Crap is the new cool

I never heared of that one but if it's really like the Arion then I guess it really is a matter of taste. Sounds more like plastic then chorus if you ask me...

What chorus do you use? I am really just getting into chorus, but I can say that the Rocktek sounds better to me than the Boss I mentioned that I hear people mention all the time. I have never tried any boutique ones and I guess I don't really use chorus for the standard musical parts. I use a pretty heavy depth setting most of the time and I like to have it after my distortion. I also fake organ and steel drums with it and an Electro-Harmonix Hot Foot, I probably should have gotten a Univibe instead!

I bought a Behringer Chorus just because the price was cheap. It actually sounds excellent to my ear. I had been using a Danelectro which I liked except it always had a noticeable volume boost when you turned it on. The Behringer doesn't do that at all.

Those old Arion pedals are great, I have an old Flanger that is outstanding. It feels cheap too, but is still working and is about 15 years old.

I am not a big fan of Boss pedals. I have the TU-2 tuner which I love, but their pedals do not sound that good to me. I guess everybody is different. I have never known what the fuss is about. The construction is excellent though.

If you take reasonable care of your gear, plastic pedals will last for many years.

Yes Wes (wanted to type that since I've been here),
I'm like you, I don't like the Boss pedals either. It's not that they don't have some good sounding effects, because they have so many there is bound to be something to like. It's the giant treble roll off I get from them when they are in bypass, and the way they seem to take over my whole sound and make everything 'Boss' sounding. If I ever bought a Boss I would have to immediately take it out of it's housing and put a true bypass switch in. Amazingly the Rocktek has no effect on the tone when in bypass though I know it is not true bypass built, I wouldn't have thought that from looking at the build. I really hope mine holds up, I like how cheap it looks because now I associate it with how great it sounds.

One question, it seems like the speed and depth work together... like if I have the depth on full but the speed really slow it seems to make it more tame. Then when I turn the speed up it gets deeper as it gets faster. Is this how most chorus' work? It's kind of cool because when I use it for organ effects and I use the Hot Foot to 'ramp up' the chorusing gets more intense too! It sounds like they were intending it to be a rotary speaker device.

I don't like the Boss distortion pedals, nor their GT6 and previous COSM technology. I'm incredibly shocked by how fantastic their new GT8 is, that might be my next purchase if I can get the money (else it'll be the new Zoom G2 unit). Anyway, for chorus I usually use software (post-recording) ones, and sometimes I use scripted pitchshifters to get a quasi-chorus effect that can sound pretty wild. The chorus in my Boss GX700 is hopeless, the one in my V-amp is marginally better, the one on my AD30VT is kinda okay. If I had to go standalone I'd get the H20 in a heartbeat, by far the best chorus in the 'affordable' pricerange.

I'll check out an H2O soon.

Concerning Boss/Roland, I do very much like their amp modelers, the COSM. I had a studio date where they said they had an amp for me there and not to bring mine. When I arrived what they had was the Boss twin pedal amp modeler, I forget the name... I was like "Aw no", but when I started fooling with it I was realy happy, to me all the models in it had weight to them and felt great to play with. I use a Roland Micro Cube for some recording out of it's "recording out/headphones" output, it's recorded sounds are always complimented. That was the reason I bought it, plus you get a reasonable practice amp too. Though mine doesn't like volume anymore, it has a rattle that just keeps getting worse and seems to be comingfrom the speaker. It never sounded as good through the speaker as it does out of the recording out. It also gets great recorded bass sounds too.

I like my Boss ME-50. For all that it offers, the price is very reasonable, IMO. It goes for $295 usually. You basically can have have 4 pedals going at once plus Compression, Noise Suppressor, Reverb, and a Tone Modulator for basically 8 pedals at once for $295. That is $36.88 ea. , but you can get them cheaper with a "b-stock". I want to say I paid $239 for mine, I may be wrong. There was not a thing wrong with it though and that brings the cost per pedal down to $29.88 ea all in one convenient pedal board. Are there better pedals out there, yeah sure, but I like this for what it does thru my amp set-up. I am not amp modelling. I want my sound/tone thru my amps and then add to that whatever I feel makes it sound right (to me).

