Effects pedals - to use with an acoustic

Coolcat

Hi all

Looking for some advice. I am an acoustic player and looking to expand my playing by including effects.

Can you advise which effects pedals are suitable for an acoustic guitar.

Cheers.

domhatch

Howdy. A bit of a loaded question there - and so many possible answers. Maybe give us a few more details? Are you plugged in, playing venues, practicing at home, recording, etc? What's your budget, are you looking for a multi-fx pedal or a few individual pedals, what style do you prefer playing, etc...

Cheers
dh|

Coolcat

Hi domhatch

Thanks for responding. Currently play only at home with the view to eventually joining other musicians play at venues. I have an open mind with regard to genres however, I'm mainly into rock and folk rock.

I play both acoustically and plugged in. I'm not looking for an array of effects, only a few individual pedals. Or if there's a multi - fx pedal for acoustic guitar, then great.

domhatch

Cool.

In that case, I'd recommend you go with a multi-fx pedal first up, so you can figure out how a particular effect pedal affects your sound, without laying out big cash for a single killer pedal. Once you've played with the various effects, you can pick and choose the effects you want, and go hunting.

You're not going to get the best sound out of a multi-fx pedal, but you will get a good idea of the effect the effect has on your sound, so to speak. Here's the Zoom A3, for example. But hang around, I'm sure you'll get plenty of perspectives from other folks with far more experience than I have.

https://www.zoom.co.jp/products/acoustic/zoom-a3-pre-amp-effects-acoustic-guitar

If it were me, I'd be looking for a loop (tons of fun when you're playing alone, creating your own percussive backing f'r instance), echo or delay, possibly reverb, and at the outside, eq.

Cheers
dh|

PS - check what KT Tunstall does with a looper and a few neat tricks on Jay Leno:

Stoffeltoo

Zoom make good multi effects but if you like rock with punch and shimmering cleans an alternative would be to look at the digitech RP360. Easy to configure patches and set amp sims. The delays and compression/reverbs are awesome.
I use the 360XP with an expression pedal with my acoustic on gigs and studio recording. So far no disappointments and built like a tank with an all metal casing. Check out FB music traders etc and chuck an eye on OLX, Gums and Junks.

domhatch

Stoffeltoo wrote: Zoom make good multi effects but if you like rock with punch and shimmering cleans an alternative would be to look at the digitech RP360. Easy to configure patches and set amp sims. The delays and compression/reverbs are awesome.
I use the 360XP with an expression pedal with my acoustic on gigs and studio recording. So far no disappointments and built like a tank with an all metal casing. Check out FB music traders etc and chuck an eye on OLX, Gums and Junks.

Hey Stof. Yeah, that looks awesome as well. Coolcat, you'll definitely need to look around for the pedal that suits you best. It's been a while since I've used a multi-pedal (or any pedal at all), so wait until you've got a few options from guys who've actually got play time with the gear before you go looking 8)

Cheers
dh|

Coolcat

Thanks Domhatch and Stoffeltto for responding, and for your advice. Much appreciated.

I will look into the gear you have suggested. 8)

V8

For my piezo acoustic, I like a bit of : reverb, delay, chorus and on occasion some drive and wah. A looper is also pretty useful for keeping one entertained 8)

If I've got a option of mic & piezo, I'll run the piezo w/effects (wet) and the mic w/o effects (dry) and blend to taste.

One thing about many multi-fx units is that your can't turn individual effects on/off - you'd have to change the patch. Not a train smash, but less intuitive than having a bunch of stomp boxes or something like a Boss ME25.

I had a gig where I couldn't take all my toys along, they were too heavy! So I settled on laptop, usb interface, small midi floorboard . A bit fiddly, but it worked fairly well and I could get the plugins to output stereo - the ping-pong delay + reverb sounded so lush in stereo! The only issue I had was with the one stomp box I took along, the battery died during the gig :?.

Squonk

Meron Rigas wrote: For my piezo acoustic, I like a bit of : reverb, delay, chorus and on occasion some drive and wah. A looper is also pretty useful for keeping one entertained 8)

What he said

But there are lots of scenarios that might require different FX

You could be strumming, picking, playing lead, playing with others etc. I think Meron's list kind of covers everything.

The one thing I am investigating when playing with others, is possibly a volume pedal to add swells etc! and also to boost when playing some lead.

Maybe a tubescreamer and a compressor and then you can get some Monte Montgomery Tone

CDee

All good advice above.

One thing I'll add is that if you are going to play through a PA system and not through an acoustic amp, you must get a high quality DI.

The Fishman Aura DI's a great and the LR Baggs ParaDI is also great. There are other great one's out there too.
?

Coolcat

Thanks for commenting and your advice Meron, Squonk and CDee - much appreciated.

morph

I have a looper, and a GT100 set to manually so that each foot switch is assigned to a different pedal. I use Reverb, and delay a lot, an Octaver set down one octave to give me Bass, I have an Overdrive, using the Boss Bluesdriver for a bit of crunch and the volume pedal

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