What do I really need? (cover band guys)

[steeeve]

I know this is a brave question, but what do I really need? Let me explain. I am hooking up with a cover band. We're doing a pretty broad range, but they're all "standards."

Brick House
Mustang Sally
Brown Eyed Girl
Get Down Tonight
Boot Scootin' Boogie
etc...

Anyway, I've been stressing and obsessing about my pedal needs. The only things I know for sure will be on the board are (in this order) a Wizard Wah, DDSS, Timmy, 2 Loooper, Tone Press, undecided clean boost. What I'm stressing about is chorus and delay. I don't really think I need them for any of this material, but I don't know. Logistically, the absence of the chorus and delay is certainly appealing, but it seems like everyone doing covers has them. BTW, we aren't doing a whole lot of 80's stuff. What do you guys think? You think anyone would "notice" if I didn't have any effects?

Opinions much appreciated.

Thanks,
Steve

 

[dave s]

Trust me, doing covers you'll get a lot of mileage from a chorus pedal. It doesn't have to be a boutique pedal either. Heck, I used a trusty Boss CH-1 for a lot of years before buying the Retrosonic Chorus Ensemble.

Delay? I don't know ... they're fun to play with when you get bored from doing the 'standards.'


dave

 

[Ed Alvarado]

This is the kind of band I've been playing in for years. It just depends on what you like to hear. Chorus pedals are very cool and I should get one back on my board but I'd do a few gigs and see how things go, you'll know. Some of my amps don't have reverb so I like a little delay to fatten things up but that's just me. I like a little delay in my Santana tone as well but a friend of mine has killer Santana tone without it so it's kind of what floats your boat.

Good Luck!

 

[cvansickle]

A lot of clean but strong guitar parts in the songs you listed - a compressor would help a lot. Is that what a Tone Press is? I'm not familiar....

Reverb too.

 

[steeeve]

Hey, thanks guys.

I do tend to like a bit of delay on for rock solos, and a bit of slapback for country stuff. Hmm...

I'm not sure where I would use chorus, but I just can't help feeling like I need one. I have a Cool Cat that I could use. It's weird, I hear a lot of guitarists in party bands using chorus where I normally wouldn't, such as clean funk parts.

cvansickle, that's precisely what the Tone Press will be for. I have a TC compressor now that I'm replacing with the TP. I also use the comp for country solos.

 

[erksin]

Maybe a Phaser instead of the Chorus..?

 

[gitpicker]

[ It's weird, I hear a lot of guitarists in party bands using chorus where I normally wouldn't, such as clean funk parts.

Hey Steeeve - I know just what you mean. I played 25 years without pedals for the most part - and one major reason was hearing guys put chorus on EVERYTHING. It just sucked. I was forced out of a band because the previous guitar player had some little stereo Gallien Kruger amp with built in chorus that he never turned off - the chick singer bummed out at my tone (Strats and Les Pauls through a 1965 Super Reverb) - she said it did not sound PRETTY, like her old guitarist!

Effects are there to make something great sound even better - but they should not wag the dog!

The Gitpicker

 

[eric-d]

This is my board that I use in my band that's mainly a cover band. I can do almost anything with this. We can cover SRV, Arc Angels (Doyle Bramhall II), Cream, Hendrix, Beatles, Black Crowes, Stevie Wonder, Temptations, Ian Moore, Pink Floyd, Zepplin, Etc...

 

[steeeve]

Man that sucks about getting forced out due to lack of chorus, gitpicker. I hear you bro. I think chorus adds like this "professional sheen" that non-guitarists perceive as "pretty."

