Do you use/like effects for jazz?

**pcjazz** · 12-30-2018, 05:31 PM

It’s always good to have a tuner in the loop.

**lammie200** · 12-30-2018, 05:52 PM

Double post, sorry.

**lammie200** · 12-30-2018, 05:53 PM

When I used to play out more often I had a Boss multi effects thing, but it never really translated well for a bebop guitar sound or anything similar that I like for jazz. Now just a bit of amp built in reverb on my Fender SCX2, but nothing when I use my other amp which is a Fender Pro Jr. Some people can pull off the pedals and pedal board thing well. For me it was just getting in the way and there is something satisfying with knowing that I am producing almost all of the sound. Kinda a pure thing.

**arielcee** · 12-30-2018, 07:08 PM

Some crunch every now and then. Used to have some cool fuzzes, phasers, chorus, flanger, etc; but they just didn't get much use m so I sold em. I do like phaser+crunch, esp for some Jmac-esque sounds. Univibe is good too for Jimi tones, but overall I'm not missing much.

**Littlemark** · 12-31-2018, 01:12 AM

Nope.

**KirkP** · 12-31-2018, 03:17 AM

In a soft room with carpet, etc. I’ll use a reverb with highs rolled off and set very low. I don’t like noticing the reverb—I just want the room to feel a little larger. In a larger room with hard surfaces I might not use reverb.

I might kick in an overdrive pedal for a little crunch if playing a blues with a band. Occasionally I’ll use a tremolo.

I’ve got nothing against effects if they are used in a way that serves the music.

**christianm77** · 12-31-2018, 08:46 AM

Originally Posted by KirkP

In a soft room with carpet, etc. I’ll use a reverb with highs rolled off and set very low. I don’t like noticing the reverb—I just want the room to feel a little larger. In a larger room with hard surfaces I might not use reverb.

I might kick in an overdrive pedal for a little crunch if playing a blues with a band. Occasionally I’ll use a tremolo.

I’ve got nothing against effects if they are used in a way that serves the music.

Yeah I think your goals are similar to mine.

It’s not always possible to ideally situate the amp for a good sound either from room ambience. A touch of verb is often a very helpful.

**Jonnyslaphead** · 12-31-2018, 09:17 AM

A bit of amp reverb is a must for me and I use some light overdrive from a pedal just give a bit of bite. I’m also a big fan of tremolo. Other effects like delay, flange, chorus sound great when I’m playing at home but as soon as I try to use them live with the band the sound always seems to go very wrong very quickly.

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**Rufes** · 12-31-2018, 10:10 AM

Thanks for all the replies.

I like to try different sounds from time to time but I always end up playing completely dry specially with the band. Not even reverb.

Guitar - cord - amp - Happiness

**patshep** · 12-31-2018, 10:35 AM

since i got my princeton non reverb, i've enjoyed completely dry, however i always have a little reverb, volume pedal, rat and a chorus and delay in my normal chain, if i was playing strict bebop i wouldn't bring them, but i'm more likely to play modern style stuff anyhow

**Paulie2** · 12-31-2018, 01:46 PM

I have a pretty large board that I use, but generally lean towards keeping their settings in an area that has a pretty subtle effect. Mainly slight verb, slight delay, and slight boost. For non straight ahead jazz gigs I use some others like univibe, wah, etc. I also try to not use them as a crutch and want to be able to plug in and play without them whenever needed. Here’s a recent gig that is pretty representative of how I generally use effects in a jazz setting:

**cosmic gumbo** · 01-01-2019, 05:00 AM

Kurt enjoys a pedal or two...

**dwparker** · 01-01-2019, 06:24 AM

Dispatch Master v2 for needed reverb/sound thickening delay (I do not like a completely dry sound), ehx freeze to hold chords to play over, beat buddy for metronome and rhythm tracks, looper and a tuner are my pedals which I use for practice. I have a chorus pedal and a tc electronic quintessence for fun, though honestly I don't need them. I keep toying with the idea of getting a mild od pedal, but I know in the back of my head I really should get a better amp first (I'll probably do that sometime this year), and then an od pedal probably won't be necessary. I see an eq pedal in my near future as well. I am interested in eqd's tone job. I like the empress para eq pedal, but it's large pedal board foot print is annoying to me, so I'll probably pass on that.

**Alter** · 01-01-2019, 08:57 AM

The disappointment of plugging in your pedalboards, true bypass, high quality pedals, good buffers and all, whatever, .. and then plugging direct and sounding SO much better!

It hits me every time, i guess i really like the purity of sound the guitar-amp combination gives me.

But basically for my style of jazz playing, usually no effects..

