What pedal/effect-type exerted the biggest change in your playing? - Take 2

[Mark Hammer]

I was going through a directory of technical documents, which also included saved PDF versions of threads here from previous years.  I stumbled onto this one from 2006.  And since we have 23876 members now, and 5325 members then, and so many more new and different kinds of effects, not to mention interfaces and controller options, I figured it was ripe for restarting.  I suppose the impetus also comes from watching a brief video of Adrian Belew on the Guitar Player site last night, giving the run-down on his current rig, and extolling the virtues of things he has now that have made big differences in his playing.  That, and the possibility that some of you have acquired something over the holiday period.

If you answered it back then, do not feel any need to answer it again, unless you feel you have since had some sort of gear epiphany and revised your view, or feel it would be useful to present your experience once again.

here goes.....

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Sometimes, you try a pedal, and it makes you do a double-take. I don't mean that it sounds
so good, or that it perfects something you had only been able to do poorly before. Rather, I
mean you plug in and you find yourself playing stuff, or thinking about what you'll play in a
fundamentally different way. You have to change how you think about the instrument. You
have to learn new ways of doing things. You have to grow. For some folks, it might be as
simple as a wah and syncing their phrasing with a tone change, or even just using digital
reverb with a long decay and giving notes time to breath. For others it might be the first time
they ever used a delay that went longer than 300msec and made them need to think about
layering whole phrases in a call-and-response way. For others, it might be the first time they
had to think about a sequenced/stepped/time-synced effect, like one of Zachary Vex's Seek
pedals, or the Adrenalinn. For still others, it might be the first pedal they ever used that involved
generating something atonal and dissonant, like a ring modulator.

So here's a question for everyone. What effect, whether category, or simply brand/model,
struck you as changing how you approached your own playing, or how you played with other
people, giving it a real whack on the side of the head? What was it that you needed to start
thinking about differently? What did it add to your skill arsenal as a musician?

Again, I don't want endorsements or testimonials of quality. I want to know what the pedal
changed in YOU, and why.

[LucifersTrip]

fuzz

[bsmcc2010]

Digital delay-to be specific when i got my TC electronic nova delay

It was one of my first purchases when i started building a pedal board of effects, and one of the best ones i ever made. I'd never used delay before, and i realised how many new possibilities there were. I use it for all sorts of things now-rhythmic delay like The Edge from U2 or Hillsong United, or as an ambient kind of effect. Just that fact that in one pedal i could go from fast rhythmic digital delays all the way to slow reverse delays that had the voice of an analogue or tape delay-or anywhere in between-was amazing.

It definitely changed the way i play guitar, although sometimes i can get caught up in using delay too much and playing too little.

Ah well i love it!

[garcho]

delay - Instead of strumming chords, or plucking riffs, using delay opened up a whole new world of textures for my guitar playing. Bravo a Echo Base!

vibe - I use a BBE Soul Vibe frequently, which makes my guitar sound a bit like an organ. I've noticed when I play with that pedal engaged, I let long tones ring out, I play simpler chord voicings, and generally emphasize timbre rather than rhythm or melody. Using my homemade Tremulus Lune does the same thing.

+1 @ charmonder

[charmonder]

envelope based effects! I love them. Even for just envelope filter, its so nice on guitar how you can hand control your envelope shapes whereas synth you kinda have to get more conniving about making these things happen.

[Keppy]

Biggest one for me wasn't a pedal, but my first tube amp: a MESA/Boogie Subway Rocket.

[FlyingZ]

TS9 as tube amp boost for leads. The secondary effect is the dirt rhythm stays low distortion not good for leads but really brings out nuances of distorted chords. Figured this out 30 years ago and it's still my only must have pedal for gigs. TS9 still holds this spot after trying almost everything imaginable.

[Earthscum]

I was a "purist" with my bass, for the most part, until my drummer gave me his ex's DS-1. Ever since then, I've been a bit more of a fixture in the rougher parts of town.

