Downsizing pedalboard advice

landsleaving

I'm thinking of letting a few of my less used pedals go and picking up a boss me-70 for the odd time I want to try something a bit different. I only really used reverb and overdrive all the time, and have a serious lack of space to work with. I'd hold onto the od and reverb but lose most of my other pedals.

Problem is, I also use a looper a fair bit, an akai e2 headrush. At first I assumed the me-70 would be poor in comparison, but it actually has more memory, far as I can tell. So is it's looper good enough to sell on the headrush? And is the delay funtion totally off limits while looping, so would I need to hold onto a delay pedal just in case?

Sandvich

M9.

demanufactured

If your money can stretch to it look for a second hand gt 10

39 secnd looper

landsleaving

Had a look at the M9, that would be fantastic, don't know if I could afford it though, even selling most of my pedals. There don't seem to be many second hand either.:(

The ME-70 is meant to have 38 seconds, so I'd be happy enough with that, as long as it has decent enough delay/looper and I can loop and use delay at the same time (bit of googling suggests I can) Everything else is just an occasional novelty for me, except maybe tremolo.
Obviously I'd prefer the GT, but I don't think, for my needs, it's worth the extra cash unless its a huge improvement on the looper and delay.

darrenw5094

landsleaving wrote: »

I'm thinking of letting a few of my less used pedals go and picking up a boss me-70 for the odd time I want to try something a bit different. I only really used reverb and overdrive all the time, and have a serious lack of space to work with. I'd hold onto the od and reverb but lose most of my other pedals.

Problem is, I also use a looper a fair bit, an akai e2 headrush. At first I assumed the me-70 would be poor in comparison, but it actually has more memory, far as I can tell. So is it's looper good enough to sell on the headrush? And is the delay funtion totally off limits while looping, so would I need to hold onto a delay pedal just in case?

Might be a good idea to take a photo of your pedalboard and post it up for a goo.

landsleaving

Everythings up on adverts now if you want to take a look (Cameras out of power for now. Hence why there's the random stock photo of a reverb pedal)

Except the HT Dual... that stays with me.

Hopefully I can get enough for the M9, I'm liking the look of it. (If it sounds good enough of course!)

quicklickpaddy

landsleaving wrote: »

I'm thinking of letting a few of my less used pedals go and picking up a boss me-70 for the odd time I want to try something a bit different. I only really used reverb and overdrive all the time, and have a serious lack of space to work with. I'd hold onto the od and reverb but lose most of my other pedals.

Problem is, I also use a looper a fair bit, an akai e2 headrush. At first I assumed the me-70 would be poor in comparison, but it actually has more memory, far as I can tell. So is it's looper good enough to sell on the headrush? And is the delay funtion totally off limits while looping, so would I need to hold onto a delay pedal just in case?

Do you play live much? Any of the multi-effect pedal boards are great to play around at home with but for gigs they are horrible, plus it's harder to mix effects and usually isn't even possible. If I were you I'd decide what kind of sound you want to get and get the right pedals to create it? But if you want to experiment with new sounds I'd say keep your pedals you already have, and maybe ad something strange to it and try different combinations of everything. It is more expensive than just buying the big board but I'd definitely think worth it!

landsleaving

Haven't played live in a few years, so it's really just for playing around with at home to be honest. if I do end up playing live again I'll be more than likely just sticking to Overdrive and reverb which I'm set for. And as I said, serious lack of space/sockets means adding more pedals isn't an option really Pity too, I'm gasing for a tremolo , but it'd be such a waste of money for the odd time I'd use it.

I'm happy enough that I have the sound I want in two pedals, so the others are just sitting there, waiting to trip me up and send me through the hole in the floor/attic door. I'd prefer to just have the multi-fx to mess with once in a while than a long chain, with the two dedicated pedals for when I'm working on my own stuff.

