pedal suggestions

[junior421]

I am looking for feedback on improving my sound. I mainly play an American Jazz through a SWR 750 and Mesa Boogie 4x10 cabinet. I do not want effects for solos or anything, just maybe compressors or filters to smooth out the sound and make it as consistent as possible. I recently changed to flatwound strings and that made a huge difference.

I notice a lot of bigger musicians have pedals in their rackmount that are on all the time to define their sound. Looking for suggestions.

Basically, I hear about compression and pre-amps and stuff like that but I don't really know what any of that is and want to learn but can't seem to find the answers.

Tones I love: John Stirratt - Wilco, Chris Wood - MMW (both play Ps but I have a J)

 

[kevteop]

Maybe you'd get on with a compressor, but mostly it sounds like you want a fat valve head.

Get the valve head first and you might not want the compressor.

 

[bongomania]

Check the links in my sig to learn more about both compressors and preamps. Then read through the various threads that come up on a search of those terms here, to find out what people are using.

 

[*insertcoolname]

Compressor is gonna be your thing. If you don't wanna go real expensive, I would recommend the BBE optostomp for $90. A little more money and you could get the EBS multicomp or anything rackmounted.

 

[junior421]

Bongomania, your page is AWESOME! What a huge help.

Kevetop, what is a fat valve head?

 

[kevteop]

Kevetop, what is a fat valve head?

A valve (tube - sorry, I forget the transatlantic differences!) amplifier, an Ampeg SVT or something similar. That would probably give you the tone your looking for and add a natural compression to your sound too.

 

[SteveC]

Compressor is gonna be your thing. If you don't wanna go real expensive, I would recommend the BBE optostomp for $90. A little more money and you could get the EBS multicomp or anything rackmounted.

I just added one of these to my rig. My other is a Boss TU-2. I have a chorus and phaser biut never use them. I'm gonna put my BBE and TU-2 on a mini (6"x8") pedal board and call it good.