EFX for Peavey Classic

Bob Squires, The 505 came out about 10 years ago, now it's called the 505 II. It's an worthy investment for a Multi-effects pedals. For under a $100.00 it's had to beat and a good place to start. About the only thing I was disappointed in was not having much control over the delay times. They sent me the one I have back in the yearly 90's (94 I think) and it still works great to this day. About one of the only pedals that haven't broke...lol

Wes, Figuring out ways to hook things! master of sparks returns...lol Here's what I did. I went to Radio Shack got a cord that had a 1/4" stereo plug on end and two RCA on the other, then I got the adapters from RCA to !/4". Now the cord has this plastic piece to keep the RCA ends together. I carefully cut that so I could separate them allowing me put the amps farther apart.

I would set both amps at clean setting and volume turned all the way down. Plug everything. OK I would turn one amp up just enough (maybe 1 1/2). Then I would turn up the HD just enough to equalize the volume between the two amps. It doesn't need to very loud the stereo image will make it sound louder than it really is. I know there's a term for it. Now on the HD I would set one of the overdrive channels to act as a volume with just a tin ch of overdrive. That way I could change to the OD channel for leads and walk through the mix.

OK you still will me you haven't blew anything up or caught anything on fire? ...lol Ju-s-t kidding... the Eq I would try different locations like before the effects pedal or on one of inputs to the amps. The Weber I would put on the HD set at at say -8 db. That way the HD can run a little harder. now play for awhile running through some presets and maybe a tweak here and there. Most of have fun.

Hope I explained what i would try to see what kind of sound i would come up with.

Joe

Thanks Joe

You are always an inspiration. I'll have to try something like that with my HRD and the Marshall DSL401 I recently picked up.

Bob- I would recommend the GFX-1 or GFX-3 over the 505 for 3 reasons.

1) Metal construction- the GFX-1, GFX-3, and GFX-5 are built like little tanks. The plastic models are good, but I have heard of the guitar input jack coming loose. All jacks on the higher priced models are metal.

2) Footswitches are further apart- I used to own a 505II. It was a great pedal, that's when I learned how great Zoom pedals are. One thing I didn't like about it however was the two footswitches are side by side. It was a little difficult to hit the right switch at times, especially when I tried to use it live. Occasionally I would accidently press both switches at once which is by-pass.

On the GFX-1, 3 and 5 Zoom got smart and seperated the footswitches. I have no difficulty at all now. Big improvement.

3)Delay- On the 505II there was a very short delay when changing patches. It was not nearly as bad as some other pedals I've owned like Digitech, but it still bugged me a little bit. You actually have to step on the footswitch about half a second early if you want to stay in time with the music. That can throw your timing. Still, much better than many other makes.

I don't know about the GFX-3 and 5, but with the GFX-1 there is no delay at all. This pedal changes patches faster than any other multi-effects pedal I've ever used.

So, nothing wrong with the 505, but the other models are even better.

Bob: Get the GFX3 instead of the 505II. Besides, as Wes said, the fact that it ain't such a pain in the rear to step the proper footswitch, the sound quality of the GFX series is beyond that of the 505II. Espescially the distortions tend to get real plastic and fake real soon on the 505II, and there's always some kind of buzzy/fuzzy sound in the upper frequencies that you you just can't filter out on the higher gain settings. (interestingly Line6 has the same problem to a lesser degree with their Pod units!) Also, but on this I am not totally sure, the new GFX series has a lesser drop in quality when multiple effects are being used. Atleast, this seemed to be the case when I tried them in a local store.

Remeber that digital equipment is evolving rapidly. While the 505II was an excellent unit at the time, compared to similar old and cheap digital MFX units, it simply can't keep up with what is on the market today.

Thanks Wes & Arjen,

I hear you regarding the metal case - my daughter's boyfriend brought over a Digitech RP200 last night to try out - very impressive; 8) even to an old guy who is just cutting his teeth on amplifiers and electric guitars. (Probably the kids' playing ability - he really knows his way around a guitar).

The RP200 is metal and seems built to take on a roadies life and knowing my frame and size 13 shoe I think a plastic unit would not survive a week so it would be definately a Zoom GTX3.

What amazed me is the EFX unit is in series between the guitar and amplifier and it disables all the amps functions (reverb/bass/midrange/etc.) except the normal (volumn) control - must be the jack plug bypasses that part of the circuitry - haven't sat down with the schematic yet to trace it trough :roll:

I guess I'll do as one does when buying any gear - try it before you buy it.

Thanks for the input:!:

BS

What probably happened is he plugged the unit into the FX-loop of the amp. This way the signal goes straight from the EFX unit into the poweramp, skipping the pre-amp of the your amp and all it's knobs. This is a very common way to use EFX units with modeling/distortion: all sound coming from the little unit and the amp is just there to amplify it. If you get a EFX unit with a FX loop of it's own you can set it up like this:

guitar->input FX unit->FX-out MF Unit->input amp->FX Send amp->FX return MF Unit->MF unit out->FX return amp

Don't forget that some effects need to be before and some after the distortion. So if you don't have a MF unit with it's own distortion you can either get all your sound from the box, or get your distortion from the amp and lose some effects by putting the unit either between your guitar and the amp input or in the FX loop of the amp. Depening on which you chose you lose either the post-distortion effects like Flangers or pre-distortion effects like wah and compressors.