Sold all my boutique pedals..... an encouraging thread for those on a budget.

[rockstarzusa]

I had worked hard (with my ears) for a long time to wind up with the following mainstay pedals on my Trailer-Trash board. Not anywhere near as impressive as some of the esteemed players here, but here is a list.

Empress Tremolo
Empress ParaEQ
Retro-Sonic Chorus
Option 5 Destination Rotation
GigRig Pro-14
Jetter gain stage blue
Fulltone DejaVibe II
T-Rex Replica
Diamond Memory Lane II
Digitech Whammy IV
Korg DT-10 tuner
Loop-Master 5 button switcher

In attempt to scale down I tried the popular Nova range from TC consisting of the Modulator, Delay and Reverb.

I had spent many many hours listening, evaluating, and collecting these pedals. I was fortunate to buy a group of pedals at a time and draw these conclusions as to the most appealing in each category, and on and on it went. It was fun, and a neat hobby/project to use in my playing full time.

From engineering and post production, and from years of ear training, I know how to hear and what to listen for, can hear individual frequencies and generally 'trust' what I hear.

On a whim I bought the TC G-System because it allowed patching of my OD pedals (I have 8 total 4 groups of 2) and the sounds were on par.The conclusion I came to is that for the most part the differences were minute. It was hard staring at a $5,000+ board and realizing that conclusion. I compared the Tremolo after tweaking to my Empress tremolo and even the Seymour Duncan Shape Shifter (more range than the empress actually) Tried the chorus compared to my Retro-Sonic. The vibes, the reverbs, the eq and on and on.

So over the coyrse of time recently I sold off all these wonderful pedals in favor of the TC G-System and my OD pedals. Sure there are certain things I miss on the individual pedals perhaps, but saving $2,000 and having one unit that captured very very high quality sounds, a pedal management system, and the ability to patch in-out all manner of effects in lots of presets won out...big time.

So, this is an encouragement for those that are looking for great tone, in a less expensive price (The TC G-System can be found on ebay for $900+) I would personally state that this unit can very much hold it's own against the boutique pedals. No, I don't believe the TC will give you the exact Replica delay sound, but two Replica pedals alone are only slightly cheaper than a used G-System.

This is not a dig at any of the awesome boutique pedals many great players have here, it is an encouragement for the lil' guys who want to play as well, but don't have the cash flow or means to get hardcore with all the boutique gear. Hope this helps.

Cheers.

 

[Last Nerve]

My buddy has a G-System and I will agree, after he demo'd it for a good 30 mins for me, that it is an amazing tool and I can see why he uses it.
He gigs, and had a bad back and a few pins in an ankle of his, and the G-System allows him to easily transport and set-up where ever he is playing at.

 

[onestop]

I did the same thing (on a smaller scale) and sold a ton of nice "boutique" pedals for a TC Nova System and could be any happier

And for once in a long time, I'm able to simply think about making music and not making changes to my board every 3 minutes

 

[stillremains]

Man Ive been there so many times and always come back to my pedals, the last time i sold everything i bought the M13 that lasted 2 weeks, now I'm back with the board and pedals. maybe the next thing I'll try is the nova.

 

[thesjkexperienc]

I'm tellin ya, racks are the future! I have a nice board, but am thinking of getting a piece of plywood and putting a few choice pedals on it for jams and leaving it at that.

 

[YETI]

I'm tellin ya, racks are the future! I have a nice board, but am thinking of getting a piece of plywood and putting a few choice pedals on it for jams and leaving it at that.

Funny how everything goes in cycles. I remember when everyone went to racks in the late 80's,early 90's. Then pedals came back around.

 

[doralin]

Well,

I'm never leaving my Ge based pedals to ANY rack or multi-efx.

Not my MN chip analog delays either.

I hope people don't abandon their Ge based pedals (OD/Boost/Fuzz/etc.) as that would be a big advantage to their playing.

I learned how to control my picking dynamics, tone, vol knob on guitar through the usage of a great Ge Fuzz.

All the best.

 

[Robapov]

Well,

I'm never leaving my Ge based pedals to ANY rack or multi-efx.

Not my MN chip analog delays either.

I hope people don't abandon their Ge based pedals (OD/Boost/Fuzz/etc.) as that would be a big advantage to their playing.

I learned how to control my picking dynamics, tone, vol knob on guitar through the usage of a great Ge Fuzz.

All the best.

I could not agree more!

 

[soundbee]

re: OP - I did something similar on an even smaller scale - Timefactor became my "multi" fx unit.
Wah - Tuner - KoT - Timefactor - Amp. That's it!!!!

 

[steve gray]

man i would have kept that pedal set up

 

[Dog Boy]

i noticed for the most part your pedals are all modulation. Did you sell off any of your ODs and such?

I agree that certain rack units can beat out pedal modulation stuff but its harder for a rack to beat out a nice od into a cooking amp.

Carry on...

 

[sodapopinski]

A rack may be "simple" and "easy" to transport, but i LOVE the fact that each of my pedals have been hand picked be ME to create my own tone and sound.

 

[rockstarzusa]

i noticed for the most part your pedals are all modulation. Did you sell off any of your ODs and such?

I agree that certain rack units can beat out pedal modulation stuff but its harder for a rack to beat out a nice od into a cooking amp.

Exactly, I kept my OD pedals. I can't say enough good things about cmatmods OD pedals, plus I use some Xotic pedals and M.I Audio to round things out. My OD pedals aren't going anywhere.

