essential effects - when to apply?

[sathyan]

Which effects do you deem essential to record (i.e. use a pedal in line prior to A/D)?

Which are better to do in software after having recorded guitar/bass?



???
reverb
chorus
flanger
wah
distortion
octave
EQ
tremolo
compression

have I forgotten anything important

 

[guitarist]

I think all of those effects arent necessarily better before or after going into the amp, it just creates a different sound. The only exception I would say is the reverb, I'd only put that on afterwards, or use the amp's. I personally use an EQ both before the amp, and another one in the effects loop. As for distortion, I dont use pedals for that..Tube amp overdrive is the only thing I'm satisfied with.

Also I might add, tremolo in a pedal provides an interesting effect, since when it fades out, the sound gets cleaner. The tremolo built into the amp I have doesn't do that because it comes after the overdrive. The same thing happens with a delay pedal in slapback mode.

 

[Halion]

All you really have to remember is how the signal path goes, and especially where the distortion is in it. For instance, I tried recording a dry, distorted signal, and then digitally aplied chorus, flanger, phaser, and wah. All possible sounds were crap to me. However, when used in pedal form, analoge, before the dist. they sounded good. Personally, I would use pedals for everything except reverb, because you just know what your pedal sounds like, and it goes through your amp, through your speaker, so it has a lot more color and EQ than when done digitally. Delay/Reverb I like to do digitally, simply because of the higher quality (I don't have money for a rack-verb, and my spring-reverb only gives me that one kind of surf-sound).