) and decided to go all out with turning the Moog into my distinctive lead instrument.To that effect (pun half-intended) I decided to play around with some effects pedals and see how they affected the sounds. I got together some that I already had at home, some from the guitarist in my band and some from the secondhand pawnshop where I work. This is by no means a comprehensive test of different types of pedals, just me getting an idea of what pedals work, which don't and how they affect the sound (both good or bad) of my LP. I'm primarily interested in colouring the sound for Leads & Basses, rather than FX, so I need to retain most of the clarity and distinction of the original sound.
Some of the results of the test are likely to be unsurprising for longtime sound tinkerers, but for a relative newcomer like me, I found some of the results to be informative, and hopefully they will be of use to some of you as well.
Here's the list of pedals that I got together for the test.
(* denotes pedals I own)
TC Electronic - MojoMojo Overdrive
Biyang - OD-10 Mad Driver Overdrive
Danelectro - Cool Cat Metal
Line 6 - Uber Metal*
Electro-Harmonix - Metal Muff with Top Boost
MXR - Fullbore Metal
Devi Ever - Hyperion Fuzz*
TC Electronic - Vortex Flanger
Electro-Harmonix - Memory Toy Delay*
So yes, not a comprehensive list by any means, but a smattering of different pedals. I was mainly concerned with getting a more distorted/overdriven sound for the leads and basses so these were the pedals I focused on. The aim was more to see what type of pedals (Overdrive, Distortion, Fuzz etc) worked with the LP rather than assessing the different pedals themselves (though that still factored into the testing).
The setup:
LP -> Pedals (powered by a DC Brick, standard guitar pedalboard order) -> Yamaha MG12 Mixer -> EMES Pink TV Studio Monitors
Here's a quick run through about what I though of each pedal:
TC Electronic - MojoMojo Overdrive & Biyang - OD-10 Mad Driver Overdrive
To be honest, these two pedals had almost no affect on the LP sound, other than to change the tonal colour slightly, even with widely different settings. Now, I know the purpose of an overdrive is to overdrive a guitar amp, so I knew they wouldn't have much effect, but I was surprised by how little effect they had. I've sort of concluded that OD pedals aren't really suited for synths running direct, except for subtle tone changes. Feel free to tell me I'm wrong though
Danelectro - Cool Cat Metal
Did what you'd expect - made the LP leads sound like a relatively thin distorted guitar. Didn't do too badly in fattening up the bass though, definitely added a fair bit of balls to the sound.
Line 6 - Uber Metal*
Worst pedal out of all the ones I tried. Not sure if it because it's digital modelling, or its input impedance but it had very little volume and gain on tap and sounded very unpleasant. Not musical at all. Not recommended. Not a bad one for guitar though.
Electro-Harmonix - Metal Muff with Top Boost
Like the Cool Cat, this thickened up the Leads & Basses quite nicely, with tone controls balancing out some of the trebliness. The Top Boost feature sounded like it added a bit more higher harmonics into the processing and made the pedal sound a lot fuller. This pedal was the noisiest out of all the one I tried, adding quite a bit of background noise when I wasn't playing.
MXR - Fullbore Metal
This one seemed like it had a much narrower range of sounds than the Metal Muff and as the name suggests, it's pretty much designed for a single type of distortion and seems less suited for synths than the other distortion pedals. Still, it didn't sound too bad and definitely had a major impact of the sound of the LP.
Devi Ever - Hyperion Fuzz*
This is one of the craziest pedals I've ever used with guitar. Capable of producing insane fuzz/distortion textures while remaining on the edge of musicality. On the LP, this one actually sounds... pretty good. Fattens up and distorts Leads quite nicely, without being too trebly. It also works wonder on bass, making a nice fat fuzzy distorted sound, while retaining a reasonable amount of low end girth. Most people seems to agree that fuzz pedals are the best for synths and this certainly seems to support the case. Definitely one to have a play around with.
TC Electronic - Vortex Flanger
I borrowed this from my guitarist to have a play with. Sounds pretty cool on the LP, a wide variety of sounds on tap. Actually works pretty well after a distortion pedal. Which is exactly how the guitarist in my band uses it. Not a bad pedal, but a flanger's not particularly high on my list of pedals to get, and the lowpass filter on the LP beats a flanger any day for sweeping effects.
Electro-Harmonix - Memory Toy Delay*
This is the first pedal i got for the LP, and it's pretty much always on. I love the sound of the delay of this pedal with the LP, it just fattens up the sound beautifully and adds a wonderful sense of space. I know most people have their favorite delay pedal, and there are many better ones out there, but i love this sound of this one and am not in any real hurry to try out new ones.
Well, that's it. A rather not-too-scientific experiment to see what happens when you plug your LP into some guitar pedals. However, since it was an experiment, there should be some conclusion (Warning: Opinions may vary).
1. Overdrives on synth are pretty useless, unless you are running them into an amp of some sort.
2. Distortion pedals (especially metal-type pedals) work OK on the LP, but are reasonably limited in the tone they impart on the synth. Each pedal seems to have it's own distinctive tone, so you'll have to try a few out to find one you like.
3. Fuzz pedals = goodness
4. Flangers - YMMV, depends what you're after.
5. Delays - personal preferences ok, but you can't really go wrong with analog.
There you go. A rather haphazard look at some pedals that i was able to get my hands on, and what they can do to your Little Phatty's sound. In the interest of full disclosure, while doing these tests I went ahead and ordered two pedals specifically for the LP, on the strength of youtube demos, review and wish power. The first is a TC Electronic Corona Chorus pedal, which I'm hoping will fatten up the sound of the LP without being too chorusy (the demos show that it can do this quite well on guitar - I'm hoping it works just as well on synth). The other pedal seems to be one of the more popular fuzz pedal choices for synths at the moment, the Zvex Mastotron. With it's variable impedance input, it seems pretty suited to synths and I've read a few report of people using it with synths with great success. I'm looking forward muchly to getting these and playing with them.
Well, if you've gotten to here and you're still reading, Well Done! I hope you've found something interesting reading this, otherwise you've probably wasted some of your time. In all seriousness though, there's not a huge amount of information about using different effects pedals with synths, so I hope my own experiments will be of benefit to someone who is looking to mangle the sound of their LP.
Good night and thanks for reading!