This was part of the appeal with the G-System, it is floorbased and allows you to insert OD pedals into the 4 loops. It has NO OD pedals or sounds of it's own, which is great-as I don't like TC's OD sounds personally.

I'm sure some people are GAS'ing after some of the exact pedals in my setup, but, I will say it again, I'm splitting hairs hearing the differences between the TC gear and the boutique gear.

A BIG note is that I have owned a lot of TC gear in the past, and it's lacking in the G-Force and G-Major units were the reason I moved away from racks. Well, the updated sounds as found in the G-System are the real deal for me, and certainly better than the twio previously mentioned units. If you heard TC in the past, and were 'meh' towards them, hold judgment and listen to the G-System. I'm ceratinly glad I did.

 

[rockstarzusa]

A rack may be "simple" and "easy" to transport, but i LOVE the fact that each of my pedals have been hand picked be ME to create my own tone and sound.

The G-System is not a rack piece BTW, and I customize pretty much every preset on the board, so I am handpicking my sounds as much as I ever did with all the boutique gear.

I will agree, to a degree about handpicking the units however. If I was to re-buy two pedals it would be the Retro-Sonic chorus and the T-Rex replica, I love those two, and the G-System doesn't dial out just like those two.

 

[StratsRule07]

There are a LOT of people on here with boards worth more than the whole rig I would play with on any given night. I use maybe 5 pedals. Tuner, wah, OD (Blues Pro), vibe (Cool Cat, right now), and a delay/echo (H2O right now). When playing out, I could go without all of those except for my tuner... and next in line would be my wah.

I try not to get caught up in exact tone duplication. When playing in your bedroom you can hear all of the little details in your sound, but in a band situation most of that just gets lost in the mix. As soon as I can afford a TC system I will get rid of just about all of my pedals.

 

[redpill]

It's amazing the relative meanings of the term "on a budget." I mean, one direct pedal is $150...

That said, I am glad that you found what works for you, and did so in a way that got back some money.

 

[62Tele]

I came to a very similar conclusion with my Quattro (trem version) - the effects are very musical, work with all my guitars and it's a very clean analog setup. I add a tuner, a Clyde Deluxe and have an MDV-2 coming and all my bases are covered. I'm building a second tier on the pedalboard to handle the acoustic tuner/pre and a tech 21 Liverpool for running direct/amp disasters.

redpill - are you running direct with all those Tech 21's? How's that working?

 

[rockstarzusa]

You are right, I guess i meant on a budget in light of some of these super expensive boards some of the folks here have. Being able to cover almost all bases with a G-System for $900 plus a really good OD pedal for $100, and two expression pedals for $100 is 'inexpensive' in comparison to that....

Having said that, I have some students who have invested a couple of hundred into a Rocktron multi-fx unit, and that is a leap for them, as was my first multi-fx processor when I started out. Does anyone remember the Boss SE-50 from around 20 years ago.... Man, I thought that thing was the geeatest back in the day

 

[rockstarzusa]

Quattro is pretty nice huh? Seen it many times, never tried it though. I tried running a CM Crush Zone through the click channel of my Divided by 13 FTR-37 about 30 mins ago, actually was pretty cool.

 

[fenderball]

is it difficult to program???

I had worked hard (with my ears) for a long time to wind up with the following mainstay pedals on my Trailer-Trash board. Not anywhere near as impressive as some of the esteemed players here, but here is a list.

Empress Tremolo
Empress ParaEQ
Retro-Sonic Chorus
Option 5 Destination Rotation
GigRig Pro-14
Jetter gain stage blue
Fulltone DejaVibe II
T-Rex Replica
Diamond Memory Lane II
Digitech Whammy IV
Korg DT-10 tuner
Loop-Master 5 button switcher

In attempt to scale down I tried the popular Nova range from TC consisting of the Modulator, Delay and Reverb.

I had spent many many hours listening, evaluating, and collecting these pedals. I was fortunate to buy a group of pedals at a time and draw these conclusions as to the most appealing in each category, and on and on it went. It was fun, and a neat hobby/project to use in my playing full time.

From engineering and post production, and from years of ear training, I know how to hear and what to listen for, can hear individual frequencies and generally 'trust' what I hear.

On a whim I bought the TC G-System because it allowed patching of my OD pedals (I have 8 total 4 groups of 2) and the sounds were on par.The conclusion I came to is that for the most part the differences were minute. It was hard staring at a $5,000+ board and realizing that conclusion. I compared the Tremolo after tweaking to my Empress tremolo and even the Seymour Duncan Shape Shifter (more range than the empress actually) Tried the chorus compared to my Retro-Sonic. The vibes, the reverbs, the eq and on and on.

So over the coyrse of time recently I sold off all these wonderful pedals in favor of the TC G-System and my OD pedals. Sure there are certain things I miss on the individual pedals perhaps, but saving $2,000 and having one unit that captured very very high quality sounds, a pedal management system, and the ability to patch in-out all manner of effects in lots of presets won out...big time.

So, this is an encouragement for those that are looking for great tone, in a less expensive price (The TC G-System can be found on ebay for $900+) I would personally state that this unit can very much hold it's own against the boutique pedals. No, I don't believe the TC will give you the exact Replica delay sound, but two Replica pedals alone are only slightly cheaper than a used G-System.

This is not a dig at any of the awesome boutique pedals many great players have here, it is an encouragement for the lil' guys who want to play as well, but don't have the cash flow or means to get hardcore with all the boutique gear. Hope this helps.

Cheers.