can guitar effects be used with a keyboard?

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sathyan

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can guitar effects be used with a keyboard? I assume being line level must turn down the volume knob or is there something that does the reverse of a DI box
 
sathyan said:
can guitar effects be used with a keyboard? I assume being line level must turn down the volume knob or is there something that does the reverse of a DI box
Click to expand...

Sure, you can do this. I do it all the time for different sounds. I like to add overdrive to certain things like Rhodes sounds, and I do that with a guitar pedal a lot.
 
I am gonna say...

HELL YEAH! Don't worry about turning down the volume either. If you distort, and you don't like it, then OK, but you won't HURT anything by NOT turning down the volume.

Some guitar effects are great on keys. People mostly think distortion when talking about guitar pedals, but phasers, flangers, choruses and such also work rather well and some of these have their own characteristic and organic sound that you won't find on "studio quality" FX.

So, yeah, hell yeah, go out, get some stompy-stompies and experiment.
 
Aside from tape delays like the Copicat, the MXR Phase 90 has been used by a few people. It was intended for guitar, but works very nicely on keyboards as demonstrated by Manfred Mann on 'The Roaring Silence' and Steve Hackett's band (on Voyage of the Acolyte, for example). Genesis did this a lot as well. For example, Tony Banks also used the Phase 100 as a makeshift Leslie replacement on organ, which is how they got that weird sound on 'Wind and Wuthering'. I preferred the real thing to be honest, but bears mentioning.
The opening sound on 'Return of the Giant Hogweed' which sounds like a guitar is actually Banks again - they fed his Hohner Pianet into a germanium fuzz-box.
 
i had to play electric piano for this bluesy piece at the end of year concert at school, and i put it into my dod fuzz and my crybaby into my vox amp, it was the most beautiful keyboard sound ive ever heard
 
jpmorris said:
Aside from tape delays like the Copicat, the MXR Phase 90 has been used by a few people. It was intended for guitar, but works very nicely on keyboards as demonstrated by Manfred Mann on 'The Roaring Silence' and Steve Hackett's band (on Voyage of the Acolyte, for example). Genesis did this a lot as well. For example, Tony Banks also used the Phase 100 as a makeshift Leslie replacement on organ, which is how they got that weird sound on 'Wind and Wuthering'. I preferred the real thing to be honest, but bears mentioning.
The opening sound on 'Return of the Giant Hogweed' which sounds like a guitar is actually Banks again - they fed his Hohner Pianet into a germanium fuzz-box.
Click to expand...

I used a Phase100 on my DX7 for years! +1 :)
 
mid-century sound

sathyan said:
This is what I'm after: Izotope Vinyl
http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/vinyl/

Any way to do this live?

perhaps combining EQ and a tube overdrive pedal?
Click to expand...



Listen to my band (Ink) playing our song

"Ain't on Solid Ground"
http://ssundaram.com/ink/listen.html


signal chain
Vocal: Nady SP-5 > Yamaha MG10/2 > Turtle Beach Santa Cruz > Adobe Audition
Piano: Yamaha PSR 225GM (Bright Piano) > Yamaha MG10/2 > Turtle Beach Santa Cruz > Adobe Audition (Izotope Vinyl applied)
Bass: Squire Electric Bass > Yamaha MG10/2 > Turtle Beach Santa Cruz > Adobe Audition

this is a relatively simple production in the studio but I would like to be able to accomplish this in a live setting other than playing back a prerecorded & processed piano track
 
I have used a Boss Bass Synth pedal from time to time. Its pretty random depending on the source tone, but I have found some insane tones coming out of the back end. Bottom line? There are no wrong answers when experimenting!
 
I bought this multi-pedal when I started playing guitar, and soon grew to despise it. Years later, I busted it out and hooked it up to my synth, and I like it a lot! Tons of fun, really fun stuff. Somewhere I have a track I made with a single rhodes sound, just different effects on the pedal. Fun stuff, go nuts.
 
Be careful with using line-level voltage without a re-amping device (a reverse DI box). You can fry the inputs on a guitar pedal because they expect instrument level. Most decent guitar pedals can withstand the higher signal gracefully but some budget brands (i.e. Danelectro) will break immediately if supplied line-level voltage.

I have three broken Danelectro pedals that I broke before I figured out that they don't like to be used as send fx.
 
s' funny, I was just about to recommend the Danelectro French Toast and French Fries pedals, they do "Octave" Fuzz and Auto Wah respectively. AND they're cheap! Instead of a $500 H&K unit in the link above, I want to pick up the Dan-O fake leslie pedal, too :D

I got frustrated with a hand-me-down Roland D5, as 98% of the patches are 'candy floss' sounds of that era - but you sure can beef things up or mutate them good if you use the French Toast. When engaging the octave circuit you will notice that if you are playing more than one note at a time it will do very interesting things as it tries to track which note it likes. Using both of the pedals
with an organ sound and the pitch bend wheel will get you into lead guitar land if you so choose.

And there's always the Clavinet patch with auto wah.

FYI, I didn't blow these pedals out by doing this, they didn't sound so good with the volume slider up more than like 60% of the way - rightfully so. But then for like 15 bucks each used I wasn't too worried about it either.

Don't be afraid, experiment!
 
sathyan said:
can guitar effects be used with a keyboard? I assume being line level must turn down the volume knob or is there something that does the reverse of a DI box
Click to expand...
I wouldn't try this! The music police will often sneak around your place just to see what sort of evil you're perpetrating on your synth. :eek: ;)
 
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