Multi-effects units for jazz?

[peterk1]

I've been playing solo jazz pieces almost exclusively for the past two years but lately I've been taking part in a collaboration site and have been sorely tempted to start playing a little rock/pop helping people out with tunes.

I figure one of those little multi-effects units might come in handy to get to get some of the tones that go with those styles. But I would like to use it in my jazz playing as well.

Since it's something I doubt that'll never get mentioned in any review, can someone recommend one that sounds good in a jazz context (ie. nice clean tones, great reverb)?

Ones that I've read up on so far are:

Axe FX
TC Electronics Nova System
Line6 Pod X3

I'm leaning towards the little Nova System right now, due to size and price/

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

Haven't tried it, but I've often seen the "G major" rackmount suggested:

G-Major

[peterk1]

Thanks for pointing that one out. Looks good and sounds very nice.
The Nova system should actually be quite similar.

[Tom Karol]

I'm over it (for now), but I've been intrigued by the Carl Martin Quattro. It's more like 4 stomp boxes in one housing, though.

[jazzrat]

If funds are not issue I'd have an Axe FX, but since they are I have an X3 Live. Lots of good tones in there but not too much $.

[derek]

The AxeFx gets rave reviews from guys who are into the modelers, and by all accounts, is the top of that particular heap.

[bluemood]

Here's one for half the price of the AXE FX Digidesign Eleven Rack | Sweetwater.com

[peterk1]

I caved in and got the Nova System. Small and not so expensive it'll stop me from upgrading/switching if I don't like it.

Really nice reverbs, chorus and delay at first listen. It's be awesome for the jazz.

Distortions are so frikking loud out of the box though, I can't use them yet. Have to figure out how to tame them.

Manual is horrible, so it'll take a bit of work to figure out. Luckily there's movies available.

I was also into the Quattro at one point. Liked the simplicity and the fact that everything was right there in front of you. No menus/banks etc., etc.

[peterk1]

Just an add-on after playing with it for 3-4 hours.

Very nice unit the Nova. Very configurable but not complicated at all once you get over the initial fear of it.

It is absolutely, completely silent on most settings and will be a dream to record with. The distortions can get a little noisy, but the gate, once turned cleans it up perfectly.

It's worth it for the delay and reverb alone which are pretty much ported over from their 2000$+ system.

And it's built to last. Not much plastic on it at all. Everything is nice shiny metal! Don't see that too often these days.

The Heniriksen Jazzamp seems to love it too (nudge, nudge for Tom)

[Tom Karol]

Hmm!

[Tom Karol]

OK, Peter - now you've done it! All I really had any interest in was the Carl Martin Quattro. But I recently got a 20% discount card in the mail from Musician's Friend that expires after 10/31, so I started losing my resistance. However, even with the discount, the Quattro was going to cost $500. So after reviewing what was available, I ordered a VOX Tonelab ST. I'm getting it for $160. It's got a USB output for computer-based recording, and if it sounds great with the Henriksen I really won't need the Cube 60. And if it stinks, I'll just send it back. We'll see! Edit: No, I think the Cube 60 stays in any case.

[peterk1]

Hey, more gear stories coming. That's awesome.

If it doesn't work out give the Nova a try. It's sounding better and better every day...and I've even put my Tweety back on with it - no noise whatsoever.

I'm starting to call this pedal my swiss army knife. This thing doesn't baby you though...it does let you dial up some horrendous sounds...you get what you ask for, and it lets you ask for a lot of different variations/parameters.

I like that it looks very pro; I'm sure when I bring it to my next jam even the sax players will be curious...and sax players usually make fun of guitarists with their toys.

I'll post some samples when I have something good. I'll be doing up some chord melody christmas songs on the weekend. We'll see how it goes.

[Tom Karol]

Got it yesterday. Well, it doesn't stink, but it just doesn't do a thing for me. I'll give it a few more days, but I'll probably send it back. I guess the minimal models (I never use the HiGain ones) and effects (I never use the Phaser or the Flanger) on the Cube 60 (and the DA10) are enough for my purposes for now.

[lpdeluxe]

A couple of years ago I got a Line 6 Floor Pod Plus when I was working up a lot of new material by a friend who writes songs. It offered a wah, tremolo, various reverbs, and a number of amp simulators, all in a single unit.

The wah is great, but I don't use it very much (in fact, on exactly one of the 20 or so songs we arranged); the tremolo is great, and atmospheric, but also used on one song. A serious drawback is that it's difficult to switch between effects at a gig, and nearly impossible to tweak the parameters on the fly. Added to that is the cartoony sound of most of the simulations (no doubt not Line 6's fault, but rather an artifact of the cartoony sound of many rock guitars these days). An asset is the built-in electronic tuner, with a large display.

If you have a prescribed set list, and can set up each effect in advance (and not lose track of where you are!) the sounds are useful, and you have only one AC adaptor and two cables (guitar to Floor Pod Plus, FFP to amp) to deal with. For tinkering, it's slow. I'd rather twist the knobs on the amp than figure out each time what multi-function knob on the device does what, but maybe I'm just too much of a Luddite, or perhaps too old a dog, to learn that many new tricks.

