Q & A
Guitar Effects Questions & Answers
Question
I bought a Line 6 Spider Valve amp last year over others because one, it was tube, and two, it was used so it was a good deal. The amp generally sounds incredible and is very versatile. The only issues I have with it is that, however weird this sounds, it is almost too convenient. It has a ton of sounds and such. I am a big classic rock fan, blues, jazz, folk, classical, a lot of things, but my favorite is classic rock. I feel like I can't relate to the players I idolize when I hear how they had all these pedals and these incredible analog setups. Anyway, so for gigging and for my own practicing convenience, I was thinking of getting a pedal. Originally I planned to get a line 6 pedal made for this amp. It seemed good, but then I thought about the whole idea of being more vintage. Also I was thinking that if I ever got another amp, the pedal wouldn't work. I was thinking maybe get a few of those individual boss pedals. What do you think I should go with? Also, me being new to pedals, what doing you think are the essential pedals and the good pedals for certain sounds. Thanks so much for all of the help. - Jacob
Answer
That's a big question. Since "Classic Rock" is your favorite it would be best to look at what was commonly used in those years - the 60's and 70's. I was teen in the 70's so I have personal experience with this era.
You already have the main ingredient - a tube amp. The thing to remember is there were no high-gain amps or channel switching amps until the late 70's, so the classic rock era was almost always single channel tube amps using far less gain then is commonly used today (especially in metal bands.) Overdrive (or distortion) was achieved by either by turing the amp all the way up to 10 to overdrive the tubes, or by using a fuzz or distortion pedal, or using a distortion or booster pedal to overdrive the tubes in the amp.
Common pedals are essentially the same ones used today: wah, fuzz, flanger, phaser, delay, etc. - although they were all analog units. Digital effects didn't arrive until the 80's.
If you want to be true to the era you should get some analog pedals. Here are few you might consider:
A wah (called a Wah-Wah pedal back in the day) was used for everything from hard rock riffing to funky chording.
Crybaby or
Vox
were the big two.
An analog delay pedal. Delay pedals were often used for solos. Many players used tape echos back then (Echoplexes or Roland Space Echos) but they are expensive and require a lot of maintenance.
A fuzz pedal for that 60's distortion tone.
Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face and
Electro-Harmonix Big Muff
were two popular models.
A Phaser for swirling tones.
MXR Phase 90 was probably the most popular.
A flanger for swooshing chord progressions or riffs. I can't remember what was popular back then. Probably
Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress.
There were no "multi-effects" the way we think of them today, but Electro-Harmonix made some units that combined two or three effects. In fact most of the Electro-Harmonix pedals were popular back then.
Naturally there are many more brands and variations today, so you really need to go with your budget and what sounds good to you. But remember, effects are like candy. There are are always new, tasty, ones being released to tempt you.
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