**patshep** · 01-01-2019, 12:31 PM

Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo

Kurt enjoys a pedal or two...

i saw him at the vanguard a couple months ago
he's taken the pedal thing overboard
i love kurt, but i can't even deal with his tone anymore.. so synthetic and no attack on the notes at all

**Cunamara** · 01-01-2019, 03:16 PM

Generally I don't seem to have the attention span or maybe brain power to deal with pedals and getting the most useful stuff out of them. I've heard other people do stuff with it that I enjoyed. The different shapes to the sound, etc., can be inspiring though and that's not a bad thing. It's hard to fit a ring modulator in to jazz, though. I enjoy Holdsworth quite a bit and I like Garcia, too, although he tended to use effects as seasoning rather than as the base. I saw Jonathan Kreisberg a few months back; he made pretty subtle use of effects to enhance what he was playing and I dug that.

But as for myself I just don't seem to be able to make 'em work for me other than my HOF reverb pedal and Hum Debugger. I bought a Boss chorus and distortion back in the mid 80s, the've spent most of the past 30 years in a box. Occasionally I pull them out and after ten minutes that's enough of that. The sameness of the sound gets tedious. I have a Yamaha MagicStomp, but their really poor support on the sound-shaping side (especially for Mac users, Yamaha really effed that up; for Windows users it apparently worked correctly) made it useless to me- Holdsworth used six of 'em till the end of his career, so clearly someone figured them out. I have a Zoom MS100bt which is the grandchild of the MagicStomp, very useful tool for going to the PA and skipping the amp entirely. I did quite a few successful gigs using that and an Alto powered speaker instead of a traditional amp. With more effort that could have worked even better than it did, but it was no more convenient than using a guitar amp.

So it's a guitar, 5E3, cord and my reverb pedal and Hum Debugger for now.

**Spook410** · 01-01-2019, 04:05 PM

All this pureness. All this quest for a pure sound.

Hmm... and yet very few play a pure acoustic or seek out the amplified sound of a good acoustic archtop. That's pure. Not an amp and pickup that reproduce a very narrow range of the available sounds. So, I don't think pure has much to do with it.

I plug straight in a lot. It's easy. It sounds fine. It's a nice centered comfort zone from which to do the same things I've been doing for decades. For some who play primarily electric guitars it lets them think about playing and not gear. It's one thing among so many things there are to do with guitars and electronics.

Pedals are fun. Especially new tech. They can spur creation. They are something different to do on a Sunday afternoon sipping coffee. They do require learning a few new things. Like how to have them not impact what your guitar sounds like plugged straight into the amp. They do not keep you from doing anything else. They are something to explore that didn't come from 50 years ago.

**KirkP** · 01-02-2019, 03:12 PM

Originally Posted by Spook410

All this pureness. All this quest for a pure sound.

Hmm... and yet very few play a pure acoustic or seek out the amplified sound of a good acoustic archtop. That's pure. Not an amp and pickup that reproduce a very narrow range of the available sounds. So, I don't think pure has much to do with it.

True. Cave Man might have insisted only this was “pure sound.” :-)

It’s all about personal taste, creativity and following the muse.

**Meggy** · 01-02-2019, 11:23 PM

I guess I have to say yes I like to use effects - these days via a Line 6 Helix LT. I've always had a thing for ambience/mood/atmosphere and appropriate use of effects allows me to create a suitable backdrop. Maybe I'm a bit stuck in the 80s also, but I do like to use chorus plus a little delay, for latin numbers sometimes. I suppose, broadly speaking, the effects do expand what I can do with a guitar. But also I have gigs where all I need or want is guitar plus Polytone amp.

**rpjazzguitar** · 01-02-2019, 11:27 PM

Yesterday I played my first session in years without a pedal board. Into a Roland 40XL with a little reverb.

The only thing I missed was the tuner.

Go figure.

**wildschwein** · 01-04-2019, 10:49 AM

Chorus & reverb.

**Headshot** · 01-04-2019, 12:45 PM

Currently running a Soul Food for a little thickening/hair, and have a Holy Grail Neo just for the Plate Reverb when I don't want the spring reverb built into the amp. Not sure if I need anything else but might add a delay pedal...

**ESCC** · 01-04-2019, 03:31 PM

Very subtle delay, occasionally will use reverb instead. Sometimes I like to plug into an amp's od channel with it set very low to add some compression and body.

**D.G.** · 01-04-2019, 04:58 PM

For swing, nothing. A bit of reverb from the amp maybe, depending on how live the room is. Otherwise, if using my Tele, I might use a Digitech CM2 overdrive, set as low as it can go to get a bit of rock-n-roll on solos if desired.

OTOH, at home, I'm always plugged in to a board with Crunchbox, CM2, Screwdriver, volume pedal, Echorec, tremolo, Ditto x4 looper. It's my rock/fusion/ambient rig. It's tuned to work with my Teles or Bluesbird -- no archtops allowed