[Ry]

Boss ps-2 on the slow downwards detune setting with feedback.  I was inspired to write a load of songs based around that sound. It changed my approach to playing music for years.  This was in the mid to late 90's.  It sounds very dated to me now.

[chaz]

Boss DD-3 and all delay pedals there after.

There's something about the delay effect that adds texture, depth and syncopation to your style. Also, learning how to incorporate it tastefully into song writing was challenging (fun) for me.

[Tony Forestiere]

I would have to say - dirt pedals
   I am a hack/bedroom guy that plays guitar (not a guitarist) for my own enjoyment. Heck, I couldn't pay people to listen to my crappy Pentatonic noodling. For about ten years I played with no effects in an attempt to get my fretting as clean and crisp as I possibly could. I have a sick philosophy that each and every single note breathes life and death at the player's whim.
   Back in the day, I purchased an EHX BMP that I plugged in and immediately loathed. Way too loud and gainy for what I thought a Fuzz should sound like. (I was really stupid about effects, and probably still am). I couldn't control anything about it, and the Tone knob made it sound like hornets screaming in my ears, or total mud.
  In the past couple of years, I started using an unmodified Boss DS-1 as a buffered/slightly dirty boost into the BMP kicking a Boss DD-3 delay for a fatness effect. The DS-1 I have doesn't sound bad to me, but I am not driving the distortion; I am just using it as a unity gain boost/buffer into the BMP. That alone seems to allow a vast degree of "touch sensitivity" on the BMP that I did not find available as a stand alone device. Call me crazy, but I like what I hear, and my notes are pleasing to me. The fatness imparted by the DD-3 is just a bit of icing on the cake.

[bwanasonic]

Well the cheating answer is "all of them"! My first pedal was a Thomas Organ Cry-Baby stereo fuzz-wah, circa 1975. I didn't own a guitar or an amp, and was playing a borrowed Guild Starfire through hifi receivers into homemade cabs. A little later added script Dyna-Comp and Phase 90 into a Peavey Backstage 30. Next big change was an Alesis Microverb. As someone else mentioned though, probably the biggest change came from playing tube amps.

[Mark Hammer]

Well the cheating answer is "all of them"! My first pedal was a Thomas Organ Cry-Baby stereo fuzz-wah, circa 1975. I didn't own a guitar or an amp, and was playing a borrowed Guild Starfire through hifi receivers into homemade cabs. A little later added script Dyna-Comp and Phase 90 into a Peavey Backstage 30. Next big change was an Alesis Microverb. As someone else mentioned though, probably the biggest change came from playing tube amps.

Just for the hell of it, and certainly not to take any jabs, here's what you said in 2006:

#1 Turning off the Dyna-Comp. I used the DC in *always on* mode for years.
#2 Envelope Filter. This ties in with #1 in my rediscovery of dynamics. A great exercise is
playing scales, etc. with the envelope filter (turn the sensitivity down a bit), striving for a
consistent triggering of the filter on each note.
I probably should renumber these and put wah at #1, as that was really my first effect ( I
bought a wah before I even properly owned a guitar!).

[Earthscum]

I was a "purist" with my bass, for the most part, until my drummer gave me his ex's DS-1. Ever since then, I've been a bit more of a fixture in the rougher parts of town.

... I played with no effects in an attempt to get my fretting as clean and crisp as I possibly could. I have a sick philosophy that each and every single note breathes life and death at the player's whim.

That's exactly it. I wouldn't touch an effect because I was so stuck on technique (and I still can't read music or name any scales after 23 years). Once I sat down and played a bit, I modified my DS-1, and have been running mad effects on my bass since then. I figured out new techniques, and it brought back a new life to my playing. I was heading down the road of non-inspirational mass produced Velvet Elvis posters as far as my "originality" was concerned. I also refused to play Primus, but now... ok, maybe something from Mr. Oysterhead... 

