Boss pedal acquisition

YuriK · Post by **YuriK** » Sun Mar 16, 2014 12:44 pm

Yesterday I went with my dad to one of his friends whom he hadn't seen in years. My dad mentioned that I played guitar so his friends just gave me a bunch of boss pedals and a drum machine. An MT-2, CH-1, OC-2, DD-3 and PSM-5. Also an AKAI professional. I was surprised at how little tone the boss pedals sucked out of my tone. The drum machine plays 16 bit drums and needs lots of cleaning so some of the buttons dont work. I haven't really figured out how to work it 100 percent and all ive really been able to make with it are really cheesy loops.

ekwatts · Post by **ekwatts** » Sun Mar 16, 2014 1:41 pm

ykk211 wrote:I was surprised at how little tone the boss pedals sucked out of my tone.

It's almost as if people make shit up or massively overestimate things in order to promote their own products, innit?

YuriK · Post by **YuriK** » Sun Mar 16, 2014 1:49 pm

ekwatts wrote:
ykk211 wrote:I was surprised at how little tone the boss pedals sucked out of my tone.
It's almost as if people make shit up or massively overestimate things in order to promote their own products, innit?

hahahaha thank you for that. Anyway, made up, no, but overestimated definitely.

Fakir Mustache · Post by **Fakir Mustache** » Sun Mar 16, 2014 2:07 pm

It depends the tone you are going for and your pickups, sometimes it sounds like hell, sometimes it may sound better.

What drum machine did you get?

YuriK · Post by **YuriK** » Sun Mar 16, 2014 2:47 pm

Fakir Mustache wrote:It depends the tone you are going for and your pickups, sometimes it sounds like hell, sometimes it may sound better.

What drum machine did you get?

AKAI professional XR10
and I was using p90s if that makes a difference.

Fakir Mustache · Post by **Fakir Mustache** » Sun Mar 16, 2014 7:33 pm

No, makes no difference, just saying the sound may be good or bad depending on what you're going for.

Wow XR10, that's awesome. Also has some extra outputs. Pretty big, isn't it?

YuriK · Post by **YuriK** » Sun Mar 16, 2014 8:01 pm

Fakir Mustache wrote:No, makes no difference, just saying the sound may be good or bad depending on what you're going for.

Wow XR10, that's awesome. Also has some extra outputs. Pretty big, isn't it?

It's got quite a few outputs. I'm not sure how big drum machines usually are but its about 1ft by .75ft
It's lots of fun but I'm still trying to find a way to make some more natural sounding drums, and the snare button isnt working so i have to clean it.

WayToHip · Post by **WayToHip** » Sun Mar 16, 2014 8:05 pm

i think the animosity towards buffers is from ignorance. i don't know what they do, but having a lot of buffered pedals in line does change the sound.

Fakir Mustache · Post by **Fakir Mustache** » Sun Mar 16, 2014 8:12 pm

No, it comes from sounding bad. I have once had a very good sound, then put a buffered pedal after my distortion and sounded like crap.

But that all depends. A buffer could also remove ice-pick highs and deep lows, but if it sounded fine in the first place it can sound very bad.

YuriK · Post by **YuriK** » Sun Mar 16, 2014 8:15 pm

The only real difference I noticed was it making it quieter and cutting some of the bass which i just leveled out on my amp to correct.

Post by **Doog** » Sun Mar 16, 2014 9:43 pm

RULE 1 OF BOSS PEDALS:

-Turn tone all the way down and the volume all the way up.

YuriK · Post by **YuriK** » Sun Mar 16, 2014 9:51 pm

Doog wrote:RULE 1 OF BOSS PEDALS:

-Turn tone all the way down and the volume all the way up.

When I turn on the Metal zone it gives a lot of low end for a distortion pedal actually, very dark and crunchy, but when off, yes 100% agree.

Concretebadger · Post by **Concretebadger** » Mon Mar 17, 2014 12:35 pm

WayToHip wrote:i think the animosity towards buffers is from ignorance. i don't know what they do, but having a lot of buffered pedals in line does change the sound.

I think it's because there's a lot of physics involved, and most of us just want to plug in and have fun rather than read up on the theory. There are some great articles around on the web that explain it better than I ever could though.

As I understand it (feel free to correct/clarify this, people):

It really depends on the buffer(s) in question - if you're hearing a difference, it's because the buffer isn't doing what it should. e.g. Boss buffers = transparent. Danelectro Fab Tone buffer = treble sucker. Because not all buffers are created equal, some people go for 'true bypass' because they know that a TB pedal adds or removes nothing noticeable. The problem comes when you have several TB pedals in a row, because of the cumulative effects of having them in your signal path. This extra wire that your sound is travelling through makes it sound like you're using a longer cable (with the treble suck that goes with it) when you have a lot of them.

A good buffer (e.g. Boss buffered bypass) *should* sound exactly the same as a TB pedal on its own, but using chains of buffered pedals shouldn't give that 'cumulative change in capacitance' effect that the equivalent number of TB pedals in a row would do. Each buffered pedal 'resets' the capacitance...at least in theory.

The only downside to the Boss style buffer is that certain fuzzes don't sound as good when the signal's been through the buffer circuit. I won't pretend to understand the details, but the short answer is to put, say, a Fuzz Face or Fender Blender 'upstream' of a Boss pedal and you'll be fine.

EDIT: this reply probably makes me sound like one of those smart-arses who doesn't know what he's talking about. tl;dr version: the Metal Zone sounds cool, is more versatile than its name suggests and even if you plug all of the OP's new acquisitions into your pedal chain at once, there shouldn't be any detrimental effect on tone...unless you're using shitty patch cables. Nice score, dude!

BearBoy · Post by **BearBoy** » Mon Mar 17, 2014 12:39 pm

Found this interesting.

[youtube][/youtube]

Personally don't really care. Tone is all in the chocolate fingers.

71Smallbox · Post by **71Smallbox** » Mon Mar 17, 2014 1:16 pm

Doog wrote:RULE 1 OF BOSS PEDALS:

-Turn tone all the way down and the volume all the way up.

I disagree with this, this is entirely pedal specific and not pertaining to all Boss pedals.

Fran · Post by **Fran** » Mon Mar 17, 2014 11:10 pm

BearBoy wrote:Found this interesting.

[youtube][/youtube]

Personally don't really care. Tone is all in the chocolate fingers.

Lolz @ 20' cable. Thats nothing, when I was playing round the pubs I used a 60' cable and ran into the car park for a piss during a solo. Sounded mint as well.

It is interesting, loads of myth surrounding gear.

Boss pedal acquisition

Boss pedal acquisition

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Re: Boss pedal acquisition