Pedals for the Jazz Guitarist?

[El Fundo]

It’s funny how when I use delay playing straight-ahead jazz, I start to hear little “Metheny-isms” unintentionally come out in my playing. I heard a couple of recordings of me doing this that made me decide to just leave the pedalboard at home. I mean, I love Pat but I do not want to sound like him.

Pedals are necessary tools if you make your living as a musician like I do. I did a gig a couple of weeks ago that was a Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young tribute. I used my Tele and pretty much every pedal in my pedalboard. I do love other styles of music, but not as much as I love jazz. Still, I’m glad I have these tools so I can work more. I have distortion, overdrive, clean boost, tremolo, reverb, delay, and looper pedals in my board.

[mr quick]

My two must-haves are chorus and OD (in that order )

[Tom Karol]

Only for rock, I use this without the EP Booster (don't need it, as I use the compressor set at 0 as a clean boost) with a Godin Montreal Premiere and a JazzAmp 112. (The Rockbug gives it a more Fendery tone.) For straight ahead Jazz with my Eastman AR403, I don't use anything with the 112, but I use the EP Booster always on but set very low if I'm using my JazzAmp 110. For rehearsals of any kind, I just use the 110 and the EP Booster. Unless the volume is relatively low, in which case I use a DV Mark Little Jazz with no pedals at all.

[Gilpy]

I play lots of rock/country/funk/ r&b gigs and of course I use the appropriate pedals. For jazz stuff, just a hint of distortion or a little Wah (as a tone shaping device, not to go "wacky Wack" ) I'm not trying to sound like some guy from 50 years ago.

[feet]

My aversion to pedals is mostly related to not wanting to have to plug more shit in on a gig and not wanting to shell out the money for them. I've been thinking about getting a cheap zoom multi-fx to mess around with at home but for the gigs I do I think I'll remain simplistic. I do however have a volume pedal that I need on certain gigs where I need to go from rhythm playing to soloing without missing a beat to fiddle with the volume knob. That's about it though.

if you have the patience to set it up (and it isn't that big a deal once you get used to it) you can get most anything from a single zoom pedal. i have an ms 70 that is great for that. it covers my basics (delay and reverb), some useful things (noise reduction, eq, compression) and a bunch of things that are sort of fun to play with once in a while but i would never actually buy (phase, flange, filters, octavers and the like). and honestly, the sounds are solid. not bad for $120.

My only beef is that neither of these pedals can use batteries. It'd be a lot simpler if I didn't have to futz around with power cords.

you could go with something like a volto, or some of the more involved battery pack options, but you'd have to jump through some hoops for something high voltage/high draw, like i assume the avalanche run is.

but here is my neat little battery only, portable set up:



that's the "electric" version. the ep booster and sl drive come off and it becomes the acoustic board. truth be told, i vastly prefer those two pedals at 18v so i usually run this plugged in. the electric version goes into my ac4hw and the acoustic version goes into an ac33 or carvin stagemate.

this is a much simplified version of my larger, "real" board (and amps, really) but i'm doing just fine with this. indoors, at least. tough to admit that, but the 4 watter and the solid state get all my attention and i haven't fired up the 15 and 100 watter in months. ditto the huge boards.

[Alter]

I like a lot of players that use pedals for jazz, but if I use them, it feels like someone else is playing, so usually for jazz it's just guitar and amp. Plus I really enjoy the simplicity, less things viable to break

[Cunamara]

I have tried various pedals off and on for 30+ years. Almost all of them have ended up in a big box living under the piano bench: Boss chorus and distortion were my first two bought in '85 or so; later joined by a Dunlop was, Yamaha MagicStomp, MXR EQ, SansAmp PDDI, good grief there's more. I find most pedals to be fun for about four minutes, then I'm over them. Exceptions:

TC Electronic HOF2. Great warm reverb, very flexible and is now a part of my sound as one amp as no reverb and my others have reverbs that don't sound as good.

