Questions about the Ethos

[hanjin]

Apologies in advance if this has even been remotely discussed already, I read everything I could find with the search!

I passed when my spot came up on the waiting list last year, but I'm back on it again.
I was planning on running it as an amp, direct to a PA, and it'd be much appreciated if anyone can shed their experiences on a few things:

For lack of better terms, how deep and 3d are the cleans/green channel (direct)?

Can I run one line into PA through the speaker sim out, and the regular out through to an amp at the same time?

Is it possible to get voxy-style, chimey cleans?

How does chordal work /rhythm playing sound direct?

Thanks

 

[danel59]

Apologies in advance if this has even been remotely discussed already, I read everything I could find with the search!

I passed when my spot came up on the waiting list last year, but I'm back on it again.
I was planning on running it as an amp, direct to a PA, and it'd be much appreciated if anyone can shed their experiences on a few things:

For lack of better terms, how deep and 3d are the cleans/green channel (direct)?

Can I run one line into PA through the speaker sim out, and the regular out through to an amp at the same time?

Is it possible to get voxy-style, chimey cleans?

How does chordal work /rhythm playing sound direct?

Thanks

I'll try to answer the best I can and yes these are related to going direct to PA or studio monitors

The clean channel has a depth that I have not encountered before in a pedal
there are some harmonics to it especially when running the volume on the clean channel fairly high around 2 O'Clock that is very addictive. The outputs can be used as you asked Sim to PA and regular to guitar amp. With the guitar amp it seems to like Fenders or Fender style but find a good clean amp channel and it should work great. I have tried this scenario at home and use reverb and delays in stereo to my studio monitors and the regular out to my guitar amp with no effects and it sounds huge. As far as Voxy chime well it is a take on a Dumble style amp and they do sound different than a Vox however I had the Tech 21 Liverpool and British in the past to cover those tones as well and to be honest I let them go as I can get pretty well everything I need with the Ethos. I have been looking at getting something like the M13 to be able to add Comps and Boost/Drives ahead of the Ethos and then the Delays etc after but it does take regular pedals quite well. To go direct I feel you do need some reverb and/or ambience to get the most out of it in either clean or OD mode just to give a sense of space. I use the Tech 21 Reverb pedal but as mentioned if I get the M13 it has reverb already so wouldn't need it. Overall I am very happy with the Ethos using it direct. Just get a good DI box for PA and you're good to go

YMMV

Dan

 

[hanjin]

I'll try to answer the best I can and yes these are related to going direct to PA or studio monitors

The clean channel has a depth that I have not encountered before in a pedal
there are some harmonics to it especially when running the volume on the clean channel fairly high around 2 O'Clock that is very addictive. The outputs can be used as you asked Sim to PA and regular to guitar amp. With the guitar amp it seems to like Fenders or Fender style but find a good clean amp channel and it should work great. I have tried this scenario at home and use reverb and delays in stereo to my studio monitors and the regular out to my guitar amp with no effects and it sounds huge. As far as Voxy chime well it is a take on a Dumble style amp and they do sound different than a Vox however I had the Tech 21 Liverpool and British in the past to cover those tones as well and to be honest I let them go as I can get pretty well everything I need with the Ethos. I have been looking at getting something like the M13 to be able to add Comps and Boost/Drives ahead of the Ethos and then the Delays etc after but it does take regular pedals quite well. To go direct I feel you do need some reverb and/or ambience to get the most out of it in either clean or OD mode just to give a sense of space. I use the Tech 21 Reverb pedal but as mentioned if I get the M13 it has reverb already so wouldn't need it. Overall I am very happy with the Ethos using it direct. Just get a good DI box for PA and you're good to go

YMMV

Dan

thanks a lot Dan, I was definitely considering the tech 21 liverpool and even the blonde, great to know that the ethos is that good haha. Do you have to run the reverb all the time to counteract the...starkness/dryness of the sound? Also, do you have any suggestions on a DI (To be honest, I'm not well-versed in what a DI actually even does.)? thanks

 

[danel59]

You don't have to run a reverb after but it does add a sense of space or dimension that you would normally have if you had a guitar amp on stage with you and you were listening to the speaker of that, there are room reflections etc that can effect what you are hearing so the reverb pedal does something similar
For DI's (direct boxes) they are mainly used if you have to drive long cables to a PA system or recording board. If you only have a short distance then you can use a regular cable to patch into the system. The DI converts the signal to a balanced line which will help eliminate any losses in signal or extraneous noises

Dan

 

[62Tele]

thanks a lot Dan, I was definitely considering the tech 21 liverpool and even the blonde, great to know that the ethos is that good haha. Do you have to run the reverb all the time to counteract the...starkness/dryness of the sound? Also, do you have any suggestions on a DI (To be honest, I'm not well-versed in what a DI actually even does.)? thanks

There are a couple of advantages to the Tech 21's worth considering. You can mix and match gain pedals of choice and even do some hybrid tones - not stacking per se, trying to drive one Tech 21 with another is not terribly pleasing, but I have run the Blonde and Liverpool together for a clean tone that is really good, and even better is running a split signal with the blonde to one channel and the Liverpool to another. Sound like a two amp rig and weighs about 119 #'s lees than a Twin and AC30.

You can also do an A/B thing with one pedal clean and the other clipped. I set up a little project board with a Blackstone, Liverpool (set for light clip), Blonde (set for clean, Twin sounding) and a delay and it sounded great. Enough gain and clean boost stuff to cover a whole lot of gigs. Two distinct amp tones without having to tweak knobs is pretty slick.

I also find a DI to be pretty useful. I have a Radial JDI and it's like a little Swiss Army knife since it has a ground lift, phase reversal, bypass and it's own speaker sim that smooths out the clipped signal nicely. Add a touch of reverb and your in hog heaven.

I'd very much like to try an Ethos, seems like a great unit, but the Character pedals are real workhorses and offer a huge utility thing. They're all good, and I would just get down to the "math" of what tones you need, etc.

 

[78deluxe]

I almost always run a Harwire RV-7 Reverb after the Ethos to add some "dimension" to the direct sound.

I use a radial JDI DI box and recommend it.

Part of the deepness and 3-D nature of the sound will depend on the system you are running it through, IMO. On a very good system, I have been quite pleased with the results.

With my guitars, the Clean channel needs to be above 1:00 (usually at 3:00 or above) with the presence cranked to have enough immediacy to the attack of the notes.