Guitar pedals for recording?

  • Thread starter Thread starter alba123
  • Start date Start date
A

alba123

New member
I've noticed guys comming in with guitar pedals that are to noisy for recording. I'm not a guitarist. What basic pedals would you recomend for recording? Thanks, Don
 
alba123 said:
I've noticed guys comming in with guitar pedals that are to noisy for recording. I'm not a guitarist. What basic pedals would you recomend for recording? Thanks, Don
Click to expand...

through an amp or direct? The sansamp line is designed to go direct and are pretty good.
 
alba123 said:
I've noticed guys comming in with guitar pedals that are to noisy for recording. I'm not a guitarist. What basic pedals would you recomend for recording? Thanks, Don
Click to expand...

Whatever pedal they need to get their sound.....It's usually an individual thing, there are no standard pedals for recording.
When you say too noisy for recording are you just talking about amp hum or something?
 
Thanks for the replys. Not recording direct, miked amp. It's noisy old pedals I'm having problems with.
 
Just tell them the truth..... their gear sucks.:( A boss DS-1 will not sound good. It does not have true-bypass switching ...etc.

Recommend Fulltone pedals or Analogman pedal mods. Fulltone makes SUPER GREAT pedals with high quality tone and low noise. Analogman does mods to pedals, like boss or ibanez, that will blow you away! :cool:

It's the job of a good engineer to tell the clients the truth about the situation both musically and equipment wise.
 
alba123 said:
Thanks for the replys. Not recording direct, miked amp. It's noisy old pedals I'm having problems with.
Click to expand...


Those noisy old pedals may be special to the guitarist's sound. Try running through a gate so that the noise doesn't come through when the guitarist is not playing.
 
ggunn said:
Those noisy old pedals may be special to the guitarist's sound. Try running through a gate so that the noise doesn't come through when the guitarist is not playing.
Click to expand...
That...or heaven forbid you actually do work like some of the analog engineers do and create a volume envelope on the guitar track so you can mute it when necessary...
 
JoeNovice said:
Just tell them the truth..... their gear sucks.:( A boss DS-1 will not sound good. It does not have true-bypass switching ...etc.

Recommend Fulltone pedals or Analogman pedal mods. Fulltone makes SUPER GREAT pedals with high quality tone and low noise. Analogman does mods to pedals, like boss or ibanez, that will blow you away! :cool:

It's the job of a good engineer to tell the clients the truth about the situation both musically and equipment wise.
Click to expand...

A Boss DS-1 sounds just fine. It's a distortion pedal for gosh's sakes. Even tracking a clean tone running through a DS-1 won't come out too bad. I did it this weekend.

Bypass-schmypass...when you're going full-tilt with a distortion pedal, "extra noise" realy doesn't matter. It might make noise if you're not playing anything...but if you're not playing anything...why would you have tape rolling?

Now, with modulation pedals or something where you're only kicking them on in certain sections or something, the noise level might be apparent...especially if your basic tone is clean.

In any regard, it's all personal preference. I'm not going to sit here and say that this pedal sucks or that pedal is what you need...because I don't know what you're trying to accomplish. I can only relay whatever experiences I've had. Whether you think they're good or not is purely subjective.
 
Just my opinion but, pedals are great for playing live where a certain amount of noise is to be expected, but in the quiet of a studio some of them really do make a lot of noise. Record as much as possible clean and dry then add efx later. Pedals are for creating the efx live. My biggest gripe is with the swish and sway of flangers and phase shifters or the jet engine roar of a distortion pedal cranked to 11 through the gain chanel of a zillion watt amp cranked to 11. Yeah it's hard to convince some people that what sounds good live does not always work for recording.
 
Try the ISP Decimator for noise true noise reduction without negatively affecting the tone. I was recommended one on this board, it's a great unit, much better than a Rocktron Super Hush C. Pedals are pedals, an old Boss distortion will give a great tone that you won't get from a POD or any of the newer modellers. THe Decimator will preserve the tone perfectly and save you a lot of time trying to phase invert work out the correct filters.
 
JoeNovice said:
Just tell them the truth..... their gear sucks.:( A boss DS-1 will not sound good. It does not have true-bypass switching ...etc.

Recommend Fulltone pedals or Analogman pedal mods. Fulltone makes SUPER GREAT pedals with high quality tone and low noise. Analogman does mods to pedals, like boss or ibanez, that will blow you away! :cool:

It's the job of a good engineer to tell the clients the truth about the situation both musically and equipment wise.
Click to expand...

Hogwash.

Any pedal that doesn't make clicking noise or pickup radio stations is 100% usable in a recording evironment. True bypass is only for live use. Its so that your clean sound doesn't get sucked into the effect at all....but when recording, who honestly plays all the way through a song anyways? Well...most everyone...but we usually call that a 'scratch track'.