Zoom MS100bt. Does everything but make the bed. I like the HOF's reverb better, but I have played gigs using the Zoom as a DI into the PA and didn't really miss having an amp all that much. The pedal includes basic amp and speaker/miking modeling, good sounding effects and plenty of output to push the PA mixing board enough.

Baggs Para Acoustic DI. Makes my acoustic flattop sound very good through an amp. Really kind of a miracle worker in reducing the piezo quack to an acceptable level.

Gotta pile o' pedals that I need to post to the For Sale forum someday. That will make my wife happy since the box is under her piano bench!

[Burrellesque]

A few years ago I formed an instrumental trio to play tunes mainly from the 50's and 60's. I quickly realised that I would need a few effects, such as tremolo and spring reverb, to do the material justice. I decided to put together my first pedalboard. Actually I wasn't even aware of the term pedalboard at that point. I'd never owned a pedal and had always just plugged straight into an amp. Wasn't even a fan of amp reverb.

I was amazed by the range and scope of devices out there, it just seemed endless. I soon realised that I could have vintage tape delay Echoplexes, Fender spring tanks, tube bias or harmonic tremolo and various emulations of old amps cranked up to 12.
I put together a tidy board of 4 or 5 vintage effect only pedals to suit the music, a pedal tuner and I was away. It took me a little time to get used to dialling it all in though, and even more time still to get used to playing with effects.

I think that it's something worthwhile experimenting with. It can certainly get you out of a playing rut and open up your thinking a bit musically. Theres a lot of great material thats probably outside of what we focus on primarily. I certainly enjoyed that period of getting into a different headspace.

[rpjazzguitar]

I add this to my earlier post ...

The gear allows you to tailor your fundamental voice on the instrument.

I think that some experimentation with effects can help a player find that voice.

What signal chain produces a sound that makes it easier for you to express your feelings/ideas/etc?

In my case, an afternoon spent a few years ago fiddling with my ME80 did it. I discovered a patch that made it easier for me to make the music in my mind come out of the speaker.

For some, it may be that the experiment results in a return to a guitar, cable and amp. For me it was going to a processed sound for soloing. I still go clean for most comping.

[Stringswinger]

Guitar, cable and amp for me.

I have a tubescreamer and a Chorus pedal for a possible fusion gig (Have not had one in years, at some point I should sell those pedals).

I have a reverb pedal for my non-reverb Fender Princeton

I have a Baggs paraacoustic DI for a gig where a DI box is needed (haven't had one of those gigs in years though).

Bottom line for me is I am over pedals (I have tried many and simply prefer to KISS (Keep it simple stupid).

[sgosnell]

I don't even use a cable. I use a Line6 G10 wireless system, which sounds better to me than any high-end cable, plus I'm not tied to anything. I do use a HOF mini reverb pedal sometimes, but it's not essential. That goes between the wireless receiver and the amp, with a ~24" cable, sometimes a shorter one. As I've said before, I have a few pedals, but they mostly live on a shelf or in a bag, I just don't use them.

[p1p]

Looper to practice with, but only occasionally..

It’s just my guitar straight into an old amp I got for £20 (will post a thread about this gem eventually). I guess I just prefer to hear the guitar raw, or my fingers rather.

[aleksandar]

I use only boost and an overdrive (mostly as a boost). And since I'm getting the overdrive tone from a tube amp with no reverb, I don't use a reverb or delay pedal, and I have grown accustomed to a totally dry sound. Now I don't really like reverb/delay/chorus pedals. I like to hear the sound of the amp and the room. I use only when playing on an amp sim on my computer. Too dry in the earphones.

[jazzjames]

I use a tuner, preamp, delay, and digital plate reverb all the time...into the power amp of a boogie. That's it. I'll use a looper in a duo and a trem for special effects (at the end of a tune). All of it fits on a Pedaltrain Metro 24 with a power supply on the board. The metro is in a flight case about the same size as the board. Pretty easy. 2 cables and a power supply cable.

[Spook410]

Hmm.. Luddite much?

An Empress ParaEQ is much better than your amp EQ. You can be more acoustic. Or more midrange numb. Or avoid sonic traffic jams while emphasizing your place in the mix. It also includes boost.

