Sometimes I wonder.................

[Stephen]

The complexity of digital is the POINT!
Simple overdrives and boosters dont hang with most younger set.....The digital is everywhere...

The sound of a good tube amp with an analog boost takes you back to the pre HOW DO YOU SAY IT!!!  Retro music

Led Zeppelin used so much analog stuff which today would not be used ( considered noisy etc,,maybe junk..)

Yet if you like this sound you cant find it in a processor digitally!!!

Studio Saying!!

[Meanderthal]

 I must confess I also use a Zoom. One of the reasons this is a temporary situation is this: When you switch between patches there is a brief moment of silence. This makes switching in the middle of a song impossible. Nutz.
The sounds aren't that bad, once you program it yourself, but frankly none of them are really all that good either. The only reason it is still getting used is that it does so damn many things, however generic.
Eventually it'll lose its spot on the pedalboard... sooner than later...

[Dragonfly]

i actually "use" the effects i build...a huge advantage of building your own is so that you can "tailor" the sounds to YOUR rig and needs....

AC

[MartyMart]

Check out a new Australian band called " Wolf Mother"  - TOTAL analog/retro
They sound like Led Zep meets The Who  !!  GREAT stuff 
( some pedal use, but mostly guitar ---> LOUD amp ! )

MM

[KaptenSpark]

I saw Wolfmother at Roskilde Festival this year. Awesome.
Talking about guitar into amp, I remember looking at guitargeek.com or what's it called, the site that shows guitarists setups. I started looking at like Tom Morello and other pedalfreaks and then the very complicated scheme of Angus Young's setup: Guitar - Cable -Amp. Respect.

[axeman010]

Dont often contribute to thes kind of threads, but here goes.....

IMO it is sad but true that music business is just that – a business there to make money out of us ! They will have you believe that if you own a Jimi Hendrix copy strat , a plexi re-issue stack, a  fuzz face Etc. Etc. then you will sound like your hero (please feel free to substitute your own personal Hero's name in to the above). Worse than that if you don't own them then you will sound rubbish and people will look down on you . The truth is that even if you owned the actual gear they used you will not be sound exactly like them and it will not propel you in to a life of fame, drugs and rock and roll !!! - unfortunately 

Another interesting fact is that many of the sounds that we strive to reproduce are the result of many hours of mixing by sound engineers using state of the art (from whatever time period)  and not just a guitarist, a guitar, some effects and an amp. So given this fact are emulators (hardware or software) a bad thing ?

There are no magic pedals that will make you sound great. Admittedly you cant make a silk purse from a sow's ear, but I am willing to bet that if Hendrix had played a £30 guitar through a transistor amp he would still have been one of the greatest !!!

So after a detour where is this going ?

Playing ability is paramount. If we spent as much time practicing as we do building pedals, talking about sounds, searching for the holy grail of guitars, etc. then maybe other people would be trying to find out what gear we use. Guitars, amps and effects are just tools – its the quality of the workman that counts. So digital or Analogue, New, re-issue or old – does it matter if you are happy with what you create ?

However ....... building amps, pedals etc. and having the chance to share ideas and chat with like minded people is really great fun    :icon_biggrin:and surely that's really important too !!! Long may it continue !!!!

Sorry about the philosophic ramble. 

[Xavier]

Whoa, I didn't expect my small rant to turn into this small monster.

I still like AND USE some of my DIY pedals, like my Bicomprossor and my Wylde overdrive. It's just that when looking for a ultra high gain circuit, the Boogey is good but the one in the Zoom (I haven't mentioned the rest of dirt effects yet, but they are ...mmm.....uninspiring for the lack of a better term), is really a silky, loud and fat monster, and I don't give a damn whether if it's digital (24 bit 96 kHz though) or analog. It sounds good to my ears, and I'm aware that most of digital distortions are .....digital.

However I still have to test it through my "metal" guitar, a Washburn N4 with an EMG pickup at the bridge. The EMG seems to make a nice marriage with Rectifiers, so I expect it to like it more.

[orgaqualia]

Digital will get there..Not that I'm happy about it. I worry that the easy availability of canned sounds will further hamper and discourage creativity. But then again, there's Radiohead. Has anyone really paid attention to just how much variety those guys wring out of guitars? Not to mention all of the weird analog synth stuff...
I guess that for me I would raher use something that I built myself. Not to slam anything that someone else has built, but my particular musical path has led me here, where for some reason the fact that I had anything to do with the signal chain other than pulgging things in gives me real pleasure. But you can be sure that if I could build something to record with, it would be a 32/192 digital monster. Not because it's intrinsically better, the flexability of digital editing saves me from having to be competent on every instrument that I want to use. It allows me to be a one man orchestra. Now if I could just build a one person audience....

[Rafa]

Hi:
Digital in some way will never simulate real amps, for the reason that if you have a perfect marshall simulator in a GT-8 for example you will have to connect it to an amplifier which is connected to a speker so you will have to configure the effects for that speker and amp which would be extrmely difficult. However you can achieve wonderful tones with some effects processor.Not emulate others but yes create new ones.
Personally I dont like them mybe its becuse the only Ive owned is a digitech rp100, but Ive tried my teachers gt-6 and did not like it. Digital distortions are easily recognisable, they are not bad just different

MAybe this is getting close to the old endless discussin between SS and tubes.
Cheers
Rafa

[puretube]

currently, I`m trying to emulate the digital recording technique`s inherit delay
with the help of a tube/BBD hybrid analogon...

[MartyMart]

currently, I`m trying to emulate the digital recording technique`s inherit delay
with the help of a tube/BBD hybrid analogon...

Tried a Line6 "Virtual guitar" 500 thing yesterday .... wrong ... wrong ... just WRONG !!
Felt like playing an old '80's MIDI keyboard with horrible delay on a "guitar sample" setting !!

MM.

[pedaltastic]

IMO- Most of us aren't here because we're in search of a better tomato.  And I don't think any of us should be discouraged because we can't build a pedal better than some company that's been cranking out thousands of pedals a year for a handful of decades.  We're here because we like to tinker with electronics and burn our fingers and create something out of nothing.  I don't think any of the pedals I've built sound better than the pedals I actually use on my rig, but it's the pedals I've built that I spend all of my time bragging about.  Besides, a pedal you build with your own two hands is always better than any pedal you buy at the store.  Because It's f*%king awesome and you made it.

You've hit the nail on the head there! I totally agree.

The thing is guitarists are constantly on the search for the perfect tone - DIY or not. This is where I feel like I differ from a lot of people - I like a good sound but I find songwriting to be the best thing to get out of playing guitar. If you write an amazing riff it feels great! Play Led Zep's Heartbreaker on a bloody PIANO and it still sounds incredible.

[R.G.]

MAybe this is getting close to the old endless discussin between SS and tubes.

Yep.

Lounge.