Hey thanks for the info. I am definately an old school guy and I really like my effects to be seperate pedals so I can be picky, but you never know one day I maight get one of those all in one effects boards. I would definately consider Boss, and probably the Vox Tonelab stuff too having read a glowing review in Guitar Player magazine.

The ME50 has nice effects and is worth the money, but a few things really piss me off about it. The switching delay is really extremely outdated, making it pretty useless in a band, plus the grouping of certain effects really limit things in a rather pointless way. The tonelab is effect-wise a bit wimpy: it sounds good but very little options. It compensates it by, IMHO, awesome modeling, way beyong most of it's competition. The GT8 is, as far as I care, really brilliant when it comes to effects *and* modeling, espescially if you use their new dynamic/combo options. It's grouping is much better done then either the GT6 or ME50/20 so if you can get it, go for it. whereas the ME50 really doesnt do it's modeling well. But as a true multi-effect, espescially for recording or single-preset runs, it does what it should do.

On a sidenote, Zoom really seems to have got their modeling stuff together with their new units. Was really unimpressed with their older lines but they made a massive steup up from their 505II units. Same goes for the Digitech GNX series compared with their rather pathetic RP series.

I recently sold my ME-50 on eBay. I liked some of the effects but the distortion stomp box modelling is awful. They sound really metallic and shite! I much prefer using the overdriven sound of my amp (Peavey Valve king) and use a few separate stomp boxes to add to the sound. I use delay in a few different ways and bought a Marshall EH-1 Delay pedal just a few days ago. It has a lovely rich sound and is great for slight colouration as well as crazy effects, and its built like a metal brick! Seems you could stamp all over it and it would stay alive.

I also bought a Compressor and a Noise gate made by a company called GLX, they cost lest then £40 each and are built like the boss pedals, almost replicas if you like. They aren't the best of pedals but certainly do what is needed, and for that price I cant complain.

I have been working 3rd shift for about a month now (temporary) so I have the day free. Yesterday I went to Guitar Center. Wow, going in the middle of the day on a school day is great! No hoards of kids playing horrible Metal riffs with max distortion into solid state amps with highly out-of-tune guitars! Seriously, I don't know how people work at these places and put up with this everyday, it's torture. :x

Anyway, enough of my little rant, I spent about 3 hours trying out different guitars, amps, and effects. I tried the Electro Harmonix and Boss choruses. I know I said I don't like Boss pedals, but the chorus pedals were one of the few that I liked. The Electro Harmonix was very good to my ears. Their pedals are way too large though. When they say Big Muff they aren't kidding. Great sounding fuzz though.

Completely off subject but of all the amps I tried I really liked the Fender Pro Junior. I used a Faded SG through it as this is my main guitar and really liked the tone. I am tired of lugging heavy amps around and am looking for a very small but reasonably powered amp just to jam with friends or the open mic. I tried the Crate Palomino's, I liked the 30 watt, but the 15 watt was horrible. This was kinda shocking, and I spent some time tweaking it. I have read great reviews on the 15 watt, this was the amp I wanted to look at especially. Maybe it was just this particular amp, I will try others. I have read reviews and many say the stock tubes are pretty bad. I also tried the Vox 15 watt. It was OK, but I expected much better. Also too big and heavy, it is as big as most 30-40 watt amps.

I am going to try the 15 watt Palamino again, but I may go with the Pro Jr. Really a great sounding amp to my ears.

Which Vox did you check (AD, VR, AC, Cambridge, Pathfinder)? I know the AD15 has a rather flunky speaker...

I checked out the AC15

Vox AC15

I know Vox amps are legendary, and I've heard live musicians use the AC30 and sound incredible. But whenever I've tried these amps myself I always come away a little disappointed. The don't sound bad at all, just not great as I've expected.

I went to a local store yesterday and tried out the new Crate 18 watt combo.

Crate V18

I did not care for this amp at all. I could get a reasonably good tone with very low gain, but as soon as I went up on the gain it sounded really bad. Very distorted and unclear, a little harsh too.

I also tried an old Fender Deluxe Reverb. Man, I liked this amp a lot. It is much lighter than my HRD, but had a great clean tone with lots of warmth. I am seriously looking at this amp now.

I should be in the Amplification forum. :D

Hah, guess taste really is a weird thing. I love the AC15. Maybe it's a Class A vs Class AB thing? 8)