Modulation pedals have changed since the mid 90's. They do things your blue Boss Chorus didn't like add shimmer to high frequencies while leaving the rest alone. And, of course, a bunch of other things you can do with lots of fast signal processing available.

Compression is for when you screw up.

There are amaze-balls reverbs out there. They are cool, fun, interesting and will inspire you to make more music.

A small pedal board, properly set up, takes AC power, has one in and one out. It isn't hard.

[jorgemg1984]

Spook, why are compressors for when you screw up? I always use one.

[feet]

it's to soften the transient and add some sustain so people can hear your mistakes longer

i've heard compression described as "overdrive for your clean tones" but i sort of don't like it while i play, for whatever reason. i haven't tried a whole bunch but i'm not into the squish squish pop that so many seem to love. i don't record with it, either, though i use a healthy amount for mixing and such. on the fishman seen above, i have a small amount that only kicks in when i pick hard. if i can hear it, there's too much. sometimes i'll turn it up a little more if i'm playing quietly and don't have a lot of gain going but want a little more sustain.

some of the fancy ones sound cool and all in demos, but i'm not about to go chasing something i don't really need to begin with. i'm a very "human" player, which is a nice way of saying i'm bad. or dynamic! there's a lot of right and left hand variation and nuance. the imperfections feel alive. human. they are also super annoying. depends. perspective, and all that.

[Boston Joe]

I don't think I'd like using a compressor for jazz. I like having the dynamic range unmolested. If I screw up the attack or something, that's on me. For rock or fusion, or basically anything where I'd be using OD, or in a very loud situation, then I like having one.

[jorgemg1984]

The trick is getting a compressor with a threshold control. That way you can retain attack and dynamics and timbre and lack of squash. The compressot will only attenuate some spikes, making your sound more studio-like.

[feet]

my favorite feature on a compressor is a light. or a meter. knowing when and how much squishing happens is very helpful to me. i just set them so the light almost never comes on. i hardly use my ears at all failing that, i usually use 2:1 or 4:1 or whatever the lowest setting is. i usually had them set so low that it is basically pointless which is why i sold them off.

if i had the money, space and need, i'd have me one of these:

(except for the weird resonant peak with the acoustic) all you need plus analog mojo in one box. in a way, the fishman platinum pro is a less affluent person's version of it.

[jorgemg1984]

The amplifire compressor was good (sold it), but the rack compressor model on the G3N is good, too.

[Frank67]

I‘ve had more compressors that I care to admit ... and I hate overly squishy compressors like the Boss one.

Recently I got a Cali76 and that is a totally different league from anything I heard before ... super impressive piece of gear. You retain the dynamics and everything sounds ‚better‘ (and you have th visual control feet was talking about). That is what i want a nice compressor to do. Not get in the way.

But there are also ‚in your face‘ uses of compressors such as David Gilmour that I really like. But it is a totally different genre and totally different intention. But for me, it really works.

[Spook410]

Spook, why are compressors for when you screw up? I always use one.

- When you thought you had turned boost off and you come down too hard on a chord heading into the chorus

- You thought you turned up treble.. you turned up volume

- The pick digs in when you're distracted by the bass player and you get your feet crossed

- Singer stepped on your volume pedal

- You use an overdrive on some tunes.. not this one

So yea, I almost always use compression in a limiter role. Maybe one day I'll find a compressor that seems musical for an acoustic tone, but not holding my breath.

[dallasblues]

Very rarely do I use a pedal. If I do it's really either a tremolo or reverb pedal. That's pretty much it. I'm really fortunate to have two amps that sound amazing as-is. One is a '51 Fender Pro and the other is a '59 Champ (my practice amp). I just don't like anything to color their natural sound.

[Bach5G]

I’ve accumulated a few items over the years with no real plan in mind and I am thinking about assembling a small pedal board.

I’ve got a Tubescreamer, a TC Spark, a mini Crybaby, and a TC Ditto.

The Poly/EQ thread has me looking at cheap-like-borscht Chinese pedals.

Any general advice as to what, if anything, I should add?