What do you put between your guitar and amp?

[Gibsonman63]

I thought it would be interesting to see what you guys run between your guitar and your amp (besides cable) or in your effects loop.

For me, I like simplicity. My pedalboard consists of a Boss tuner, a Dunlap Wah, my Ibanez UE-300 and an MXR Phase 90.

I bought the UE-300 new in 1982. It suposedly has the XX-9 circuits. I only use the tube screamer in mine. I have a half a dozen other distortion pedals including a TS-9RI, TS-808RI and a TS-9 clone and I would like to use something smaller, but I can't find anything else I like as much even though they come close.

Normally, all the effects are off and I run just guitar and amp. I use the UE-300 for boost on solos, I use the Wah for a few solos in conjunction with the UE-300 and I use the Phase 90 for one or two songs.

[JoeM]

I have 3 Boss pedals in one of the cheap Boss pedal board cases (BCB-30), a SD-2 Dual Overdrive, OC-2 Octave and CH-1 chorus. Havent used it several years. Really prefer just straight in to the amp.

[hasserl]

I have a couple of different things going, 1 is the blues and 1 is a classic rock trio, so it depends on what I'm playing.

With the blues group or at jams I will occassionaly use a Dano Spring King reverb in front of my non-reverb amps, and on rare occassions I use a homebrew pedal I built based on a EH LPB1 clean boost w/ selectable coupling caps for either full range boost or a treble boost depending on guitar/amp combo, and switchable clipping diodes w/ added bypass cap for additional boost for when I want to really shake things up. But for playing the blues I actually try to keep my tone clean and go without any additional boost or distortion and really only use that pedal very rarely.

For my classic rock trio, that's where I like to use fx pedals; and on my pedal board it goes: Boss tuner --> Snarling Dog's Black Bawl wha pedal --> Seymore Duncan Pickup Booster clean boost --> an old TS-9 Tubescreamer --> Dan Echo delay --> out to the amp.

[HTH]

At the minute it's just a TC Electronics tuner and a SD-1 that I modded to OD-1 specs. Don't even have a wah in there for the most part, its just not needed for our stuff.

[cminor9]

a 12' cable.

I have a band that plays a wide variety of music (classic rock, motown, R&B, blues, disco, some newer pop). Most of our gigs are private parties, weddings, etc.

I also play with a jazz trio. We play private events and have a fairly regular gig in an upscale supermarket (go ahead, laugh at the supermarket)

For both, I plug an epiphone dot with burstbuckers, a strat knockoff, or an ibanez sc420 with PAFs into a 5E3 clone or a Matchless Spitfire clone. What gets plugged into what depends on my mood. My volume, attack, technique, and knobs on the guitar do the rest. No shred hi-gain tones needed for these groups, and no crazy effects needed.

Got a bunch of pedals collecting dust. Mesa V Twin, Boss MT2, Boss PS3, a crapload of dano pedals, a couple of oddball MXRs, and a dunlop wah. Someday I'll rediscover them. To me, effects kill tone and usually sound really cheesy. Of course, to nail some songs you just need to use the effects. But it hasn't come up.

The simplicity of that setup is just bulletproof. Plug in, warm up, and play.

[bob p]

a 12' cable.

I think it's funny that you said that. I've got a zillion pieces of gear ... amps ... speaker cabs ... stompboxes galore ...

... and more often than not, I find myself plugging my guitar straight into my amp using the same 12-foot Belden cord that I've been using since the 1970s. I don't know why, but I've been using that same cord since I started playing and to me a cord connecting your pickups right to the amp just sounds better than anything else.

[ES350]

Like some of the other posters, I use as few pedals as possible; an old Morley analog reverb or a '64 Fender tank for tweeds and brown Fenders, maybe an Ibanez AD9 delay once in a while. I carry around a few 80's MXR pedals (6 band EQ, a DynaComp, a Microamp) and an old Boss BD. They have their uses in a pinch, but I rarely use them. When I have to use provided backline, I'll bring a cheapo Digitech RP50 and set it up for a low gain tweed setting if I really can't get a sound...

[denitronik]

I have a cable only, let the amp do the distortion (if needed) and my hands do the rest.
I used to have all sorts of vintage pedals (flanger, phaser, distortion, echo, wah, volume...) but I just stop using them as they suck more tone out of my rig than adding anything and also I have grown an aversion against all that cabling.
For me, simplicity works!

[Chuck H]

Right now in my life I just plug and play. I do usually build effects loops into my amps as a throwwback to when I worked in a cover band and did actually use effects more. But even then my rig was really simple. I had a 1959RI with a master vol and a line in/out that I added for club use. In the loop I plugged a Quadreverb that was used for reverb, delay, chorus and phase effects. I used pair of momentary switches on the floor to either "bypass" (which was most of the time) or "advance" preset programs for each song in the set. Between the guitar and amp I only had a wha pedal and a graphic EQ used as a clean, mid boost to push the amp into high gain. This worked well for ANYTHING I was ever asked to play. Some guys have all thier effects on the floor on a "pedal board" but I find some effects sound better in a loop later in the circuit. I also find that running effects in a loop does less audible signal damage than having them between the guitar and amp.

Chuck

[defaced]

Same as the past few posters: just a cable (20' planet waves, I love the compression ring ground). There are a few modulation effects I'd like to have (delay, flanger, chorus, phaser, tremolo), but I can't see me using them very often. That's one very nice thing about metal, the gear setup can be very very simple.

[tubeswell]

As far as other stuff goes, I love using a 6G15 clone between my geetar and my amps, and sometimes a little hotcake in front of the reverb unit, especially for my tweed amps.

FWIW I find that the spring loaded clip in the Planet Waves cables is a PITA, but the lifetime warranty has proven handy a couple of times. I've since gone over to other cables

[Dan T.]

Blackstone Mosfet overdrive.

[Prairie Dawg]

What do I put between my guitar and my amp?

My wife when I don't feel like listening to her.

[hasserl]

I enjoy using effects like a wha pedal or a delay on occassion. It's fun to get your jollies out making all sorts of different sounds. But I think using FX is kind of like using spices on your food, a little goes a long way, and just because a little is good, that doesn't mean a lot is better.

I like to set an amp up where it operates on the edge of distortion, so I can control it by working the guitar volume. A semi clean amp that I can drive into OD by cranking up the guitar volume and increasing the pick attack, then clean up by rolling down the volume and easing up on thepick, works for me. But when we get the urge to do some higher distortion stuff, like some Social Distortion, then the semi-clean/guitar volume things doesn't quite cut it. That's when I kick in a boost. Or, say when I'm doing ZZ Top, particularly La Grange. That song goes from pretty mild for the opening riff to pretty heavy OD with a lot of pinch harmonics in the 2nd solo. That's another place where having a boost pedal in front helps. You simply can't set up one amp to cover both ends of that with just the guitar volume.

Besides, it's just plain fun to kick in a boost pedal occassionaly and play with some rolling feedback sustained while the drummer does his best John Bonham inspired song ending rolls. Ahh, good stuff.

[Leif H]

12ft cable, Ibanez TS808 RI Keeley mod, DOD FX 65, Boss DD7, sometimes a Dunlop Wah for tone into a 5E3 clone