[bwanasonic]

Well the cheating answer is "all of them"! My first pedal was a Thomas Organ Cry-Baby stereo fuzz-wah, circa 1975. I didn't own a guitar or an amp, and was playing a borrowed Guild Starfire through hifi receivers into homemade cabs. A little later added script Dyna-Comp and Phase 90 into a Peavey Backstage 30. Next big change was an Alesis Microverb. As someone else mentioned though, probably the biggest change came from playing tube amps.

Just for the hell of it, and certainly not to take any jabs, here's what you said in 2006:

#1 Turning off the Dyna-Comp. I used the DC in *always on* mode for years.
#2 Envelope Filter. This ties in with #1 in my rediscovery of dynamics. A great exercise is
playing scales, etc. with the envelope filter (turn the sensitivity down a bit), striving for a
consistent triggering of the filter on each note.
I probably should renumber these and put wah at #1, as that was really my first effect ( I
bought a wah before I even properly owned a guitar!).

Awesome Mark! I'm quite tickled that anyone would recall my ramblings from 5 years ago! As much as turning the Dyna-Comp off was a revelation, my initial discovery of compression / limiting was equally game-changing. The Ibanez CS-505 chorus was a big part of my sound for years.

[Jonny Perez]

Going broke. Sold my stacks and pedals to make rent.. down to two acoustics and my Chinese les Paul. Made me play rhythm harder, playing less stupid solos.. man I'm humbled, but I miss every amp I've ever owned.. namely a peavey jsx. So yeah, having no pedals has made me focus more on music and overcoming mistakes. Now I "own" my style and play with a real kind of ferocity. Watch out.

[Quackzed]

octaves! down or up. or maybee more specifically, circuits that can emulate other instruments. playing through these monophonic type circuits makes me want to play guitar like it IS another instrument.
simle oct up, shocktave, oc-2, jawari all have their individual 'flavor' of how they warp the guitar into something resembling another instrument
and require some getting used to as well as require different playing adjustments, just like a different instrument.
tones that resemble trumpets, sitars, lo-fi synths, organs, tubas etc. have helped me tune into the mentality of say a trumpet player or a sitar player. the fact that some of the mentioned schematics are somewhat simple and imperfect in their 'impressions' of other instruments may actually be helpfull in this regard. they make you play the guitar like a sitar player might in order to get closer to that kind of sound, and you start to play 'sitar' type phrases and scales...

[cathexis]

Ok, here's a confession. For years and years I've only played through pod-style amp simulators, rationalizing about apartment life, sleeping kids, unforgiving spouses and the like. Just recently I started to play through amps (with real people ), and discovered *feedback* Now there's an eye-opener! Yesterday I ran an LP with high output EMG:s through a Tone Bender into a tiny MicroCube amp (still careful around the apartment) and made squeals for hours. You can PLAY the feedback!! Who knew?! Well, one that knows is Erika Anderson, check out her 16 minute cover of "Kind Hearted Woman" here: http://soundcloud.com/thequietus/ema-kind-heart True feedback bliss!
LARS

[dennism]

The Univox Superfuzz.   In the 70's, I got a guitar and an ultra clean, ultra cheap solid state amp from the Sears catalog, but I really wanted to sound like the Ramones.   Obviously, I just couldn't get any sounds like theirs from my amp.  After a few months, my brother got the Superfuzz pedal and then a little light bulb went on over my head and I could (sort of) sound like Johnny Ramone!

I envy kids today that can start with something like a Roland MicroCube and have all those sounds available for dirt cheap...

[newfish]

Pretty much anything boosting a tube amp.

Have tried and built a few, from Rangemasters to Tubescreamers.

Nothing beats that 'push' of an already over-driven amp, for me.

It's not a sound you can use every day, unless you're blessed with 24/7 rehearsal space, but it's *bliss* to hear an amp really sing.