Lead Guitar effects

[Moonshield]

Hey all. I'm wondering if anybody has any suggestions for good pedals to use for guitar leads and solos? I'm currently using Boss's Metal Zone pedal and I love the sound I can get out of it, but I wanted to try and spice up the solos a little. I tried an Ibanez auto-wah pedal but when I combined it with the Metal Zone, the wah effect was so subtle that it was pretty much useless. The pedal only served to take a little of the 'edge' away from the sound of the Boss pedal. So, if you use the Metal Zone pedal along with any other pedals, what do you find gives you the best sounds on the higher strings?

 

[Nostalgiaplatz]

People usually use Chorus/Delay fx to add some texture when soloing and to allow it to cut through the mix. I don't use distortion pedals, so I can't help more than this.

As for wha, remember that wha are meant to be the first in your effects chain, like this:

Guitar -> [ tuner ] -> wha -> [{ effects chain }] -> amp/preamp

What string gauge are you using? 0.11 and up start losing the "screaming" in the high notes

 

[DownedMysery]

Since you have the boss Metal Zone, you would prolly like the Chours Ensamble and Reverb pedal, they will add a lot more texture/sustain to your leads/solos, and also a noise suppressor pedal will help clean up the sound a little.

T.C. Electronsics makes one of the Best Chours Pedals

~Shane

 

[sonofhendrix13]

Ugh, I absolutely hate the metal-zone, its a tone sucker. Maybe thats because I'm not playing as much metal anymore though. If you want good wah you should go for the real thing, autowahs don't have the punch that you can get by controlling the wah manually.

 

[TheDarkProject]

My short answer is that you can't beat chorus. A subtle chorus doesn't seem to alter the lead sound on its own all that much, but it makes it cut through the mix like you wouldn't believe. I presume this is from all the high freqency harmonics that get added.

 

[Dushan S]

Chorus can be interesting with lead sound, 80's witnessed a lot of chorused leads, but compressing sound adds harmonics, like it is case with compressor or any kind of distortion or overdrive.
Chorus is modulation effect, and that is family of effects base on doubling sound and then detuning, od making doubled sound slightly late etc. Phaser, flanger and chorus are all based on similar idea. So it is not amplifying harmonics.