Initial Pedals and Tone

Just skip the pre-amp of the Behringer and run the Zoom straight into the poweramp. It's an amazingly great unit for it's price, I don't think pedals will add a whole lot.

What kind of music you play will affect which pedals you get.

But probably looking at a few of:

Wahwah
Distortion
Overdrive
Delay
Phaser/Flanger
Chorus
Compression

Whatever you play, you'll be wanting atleast 1 EQ pedal. :)

For an amp you could maybe get an Epiphone Valve Junior

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Epiphone-Valve-Jr.-HalfStack?sku=481475

or

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Epiphone-Valve-Junior-Combo-Amp?sku=480260

Or maybe

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Crate-V8-Palomino-5W-Class-A-Tube-Combo-Amp?sku=487825

Or

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Fender-Champion-600-5-Watt-1x6-Combo-Amp?sku=485054

If I were putting a rig like this together, I'd (just for myself) would first thing get a fuzzbox. Not so much an overdrive (thought that would be good too), but something that would give me a real fuzzy, distorted tone. Something like an MXR Distortion+

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/MXR-M104-DISTORTION-Guitar-Pedal?sku=151102

This would be to give me a really nasty sound when I wanted to step out and play a lead.

To go with this, an essential (for me) is a wah pedal. I'd probably go with just a regular VOX

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Vox-V847A-Wah-Pedal?sku=151058

I usually put the wah before the distortion so the sound is a little creamier and not so nasal.

This setup will give me a pretty good blues sound (just the amp going), then a pretty good rock/hard rock sound with the MXR kicked in, and a sort of psychotic over-the-top lead sound (with the MXR and wah on) for certain things.

If I wanted to 'pretty' the sound up, I'd get a chorus pedal: Probably just a BOSS

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Boss-CH1-SUPER-Chorus-Pedal?sku=151257

There's flangers and phasers out there and I've tried them, but to me they're a little 'thick' sounding. They really change the sound a lot, and I like them, have used them, but I'd wind up using them when I was trying to duplicate a synth part of a record. A phaser is nice, but on my pedal board I found I was hardly ever using it or the flanger that much - mostly just the chorus.

The chorus you could put before the fuzzbox or after. You have to experiment to find out what you like best.

This would be pretty much the basic pedal set up I'd use for an all-around sort of sound.

If I were to take it a little futher, I'd add an analog delay

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Ibanez-AD9-Analog-Delay-Effect-Pedal?sku=150345

and a volume pedal

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Ernie-Ball-VP-JR.-Passive-Volume-Pedal?sku=152107

The delay and volume pedal can give you nice, echoing swells instead of the typical sharp attack of a guitar. With proper voicing you can eliminate the attack and get an almost violin sound.

That would be my basic set up; I'd stick all the pedals on a pedal board for convenience though, but these pedals, even used in conjunction with a bigger, louder amp would do the trick pretty much.

Best

Demo, I saw what you said about flangers and it reminded me of someone...

ME! Not so long ago. I thought flangers (and to a lesser extent phasers) were a rather all consuming extreme effect that just washed away any fine tuning and often created a rather unwanted noise.

However, I now consider it an essential for anyone that wants to get that Hendrix/Frusciante sound or generally like funk.

At the moment it has 2 "modes":

1) When it's a main attraction as part of the sound of the lead, I'll have the depth quite low (a third or less) resonance low (3rd or less) and the rate pretty high (over half atleast). This way I feel it really does give the lead a nice wet sound and really fills it out, WHILST at the same time it can bring it to the front of a mix.

2) When I sometimes chose to use it in a solo, if you have a phaser (or maybe a flanger) on incredibly lightly with quite a large depth/range it can add that little bit extra and stop the solo from being flat as it were. It just adds that extra bit of attention to detail that makes it more interesting.

Just a thought, cos I'd hate anyone to miss out on what it took me ages to find out. :D

I would second DemoEtc's advice. Pick up a small tube amp like the 5W Epiphone Valve Jr. or the Fender Champ. These amps are surprisingly loud, but you would be able to crank them up good when nobody is home. :twisted:

I also agree with the advice on a distortion pedal, wah, and chorus. These are pretty basic tools. I would pick up a good phase, it is a nice effect for clean rythym guitar if used sparingly.

But I would pick up a good overdrive pedal as well. I often recommend the Behringer TO800, exceptionally good overdrive for Blues or Classic Rock type tones, fantastic tone. Many love the Bad Monkey as well.

The Valve Jr. does not have reverb (don't know about the Champ), so a good reverb might be nice. Myself, I am very partial to Tremelo if you love the tones of ol' Love Hurts by Nazareth or Crimson and Clover by Tommy James and the Shondells. Beautiful effect. And Rotary pedal is great too, you can get the great tone that Eric Clapton got on the bridge in Badge with Cream.

Man, there are so many types of pedals, just start with a few basics and keep going! :D

Great information Demo. Thanks.

I do like the looks of that Crate Palomino amp...

Hmmm... so a decent start would be distorition, Wah, and Chorus... ?

What is the difference between "distortion" and "overdrive"?

Wes, I'm suprised you didn't mention an equalizer pedal...

The Dali Lima

Yeah, should have mentioned the EQ. And EQ pedal is invaluable, you can get practically any tone you've ever heard by pushing the sliders around. But more than that, an EQ will really tighten up your tone, especially distortions. You can get real crunch tones where you actually hear the individual strings, takes the muffled sound out of distortion for sure. :twisted:

What is the difference between distortion and overdrive pedals?? I am no expert, but overdrive pedals are supposed to simulate the sound of a cranked tube amp, it will push your preamp stage into tube saturation. It does not push your power amp stage into saturation however. But it is a very "natural" sounding distortion, rubbery sounding like a pushed tube amp, not edgy or brittle like a solid state amp.

Distortion pedals actually create distortion within the pedal and send this distorted signal to your amp. Distortion pedals are far more high gain for Metal type tones. They can be harsh if cranked too high.

Here is a clip of the Behringer TO800 "overdrive" pedal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZnUtmfw5Ys

Notice how it sounds like a pushed tube amp, not a distortion pedal.

And here is a Metal distortion pedal clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_jWDm0SfY0

This is high gain distortion.

Here is a clip of a modded Ibanez TS-9 overdrive pedal, excellent sample of the tone of an overdrive pedal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUShjz7KJ20