Pedal Board Madness

Anyone having Pedal Board frustrations?…Check out this great article from Harmony Central…

See at:
http://www.harmony-central.com/articles/tips/guitar_effects_guide/
I have pasted an portion of the article below!…

“Most guitarists have an intuitive sense as to where basic effects should go in their signal chain. If you have two pedals, a distortion unit and a digital delay, you would naturally put the distortion before the delay (the guitar goes into the distortion, the distortion into the delay, and the delay into the amp). But the more pedals you use, the trickier it gets, and some truly bizarre gizmos—like a digital whammy pedal—might put you at a loss to explain just effects go where they do relative to others in the chain.

Additionally some processors (such as EQs and reverbs) can go in different places in the chain, depending on the desired effect. And in one very famous example, the debate is still raging about whether the wah-wah goes before or after the distortion (Hendrix put his before, though conventional wisdom says the wah should follow).

Now, you might be thinking, “Gee I know in which order the basic pedals should go, but I guess I don’t really know why. Before we discuss which categories of effects go where they do in the chain, take this pop quiz (I hear you groan) to determine your effect-ordering mettle. Order the effects below from 1 to 10, with 1 being the first effect the guitar plugs into, and 10 being the effect whose output goes into the amp. No text-messaging among yourselves for hints.

1. __ A. EQ
2. __ B. Distortion
3. __ C. Chorus/Flanger
4. __ D. Noise Gate
5. __ E. Digital Reverb
6. __ F. Volume Pedal
7. __ G. Preamp
8. __ H. Compressor
9. __ I. Delay
10.__ J. Wah-wah Pedal

Here are the answers, showing the “correct” order of the 10 effects above: 1) G, Preamp; 2) H, Compressor; 3) B, Distortion; 4) J, Wah-wah pedal; 5) C, Chorus/Flanger; 6) I, Delay; 7) A, EQ; D, Noise Gate; 9) F, Volume Pedal; 10) E, Digital Reverb. Don’t deduct any points if you had the delay before the chorus/flanger; that one’s a toss-up. Also acceptable is to put the EQ just after the compressor. And really, the EQ in any signal chain is sort of a “free space,” so it can go almost anywhere.

If you got more than four effects out of order, or if you realized in taking this quiz that you just got lucky with the placement, it may help to break the above effects into categories and then explore why certain categories come before others in a signal chain. Roughly speaking, I name the categories as follows, in the order that the guitar signal encounters them:

# Signal Conditioners
# Time-Based Effects
# Ambient Processors
# Other Effect”

Tube Amps vs. Solid State Amps

Ok, so I get this question all the time about whether Tube amps sound better solid state amps and so I thought I would invite my site site visitors to weigh on on your own experiences..Agree or Disagree? Post your comments below!…Lets here from both sides.

Solid State PRO’s:

* They usually have fabulous clean sounds, crisp and accurate almost to a fault
* They are quick and responsive
* They can take more abuse because there are very few fragile parts
* They require less maintenance
* They can be used to ‘model’ other amplifiers with the push of a button or flip of a switch

Solid State CON’s:

* They have no warmth or emotion, solid state sounds cold and sterile (compare electric drums to acoustic)
* Built in distortion is terrible all low and mid priced amps.
* Solid State amps tend to all sound the same no matter what they are, who is using it, or what guitar is plugged in.

Tube PRO’s:

* They are best known for their exceptional warmth. The longer you “warm up” a set of tubes the better your sound quality.
* They have a tone variety. Each tube amp sounds different according the specifics of the manufacturer and tube combinations.
* They have depth with fat and thick sounds that get fatter and thicker as the volume is turned up.
* They possess supreme distortion.

Tube CON’s

* Maintaining a tube amp can be costly.
* To get quality sound from a tube amp the tubes need to be pushed in volume. Can you play that loud?
* They are heavier than their solid state counterparts and costlier if you facotr in a road case to further protect