I currently have a pretty good reverb rack piece and a compressor/sustainer, but short of playing the whole song with them on, how can I switch them on and off for particular parts?
"Today is what it means to be young..."
(Radiohead, RHCP, Jimi Hendrix - the big 3)
I don't know about your particular rack effect , but many of them have a 1/4" jack for a footswitch to turn the effect on and off . Some can even advance the effect by increment . Read your manual or download one if you don't have it .
If I claim to be a wise man , it surely means that I don't know .
Ahhhh, of course .I just have to buy an A/B footswitch.
Ha. That was so stupid of me, but thanks for pointing it out.
:D
"Today is what it means to be young..."
(Radiohead, RHCP, Jimi Hendrix - the big 3)
how do you start building a rack system from scratch.....like does anybody here have their own rack system that theyv built because it seems very scarce to find this info. from local music stores...all they seem to be interested in is selling stomp boxes and and maybe know the odd thing or two about a midi floorboard
what the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind believes.....still means i get fucked over
(I'm making a big assumption here, but...) I doubt many people on this forum have rack equipment. To be honest, the only reason I have 2 pieces is because they just happened to be on offer for a very good second hand price, whilst being possibly the only 2 things (compression/limiter and reverb) that I would consider rack equipment for.
Most non-pros I doubt have rack equipment purely because it's very expensive and extraneous to the already overwhelming ( :( ) costs of just a good guitar and amp.
However, on a more critical level, from experience, I pretty much prefer pedals for ease of use AND sound quality. Especially for things like distortion. However I think tuning racks and EQ racks are superior to pedals.
I'm sure there are plenty of reviews on all different types of equipment out there, but PERSONALLY, I wouldn't recommend investing in rack equipment unless you have a pretty damn good guitar and amp, with a couple of pedals AND an extreme desperation to gain only a relatively small enhancement in quality for a lot of money.
"Today is what it means to be young..."
(Radiohead, RHCP, Jimi Hendrix - the big 3)
One of the cool thing with racks is that you can often control them with MIDI. So you stack all the rackgear into one neat and tidy, uhm, rack and then control it all with one MIDI floorboard. Much nicer then having fifty different pedals around and tapdancing all the time.
thats the problem i got......if i invest in pedals my pedal board is gona be massive i mean like over 15 pedals.....and my problems with this is being that lets say i have 5 pedals turned on at one moment then all of sudden switch to 2 different pedals its gona be crazy doing it on stage....gettin everythin set up is gona be killer which is why im enquiryin about racks....the money aint really the problem....my problem is who can i speak to about it???
what the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind believes.....still means i get fucked over
Read up about it and ask it here. Think about what you really want and describe it, maybe we can suggest some gear. So which effects do you use, what kind of setup do you have, which parameters are essential. Go into detail, really describe what kind of settings you'd like, the order of placement etc.
gona be a while...be back in 2 days with the details
what the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind believes.....still means i get fucked over
I think you need to think outside of your box for a second. :D
You seem to be suggesting that you would have to individually step on and off pedals for every change. I would suggest that you never have more than 5 pedals in any one chain (as it saps your tone and even I think I can hear the difference as regards that!). For home playing/recording, this is certainly the case.
However if you absolutely have to have a long string of effects, then maybe organise the chain more effectively. Have say 3 chains of 5 (=15 :D ) which have a simple ABY switch pedal infront = A(effect on) B (different effect chain on) or Y (bypass). This way I think in parallel it doesn't sap your tone and it means you have to flick maybe 2 pedals instead of 5...
I know this appears as if I'm trying to disuade you from buying rack equipment, but well, I am. :D
I THINK (my opinion) that unless you're semi-pro, it's not advantageous to fully convert to rack equipment. It is possible to get better sounds out of some pedals (and they have the chance of more flexibility in terms of modding) whilst being a lot cheaper and hassle-free.
But by all means stick up your stuff and we can all help judge each case as it comes. :)
"Today is what it means to be young..."
(Radiohead, RHCP, Jimi Hendrix - the big 3)
thats the problem i got......if i invest in pedals my pedal board is gona be massive i mean like over 15 pedals.....and my problems with this is being that lets say i have 5 pedals turned on at one moment then all of sudden switch to 2 different pedals its gona be crazy doing it on stage....gettin everythin set up is gona be killer which is why im enquiryin about racks....the money aint really the problem....my problem is who can i speak to about it???
Pro rack systems with lots of effects units tend to have some sort of on-the-fly switching system, like this which are controlled by some sort of MIDI floor control which can also change the settings of the effect units at the same time.
Here's a list of several makers of switchers.
These tend to cost a lot of money, but if you're someone like Eddie Van Halen or Yngwie Malmsteen or Tony Iommi that's not really a problem.
For people like me, well...
I have a V-amp that I got from E-bay.
I wrapped a newspaper ’round my head
So I looked like I was deep