I don't have a problem with chorus if its integral to the sound for a particular tune like "Message in a Bottle" for example. It just doesn't make sense on, say, Motown stuff where the guitars were generally bone dry. Maybe the chorus gives it like a modern edge or something. For something more "open" like "Breathe" where I'm kind of filling in steel guitar duties, it actually makes the mix a little more dense which is nice. It just doesn't sound cool on tight guitar parts to me. It's like 80's porn guitar or beer commercial or Miami Vice or Vegas show band. Take your pick

 

[gitpicker]

Originally posted by steeeve
Man that sucks about getting forced out due to lack of chorus, gitpicker. I hear you bro. I think chorus adds like this "professional sheen" that non-guitarists perceive as "pretty."

Oh - it gets better. I did have a chorus (Ibanez UE-305 Multi-FX unit - KILLER chorus) - Her problem was that I didn't use it on every single song!

- and I think that my idea of good tone usually involving a Les Paul double-cutaway loaded with P-90's into a Beano Boost with my amp on "10" might have frightened her a little - she never understood what I was talking about when I said "LET'S ROCK!!!!

The Gitpicker

(If it ain't loud and nasty, it ain't rock-n-roll!)

 

[HHB]

I use 2 OD's a wah and an analog delay thats on all the time set to a reverbish setting. I took the swooshy pedals off , IMO they really don't add anything in a live setting, when I do use one it's a Boss trem pedal, I like the physical movement over the modulated pitch live ( make sense? ) one a wild hair I'll drag out the rotosphere ( and use it way too much! ) IMO the right gain for the tune is the key to covers

 

[JPenn]

I'm working on getting a pedalboard together. Here's what I'm thinking of going with

Vox wha

either an AM TS9 Silver or Barber LTD - to put the DD into the liquid zone.

Barber Direct Drive- main drive tone, the hot-rod Marshall seting in the DD manual.

Trem - my main "effect". I use a L6 Flex III with one of the bands I play with and use this more than chorus, rotary or delay.

Chorus - can use it for slow songs or crank the speed and use it as a leslie sim

Delay - slow songs or trippy breakdown sections in fast songs

RC Booster - I like to have a little volume bump for leads in a 2 guitar band. This way by the end of the night everyone's not on 10.

My main band plays most of the same stuff that every bar band plays. I doesn't require a lot of effects, but they can be used tastefully (or not) if you chose to do so. Right now I'm just using the a standard TS9 ->Direct Drive ->RC Booster and amp reverb. I have no problems making it thru a gig as is, but I miss having other sounds to mess with.

 

[Rob Eadgbe]

I've been playing in a similar type band for a long time, and I've gone through a lot of different modulation pedals. I'm always surprised at how little I use them. Delay though, I couldn't live without.

 

[Phil M]

Originally posted by gitpicker

Originally posted by steeeve
- and I think that my idea of good tone usually involving a Les Paul double-cutaway loaded with P-90's into a Beano Boost with my amp on "10" might have frightened her a little - she never understood what I was talking about when I said "LET'S ROCK!!!!

The Gitpicker

(If it ain't loud and nasty, it ain't rock-n-roll!)

Sounds like it was the wrong band for you anyways. But I agree with you on your tastes!

I'm not in a cover band and never will be, BUT please don't feel like you need to put a chorus on everything, maybe not even on your board. Judicious use of chorus can be cool as an effect, but when it become a fundamental part of the tone--yechhhhh.

Buy a used Visual Sound H2O which is a chorus and delay in one pedal. I had one briefly this year, but ended up selling it because I don't use chorus (I thought I could make it sound like a Leslie--I couldn't). I must admit it is a great double whammy of a pedal for just the sort of thing you're mentioning here.

 

[Gary Brennan]

I find chorus is needed very infrequently for the type of tunes you mention. Delay and verb however are much more applicable for a wider variety of tunes, and especially useful on outdoor gigs where a room isn't already supplying a verb characteristic.

I strongly suggest that you go with a wet/dry delay and verb setup, with tap tempo. Wet/dry/wet is even fatter, but too much to move IMO. The clarity of your basic tone and the 3D quality of your fx are so improved with wet/dry over the all thru 1 amp approach, you will love it. Frequently, this approach includes a reasonably useful chorus.

gb