What songs and riffs do you usually play when testing out drive/delay pedal?

[nguitar12]

Hey guys just want to know what song do you usually play when testing out drive pedal? I used to be a acoustic guitar player. I don't really know to much rock stuff to play. I saw people always playing cool stuff while testing out guitar pedal ( distortion, delay etc ) That's reallt awesome but I have no idea what they are playing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wriynGui7EY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOKJNrcGYJs

Can someone please suggest a few song with good guitar riff so that I can play and testing out my pedal. Specially for distortion/overdrive/ and show ambient song for delay/reverb pedal?

[Frank_NH]

In order for MY pedals to be 100% certified rock and roll pedals they must pass rigorous riffing tests.  The crucial rock riffs are:

* Smoke on the Water
* Stairway to Heaven
* Walk this Way

and, the most important one...

* La Grange



(Actually, most YouTube demos are either stock blues-rock riffs or song riffs/chords.  Andy at PGS to me is the paragon for pedal demos, and he plays mostly riffs and chord progressions from well-known songs).

[karbomusic]

Great question...

Here's the important salient point IMHO.... I'd not only worry it from a songs/riffs perspective. I'd worry about it from a "conditions" perspective. Almost any distortion pedal sounds GREAT maxed out playing some massive riff. If you are designing/testing a pedal, you want to place it in all the least desirable and difficult to handle circumstances and see how it handles those...

Low gain, mid gain, single notes, low notes, high notes, two note chords, complex chords, good conditions, bad conditions (think different rooms/power), connected to other pedals, other amps, different guitars.

I really place emphasis on chords and in between gain settings, that's where any pedal is likely going to fall down sonically. Especially how it handles chords. A two note chord using 5ths or 4ths may sound freaking incredible then sound horrible as soon as you add a 3rd or 7th or minor 2nd depending on which type of harmonics the distortion is created from. (YMMV).

^These are the type of things that help one cover all the bases, then of course the "most funnest test", jam like crazy on whatever you like, the fun stuff. I just think it is a good idea to be aware of the above if you truly want to "test" the pedal for real use. Most of my disappointments have been for that thing I didn't consider while I was jamming out carelessly only for them to rear their head after building it and using it for real.

[alfafalfa]

Great question...

I fully agree !  Most distortionboxes sound great playing 4ths or 5ths but to put it differently:

What boxes sound great playing 3rds or some other distance on the tonescale?

I personally believe that you should try to use as few strings as possible to form a chord in order to mix as  few odd harmonics as you can. And so avoid ugly sounds.

I would like to hear other opinions .

Alf

[nocentelli]

What boxes sound great playing 3rds or some other distance on the tonescale?

I would like to hear other opinions .

Alf

Ring modulator?

[alfafalfa]

Ring modulator?

You're quite right there !  

I was thinking more about distortion boxes . I think Jimi Photon came up with something I meant in this thread: http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=109770.0  Reply 6 video.