I do agree completely that just grabbing a new pedal when I want to experiment would be ideal, but I was recessioned out of work, so being back in college and poor again doesn't lend itself to that. Plus having the cash to do it is what led to me having enough pedals to sink the titanic anyway

quicklickpaddy

Yeah I guess. I'd still maintain that whatever you end up buying your multi effects boards for, the money could be better spent on a regular stomp box. The mixing of effects is as entertaining as anything else.

The other thing is that when you buy a pedal board, you tend to get a sh*tload of distortion effects which, realistically, you are only going to use one or two of.

For example, I bought a PH-3 off adverts there a week or two ago for 35. It's a phaser so it stands out and its fun to play with but it's surprisingly useable for kinda slow ambiant stuff. Playing around with distortion before and after it gives really different texture and then I threw a tremolo into the mix, putting it before with the distortion you get the white noise still coming through so you've got a constant phase and both after means that it breaks the phase up so you get it in little sections. And that's with just 3 pedals! I've got a delay (which I mainly use for looping), a microsynth, distortion, overdrive, compression, wah, a harmonist and a vocoder. Playing around with loads of different orders of them all is a lot more fun and useful than a multi effects.

I have the GFX-5 Multi-Effects (its pretty poor but it was the first pedal I bought) and I can still pick it up and find something new with it, but if I did I wouldn't be able to mix it with any other effects... If you have a lot of pedals I'd seriously rethink about selling them for a multi-effects!

What exactly is it about the multi-effects board that you like btw?

landsleaving

I just like the simplicity of it. I have a tiny area to play in, and I drag my gear across the city for the occasional jam session, so it'd be much easier to have an all in one to stick in a bag instead of dismantling the individual boxes from each other. No car either so I can't just lash a pedalboard in the boot. I guess its just more suited to my needs right now. I also just enjoy fiddling about with new sounds, but it's too expensive for me to start buying a new pedal every time I want to do that, so a multi-effects would be perfect for just messing with at home.

When I've more money and space I'll probably go back to individual stompboxes, I prefer them, but right now it's not really worth it for me, too much hassle.

You do make some good points though. I may consider just refining my needs and getting one or two high quality stompboxes instead of a multi effects. I still want to make some changes either way, I just don't use most of what I have. Maybe a shiny new high end delay or tremolo...

Decisions, decisions.

Cheers for the advice either way, lots to think about!

Sandvich

quicklickpaddy wrote: »

Do you play live much? Any of the multi-effect pedal boards are great to play around at home with but for gigs they are horrible, plus it's harder to mix effects and usually isn't even possible. If I were you I'd decide what kind of sound you want to get and get the right pedals to create it? But if you want to experiment with new sounds I'd say keep your pedals you already have, and maybe ad something strange to it and try different combinations of everything. It is more expensive than just buying the big board but I'd definitely think worth it!

This isn't really true of the M9. A lot of analogue purists are shifting over.

quicklickpaddy

Mainly because of this thread I started playing around with some of my pedals and came up with this. This is exactly what I was talking about!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMf5UHF20TY

landsleaving

That was pretty cool actually, I see what you mean now.

Had a go of an me-70 and it did everything pretty well, and more than well enough for my needs, but what you said was in the back of my mind and it made me think twice about buying one. It just wasn't quite.. right.

I'm gonna sell on a good few pedals and start building a sound I like from the ground up with individual pedals. The multi was fine, but yeah, not being able to mix up the sounds is a real downside and it just wasn't quite perfect. Not much point in replacing my pedals that aren't getting use with a multi effects I won't use.

Cheers for the advice, I'm pretty happy with my stripped back sound and looking forward to adding slowly to it, that video confirmed that for me.

For anyone looking into an me-70 though, it was actually quite good. The distortions were a huge surprise, having used an me-50 before and hearing the awful distortions on that. Delay and comp were good too, as was the loop function. The modulations were only ok, fine for having a quick play with, but a tad thin sounding, still decent enough for home use though.

I'm also now gasing for that microsynth. Damn you, those aren't cheap!