Should I get some stomp boxes or a mutli effect pedal?

Question

I have been playing guitar for a while now, but I really want to improve my tone. I have looked at stomp boxes but the good ones are at least a $100 each. I don t have enough money to build my own pedal board. So I wanted to know if I should go with a multi effects pedal. It would be cheaper and I think I would get more use out of it. What do you think? Any suggestions on multi effects pedals?

Answer 1

Missed the magic bit - what you have for an amp. Max that out, then go pedal shopping, or amp shopping. Young ones using a 10w peanut practice amp that has a sucky tone can jack in a $1000 guitar through ten pedals, and still have a sucky tone. You got the ball.



Past that, if you have a good amp, many working club players will prefer a DSP/multi-effects pedal. Learn its programming (not simple), cable-up, and 'rockin'. If, however, it goes down, it's all gone.



UPDATE: Next day, with a little support? I'm just sayin' if you have an 'elcheepo amp like a Fender Frontman, or something worse like a no-name from Walmart, that's the thing to go after. There are decent small/small wattage "modeling" amps for around $150 that, in "effect" have enough on-board effects to be pretty cool. The other thing is that floor pedals and the switches on them tend to break pretty easy. Your foot isn't as gentle as your hand, thus the name "stomp boxes".



Then you also haven't indicated what kind of tone you're after. I like fat/hot/bluesy/tube-overdrive, but others want serious distortion, reverb, echo, etc. The only pedal always on the floor here is a compressor/sustainer, but I got some nice amps. If I was headed for a jam and didn't take an amp, then it would be a Tube Screamer carried in the guitar case, just in case.



Got lotsa pedals I don't use anymore. On stage, reverb, phase, flange, and echo tended to weaken my punch and definition, so got left in the gig box more and more. Sometimes less is more.



UPDATE 2, per your comment: I really, really wish I knew what amp you have, as you may not be tuning it in to it's best "fat". Or it can't ever get fat. Whatever. Remembering the piles of amps & pedals I've used over the years, I'm thinking there ain't much in pedals that will make a fat tone, more likely thin it while pursuing the God of Tone. Going sideways, gimme 40+ watts and a 12" speaker (or two), 'fat city. With enough punch there, it's magic to start using the neck pickup and let that thin bite-yo-butt bridge pickup go for a change.

Answer 2

I agree with Danny - a good amp is essential to start from. Wattage is not necessarily all that important, though - I was just watching a video demonstrating that a 10w tube amp can be plenty loud for most things you would want to do. Higher wattage gives you more headroom and dynamics, though. Blackstar has a little bedroom practice amp - the HT1 - that has just 1 amp and a tube and sounds awesome (it's about $200), if you're not playing with a band. If you are, you can do find with 15-20 watts of tube.



As far as effects go, I think it's a great idea to start with a multi-effect pedal and see what all the different effects do. Then later if you want the originals for the more authentic tones, get them then. I would suggest the Zoom G3, really well done multi.



Another direction would be to get the cheaper clone pedals to try out, then if you want you can upgrade to the originals later. For instance, Joyo makes Chinese copies of classic pedals; their "Vintage Overdrive" is a clone of an Ibanez Tube Screamer, the Ultimate Drive is a copy of the Fulltone OCD, etc. They don't nail the nuances of the originals, but they're fairly close and they only cost $25-35 each.

Answer 3

Maybe you should think about a Peavey Vyper VIP 2 and the Sanpera 2 foot controller. total cost about $450.

the amp is powerful enough to be good at gigs, and the foot controller along with the amp models and built in effects of the amp are incomparable.

I can get all sorts of different tones and effects and you can program 400 presets. With clean or distorted, with delay or phase or flange, univibe or rotary effect ..built in Wah..looping, etc.....the amp is awesome, really.

I'm having a blast with mine. And I haven't even touched 90% of what it can do..

nowadays 4 good pedals will cost you more than $450 My Jim Dunlop Cry Baby was $130 alone..and now I never use it, because I've got it built in with the controller. !

Peavey amps have somehow managed to be the amp I always used in all my pro bands from 1978 on.....

I would have loved a Marshall full or half stack, but that was out of my reach, monetarily..Peavey amps have always had a great tone for the type of music I played , which was classic hard rock, and now with the VIP and a Les Paul, I'm sounding even better!

here's what I can do with it so far:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh1aZErdl70

Answer 4

As the others pointed out your amp is the most important part here, If that's in order then you may find you don't really need much in the way of a peddle, In which case a decent multi will help you find the FX you prefer. then you can go out and buy those stomp box FX as a stand alone, Problem with cheap multi FX peddles is, Well they're cheap and tend to break down rather quickly, Problem with the expensive professional models is, You may end up with hundreds of features and FX you'll never use, So go middle of the road here so you have plenty to experiment with for a rather long time without tying up a lot of money, Just make sure your amps up to snuff first,