[Tom Karol]

I played with the new little ToneLab SE again for a few hours today with my Tele and a neutral sounding small bass amp, before packing it up to send it back (read on). I guess I’d tried it initially with too much of a plug-and-play approach. These things apparently come with a bit of a learning curve! First I turned off all the amp and cabinet simulations thus avoiding the need to understand how to EQ them – I’ll treat learning how to use those as a separate sub-project – and then I just concentrated on evaluating the effects individually and then in simple combinations. Many of them are quite good if set conservatively. It takes quite a bit of work to set one of these things up to actually be useful, doesn't it? There’s an awful lot of sonically interesting stuff in it, and it does seem well executed. Plus it looks cool. I like about 10 of the 50 factory presets – pretty good (although my son, the prog rock drummer, likes a number of them that I don’t). It’s generally pretty quiet, and the sound in bypass mode seems relatively transparent. So, for $160, I guess I’ll keep it after all, though I'm not sure if I'll use it much live. Now, I have to go read the manual again for the 7th time!

[lpdeluxe]

Or, in my case, the 200th time. I find myself, from time to time, against my curmudgeonly instincts, playing with persons a small fraction of my age, and it seems to be a fact of life that they love the presets I call "cartoony."

Could it be that I'm getting old?

I'm glad you're finding the value in your gear. My experience has been that, when I give up on something and try another piece of kit that seems more appropriate, the new thing is as opaque in its operation as the one I abandoned.

So I still have the Floor Pod Plus. Maybe I should start sleeping with it....

Naw. It's much more fun to buy yet another amp, to learn if the tone dragon resides in THAT one (it proved to not dwell in the other ones).

[randyc]

I haven't used effects for many, many years and divested all of them except for an old MSR compressor and this thing :



Eat your heart out, guys !

Back in the day, I was often surprised to hear taped versions of my performances. (No, not the vocals, we all expect them to sound different.) The EFFECTS always sounded far more .... well, EFFECTIVE, on the playback.

So before making a determination of the utility of these things, maybe one should first record a brief session - using various settings - and evaluate the playback rather than the "live" performance ..

Just a thought ...

[Tom Karol]

Utility? Who said anything about utility? Remember, I said it looks cool! Seriously, at that price, if it adds something to a recording here and there, and works through a PA in a pinch, it's worth it. Plus - and most importantly - it will keep me from buying something far more expensive (for the time being, anyway) that I'll eventually end up not using much either!

[lpdeluxe]

I haven't used effects for many, many years and divested all of them except for an old MSR compressor and this thing :



Eat your heart out, guys !

Back in the day, I was often surprised to hear taped versions of my performances. (No, not the vocals, we all expect them to sound different.) The EFFECTS always sounded far more .... well, EFFECTIVE, on the playback.

So before making a determination of the utility of these things, maybe one should first record a brief session - using various settings - and evaluate the playback rather than the "live" performance ..

Just a thought ...

Where's the USB port?

[blkjazz]

Has anyone tried the Boss GT-10? Just curious as to how it sounds on bypass as well as the effects.

[Tom Karol]

Tried the ToneLabST with headphones last night for about 3 hours - even tried the amp and cabinet models. I guess I like it alot after all. Should be great for recording, might work well into a PA, but it will still take many many hours of futzing before I'll dare to try using it live! I'm going to try it through the Henriksen this weekend.

[Tom Karol]

I tried it with all my amps today, and I like all of my amps better without it. (I guess that's why I have those particular amps.) But then I tried it again with headphones. I really like it with headphones. So for recording and direct into a PA it should be quite useful; and it'll be neat to sometimes be able to carry my 'amp' in a laptop bag. It has 50 user presets, so if I create 1 really good patch every week, I'll be ready to play out with it in less than a year!

[TieDyedDevil]

Peter, I'm not surprised to hear that you're only lukewarm about the TC. A friend owned one briefly, then flipped it because it was - in his words - "too polite".

Two friends own and use an Axe-FX. I think the Axe-FX is a good unit, but would hesitate to recommend it to anyone who doesn't understand that they'll spend considerable time learning how to tweak all of its parameters. Personally, I prefer devices in which the designer doesn't abdicate so many choices to the end user.

By all means try a Line6 unit to see whether it works for you. In my experience, they're a bit behind the curve when it comes to clean and almost-clean sounds.

I'll suggest adding Digitech and Boss to your list of devices to audition.

I switched from tube amps to modelers in January of 2007, replacing a Fender Vibro-King with a Boss GT-8 and a small PA. On the plus side the GT-8 (since superseded by the GT-10) sounds good, does clean and almost-clean tones exceptionally well, and has a dizzying array of performance-related settings to determine how the control surface maps onto different effects. On the minus side the GT-8 is large and heavy and has a bit of a low-end rumble with the noise gate turned down low.

After using the GT-8 for a little over a year, I replaced it with a Digitech RP350 (which I have since replaced with an RP355 for its stompbox mode and looper). The RP series is smaller, less expensive, lighter and simpler than the GT series and has (IMO) higher-quality sounds. I chose the RP35x because it has a built-in stereo DI. You can pay more for larger units (RP500, RP1000, GSP1101), but the sounds are the same.

When I play somewhere that has a PA I bring just my guitar and the RP. At home I have a nice PA made of QSC K-series powered speakers.

[C.A.JO.]

Live/performing I use the tc nova system. I have a bunch of pedals for recording purposes, but live I use the nova systems along with a wah wah. it's awesome and versatile.