Even so, if they wrote the song with a non-true bypass pedal, then they obvisouly wrote it with their degredated clean sound as a sound they probably compensated for with their amps EQ.

I forgot what I am wrting about though so I am done.

EDIT
NM, I remember...

Fulltone or Analogman pedals are overrated. Just because they 'handbuild them' (ie copy other peoples pedals...cough*coughFULLTONEcough*cough) doesn't make them good. That doesn't make them better. It just makes them another pedal. Just because something is mass produced (Boss) doesn't mean it isn't still 100% musical.
 
Personally I've had no problems recording with a DS-1.... I try not to use pedals when I'm recording for simplicity's sake (I add delay/chorus/reverb later and most of my distortion tone comes from the amp) but the few times I have used pedals they've come out sounding pretty good.
 
Stick with it. The noise shouldn't bother, it's part of the guitarplayer's thing. Honestly, I don't mind a little noise on the back of a guitar tracks as long as the track is kickin'.

Or, you could go get the fulltone, guyatone, maxon and klon pedals (figure 200 to 1200 a piece).
 
I'll stand by my comments.

Fulltone or Analogman pedals are overrated. Just because they 'handbuild them' (ie copy other peoples pedals...cough*coughFULLTONEcough*cough) doesn't make them good. That doesn't make them better. It just makes them another pedal. Just because something is mass produced (Boss) doesn't mean it isn't still 100% musical.
Click to expand...

I never said anything about hand-built making them good or Boss being unmusical because it was mass produced. Sounds like somebody is itching for an argument and wants to twist my words into something they can argue about. Get a life.


I've been playing for a living for more than a decade, live and in studio. The DS-1 sucks as far as distortion pedals are concerned. (Hence the $39.99 price tag at any retailer.) It's a great pedal for a kid to start with, but has no character in comparison to other distortions. There are many great Boss pedals out there; Blues Driver, Chromatic tuner, DD-6 delay, etc.

Other companies have great pedals too. The best distortion pedal I've ever owned is the Distortion Pro by Fulltone. It smokes in every way imaginable and cost me $100 bucks on E-bay. Check it out. Fulltone

(Please, tell me that the DS-1 is just as good. Actually dont, it would not look good on your behalf.)

DS-1 S...U...C...K....S
SUCKS!!!


The original post said "TOO NOISEY FOR RECORDING"

Obviously it's a problem and he doesn't want to be a slacker with a low quality sound in the recording. Not everything is a half-assed do it youself project. Sometimes it is a big deal and needs big time equipment.
 
JoeNovice said:
Just tell them the truth..... their gear sucks.:( A boss DS-1 will not sound good. It does not have true-bypass switching ...etc.
Click to expand...
That's actually kinda funny!!!!!

I have tons of clients that get on the cover of guitar player magazine etc, you would be amazed at how many famous guys are using boss pedals, especially the DS-1.
 
Dani Pace said:
Just my opinion but, pedals are great for playing live where a certain amount of noise is to be expected, but in the quiet of a studio some of them really do make a lot of noise. Record as much as possible clean and dry then add efx later. Pedals are for creating the efx live. My biggest gripe is with the swish and sway of flangers and phase shifters or the jet engine roar of a distortion pedal cranked to 11 through the gain chanel of a zillion watt amp cranked to 11. Yeah it's hard to convince some people that what sounds good live does not always work for recording.
Click to expand...

Adding FX after the fact is a completely different tone and sound than recording with the effect. Its even a completely different tone putting the effect in the FX loop instead of before the amp. This is not to say one is better than the other, but if you get the tone you are after with a pedal, than if is very unlikely that you will ever be able to get that tone by adding the effect later.
 
That's actually kinda funny!!!!! I have tons of clients that get on the cover of guitar player magazine etc, you would be amazed at how many famous guys are using boss pedals, especially the DS-1.
Click to expand...


Once again.... Boss pedals in general are NOT bad! I only comment specifically on the DS-1 in reference to tone.


Your clients may use the DS-1 and land their famous butts on magazine covers. I wouldn't use that as a qualifier for good tone. Especially considering the sound of the "famous" bands that are in guitar mags today. Good tone, or playing, is not always the path of the famous modern rock-stars. :rolleyes: Usually it has more to do with visual appeal and trend.
 
The DS1 was used on a lot of Nirvana songs. They seem to have done well for themselves.

Oh, and the Distortion Pro from fulltone is nothing more than a tweaked DS1. :p Just as the Fulldrive is nothing more than a tweaked TS-808...yes...the TubeScreamer.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top