretty strange sounds. a dd-6 delay is also pretty damn cool.

as far as distortion, i like to stick with on-board. i run my guitar into a line 6 flextone II throught a low gain plexi channel, then out into my extra effects, and into a marshall jcm 2000, and i combine the gain that i get from the two amps. it is a nice smooth distortion, similar to the sound of mikael's guitar on still life.

its all about trial and error, then turning the error into something cool....
 
Metalzones are good for one thing: throwing against the fucking wall in frustration.

No seriously, they sound good for practicing in your bedroom. If you take that piece of shit up on stage with you, you can forget about hearing yourself.

I say fuck distortion pedals. You will never get as good a tone out of em as a good tube amp. They are okay for studio work and "dirtying" up a sound as you said, in which case I would go with something like an Ibanez tube screamer.
 
I personally dont like the sound of distortion pedals either. I did however hear good things about the DigiTech Metal Master. My practice amp is kinda muddy and crappy in the overdrive/distortion department, so I picked up Metal Master a few months ago. I really like it to be honest, theres a diverse range of tones and sounds to it, as opposed to the Boss model. Boss makes nice pedals, but I dont like their distortion pedals. Overall, I'm happy with my DigiTech purchase. You can even emulate the sound of other pedals ( or so they advertise, and it is true to some extent).

But, it's kinda more for those "kickass" riffs, rather than trying to be melodic. Don't expect to get a beautiful sound out of it unless you have it set pretty specifically.

If you're going to get a distortion pedal, I'd definitely do the digitech.
 
KevyCanavan said:
What you want is the Boss GT-6. You will never need another pedal again.
Ask Peter or Mikael!
Click to expand...
Agree.
But it is so expensiv:yell:, here in Austria it is about 559 Euros, which is about 1000 Bucks:D.
You can never be wrong with BOSS mutiple guitar effects processors, just sont play with the MT-2.
I have a Ibanez smashbox, which rocks.
And also The Jekill and Hayde from Visual Sound, this one is really nice because it has two channels, one with Crunchy Gain, and one with more Heavy Distortion, you can also use them both at the same time, which brings you even more opportunities of sound.
 
What kind of gear are you using now? I ask because your sound is only as good as your weakest link. If you're using a shitty amp, a pedal isn't going to help all that much, and in the case of the Metalzone, it might do more harm than good.
 
you want death metal? you want peavey 5150. I have one. It destroys. I put svetlana tubes in the power section. It's a fucking monster. I love it.

I hate pedals...except a rocktron Hush and maybe a digital delay pedal.
 
or a laney, I put JJ tubes in my gh50l and death metal...yes please.

if you really want a versatile pedal though, especially for recording, i'd really look for a gt-6 or even an old gt-3 since they are a lot cheaper. Even a new gt-6 is $399 US, but i'd look on ebay for the best price. Boss stuff doesn't break, might as well get em cheaper.
 
I haven't had much experience (as-in NONE) of playing live so I don't know how my pedal sounds. I've got a little Zoom 606 which suits me down to the ground for playing around in my room, considering I haven't got a big (or good) amp. But what I have been told from other guitarists who've been playing twice as long as me and have had fuckloads of experience of playing live, is that they also prefer to rely on the distortion from the amp itself as distortion in a pedal doesn't sound as heavy live.
 
perhaps the one flaw i've found with the GT-6 (im not a guitarist myself) is that perhaps there's too many options, and you can get carried away with sound effects. Our guitarist got himself a GT-6 and when we're writing songs i'll say 'now play this part realy fucken heavy' and he'll ask which type of distortion sounds best, and sort through 25 different types... its just too much power for one man...
 
Thanks a lot for your help guys.

Yeah, I pretty much thought that amp distortion was the way to go...
so a GT-6 (or 3) may be the way to go effects wise? Cool.
I'll have to check out some prices (as was said earlier, the Australian dollar is on the rise) :)

As to what amp I'm currently using, it's a really old Fender tube amp (from the 'chorus' line), it's pretty damn cool, but not big enough for gigs. I'm thinking of running it through something bigger, maybe a Laney or a Peavey or a Mesa Boogie...I haven't really got around to thinking about it yet, because that purchase won't be for another few months.

And too many options isn't always a bad thing...I mean, I'd prefer too many to too little.
I was looking into getting a dd6 delay, I had heard they were good...but I think I might look further into the GT line.
Any Australians here know of some ballpark prices? Or how easily they are available?
I mean, I'm a uni student, so I get a 10% discount at Macron Music....hopefully they could order one in for me...

Anyhow, thanks alot for all of your help. Any more would be appreciated.
 
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