80s rock sound, three in one ideas

[simon1138]

hello,
i would like to make a pedal that is a three in one. there are some already like this, vestafire dsx and moog do a pedal with these. i would like to put a basic fuzz, chorus and compression in one pedal. i like the tinny metal soiund of chorus, the compression allows for choppy chords and the soft fuzz.
i want to start off cheap, so a basic chorus and compression. fuzz seems to be cheapest anyway.
some kind of simple chorus and comp that could most likely be set and left as is.
any ideas of what is best for these would be great
thanks
also, if anyone has a vestafire dsx distortion, interested in selling???
thanks again
simon

[garcho]

You might find boxing up a chorus and fuzz together can create annoying problems. There are ways to deal with it, it's possible, but not so easy. Fuzz pedals are high gain amplifiers. They take anything you give them and amplify it, a lot. This includes any noise that sneaks in with your guitar signal. Chorus pedals, are actually delay pedals with very short delay, and the delay time is usually modulated up and down some. Too much and it sounds like a ray gun, no modulation, and you get the "doubling" effect, sort of. In order for you to make a delay pedal, including a chorus, you need either a BBD, or a PT2399, or some fancy programmable ICs, often with tiny surface mount leads. In order to make a chorus, you need modulation. All of those options are noisy. Digital ICs can create a lot of noise within the pedal and the traces and leads connecting everything. The same goes for LFOs doing the modulation. That noise will be end up getting back to your input and amplified by the fuzz pedal, a lot. That nasty digital noise will get even more pronounced after a compressor pulls up the noise floor.

Have you built any pedals before? There might be some kits, or at least some PCBs you can buy, if you're not going to breadboard or prototype it yourself. I would suggest making separate pedals, but I realize that isn't an answer to your question.

Welcome to the forum.

[imJonWain]

There's also the Digitech PDS-1550, I don't think those are very expensive.

[aron]

ZOOM MS-50G
$120, use this and be done with it!
Incredible pedal.
(damn the price went up. Used to be $100)

[aron]

BTW: this is a nice write up of the Digitech:
https://electricdruid.net/digitech-pds-1550-distortion-pedal-analysis/

[ElectricDruid]

BTW: this is a nice write up of the Digitech:
https://electricdruid.net/digitech-pds-1550-distortion-pedal-analysis/

Thanks Aron!

It's certainly a interesting beastie (hence my write-up) and the right era, but it doesn't have a full chorus, just a brief delay.
Of course, this being DIYStompboxes, that's a *challenge* not a *limitation*!! It wouldn't be impossible to add a little modulation to the delay line.

[vigilante397]

I'm remarkably disappointed that we're talking about the 80s rock sound and nobody has even mentioned the Rat.

I was going for 80s rock it would be Rat -> "The Edge" style delay -> washy reverb

Boom.

[aron]

Tom, that's what I thought. It's so close to getting a chorus going.
Nathan, was the Rat ever for real, the 80's sound? People say, but I never got mine to sound good - must be me. I had the original Rat and later on the smaller Rat which I modded liked for a little while. I guess you have to play it through the right amp etc.....

[garcho]

Aron, funny you made that comment about the Zoom. I had typed into the preview box, "FWIW, I just got a Zoom G1-X FOUR that can do that for $100, and I love it. 5 virtual pedals, including expression, in whatever order you want." I got a phone call before I hit "Post" and came back to the computer hours later. Fuzz, comp, chorus would be my first stab. Depends on the fuzz, whether it goes before or after compression. Compression can squeeze the chorus out of a chorus.

Also has a looper that can set loop length to measures or beats at a specific BPM. Not syncable but better than doing it completely by ear/stomp. I bought it for my MicroFreak, which I also love, but it doesn't have effects outside of VCF/VCA stuff.

[willienillie]

I'm remarkably disappointed that we're talking about the 80s rock sound and nobody has even mentioned the Rat.

I was going for 80s rock it would be Rat -> "The Edge" style delay -> washy reverb

Boom.

Chorus is extremely 80s.  Nauseatingly so.  Roland JC amps mostly.  But nobody used fuzz in the 80s, that skipped right from the 70s to the 90s.  The Rat was a big one, but usually in front of dirty Marshalls I think.  Same with Tube Screamers.  And then there was all the rackmounted gear, multi-FX and whatnots.

[garcho]

I used to rehearse at a studio and used their JC instead of schlepping my own amp. Me and the other guitar player would crack a lot of jokes at its expense. Finally, the studio owner, a wind player, said something along the lines of "I thought that was a nice amp (assholes)." I explained the whole 80s chorus thing, but it was lost on him why we found it so funny.

Trends are amazing, aren't they? So many people getting excited about one thing, sometimes for years at a stretch, and then, poof, all done.

[vigilante397]

JC-120 was the first amp I ever owned that wasn't a 10W practice amp. I knew nothing about gear at the time, I just knew it was a lot of power and my friend was only asking $120. I never even used the chorus, just ran my Digitech RP-80 straight into it I thought I was pretty cool, which is a very important part of 80s tone. You have to believe that you are the god of rock.

I owned it for 5 years before selling it for triple what I paid and buying my first tube amp

[aron]

I started playing guitar again when I started building pedals and when I started, all the old pedals were the rage again. So crazy.

[ElectricDruid]

I thought I was pretty cool, which is a very important part of 80s tone.

Lol, yes, this!

I started playing guitar again when I started building pedals and when I started, all the old pedals were the rage again. So crazy.

The one thing from the eighties pedals that isn't back is noiseless switching. These days it seems like everyone wants true bypass and bits of metal banging together, but back then, the holy grail was making a pedal switch on and off silently. When I was a teenager, I remember thinking that Boss were magicians and wondering how on earth they'd pulled it off. It was something amazing.

[DIY Bass]

My first amp was a JC120 as well.  I didn't even go via a practise amp first.  Anyway, to me, a Guvnor (with or without a few mods maybe) says 80s, because it is attempting to get towards that Marshall sound in a box.