Effects you like vs. Effects you actually use

[neonblack]

So I like pedals. You do too.

But I'm a simple pleb that writes simple music.

I really like playing with delays and vibratos and pitch shifters tremolo and glitchy loopy thingies and hi gain oscillating fuzz manglers.

But all I really need for the music I write is an Overdrive and MAYYYBE a fuzz and a reverb. When I try to play with other effects, especially delay, I never get anything concrete written. They're great for making noise and fucking around but I can't seem to make anything worth a shit with them.

Is it time to just accept that I don't need all these pedals? Or is there another way? I really like delay pedals in particular but I just can't get inspired by them. Or I just use really short delays and then I'm like "I should just play a reverb."

Did you ever have an effect like this where you just hit a creative wall? Did you push through? Give up? Change your playing style?

TLDR: HOW DO I DELAY?

[goroth]

ONe of my main musical goals is for incorporating more effects and different sounds into my music without it sounding like a gimmick. And it's really tough!

I think it's a case of the human brain just being used to certain sounds and accepting that that is what you create music with. I mean, 4/4 has only really been popular since the birth of rock n roll, but 9 times out of 10 if you sit and mash out a riff it's going to be in 4/4.

Knobs is really inspiring in making sounds that are kind of odd sound natural. He is just insanely good at it. But (to be fair to everyone that isn't Knobs) that is also a very specific and isolated musical context he's working in - so to take that approach and apply it to a genre (in my case metal, NB you're doing some other noisy stuff right?) is that much harder because your ear comes with all the baggage of the sonic tropes of that genre.

[neonblack]

Yeah, I'm doing noisy stuff. Not metal necessarily, but noisy and at times pretty heavy.

Knobs is definitely inspiring but you're right about the context. Knobs makes me want to write chill lo-fi stuff but my brain tries to make everything faster and louder all the time.

I've gone through a bunch of modulation effects too and they just haven't worked for me. And if I try to let the effect lead me, I end up playing really simple one or two note stuff and letting the effect ring out and take center stage...And then it sounds like a pedal demo.

I mean, I guess a lot of the bands I like don't/didn't use a lot of effects and I have this problem of being like "oh this reminds me of Fugazi (or whoever) and they didn't use delay (or whatever) so maybe it would sound better without delay" and so then instead of it being my own thing it just sounds like whatever band I like.

This also may just be dissatisfaction with my rig in general because lately even my favorite pedals have sounded like shit.

[tremolo3]

Nothing wrong with being a pleb and not using FX. I rarely use effects (other than an OD) when I'm writing rock/pop music, then I just add reverb and some sort of modulation once the song is done.

It all comes down to the style of music you play. I can't see myself not using like 2 reverbs, 2 delays and 2 tremolos for the "ambient" shit I play in the bedroom.

[oscillateur]

I make electronic music, and even though I do have a bass that I use at home (and even a nice guitar that sadly sits mostly unused) what I really play with is the modular and some small synths. So, I can basically use anything without it being too gimmicky because what I do is a lot about the sound's texture itself. I have to get my fingers out of my ass and actually record my random bass sound aberrations and store them in my looper or modular (with my music thing radio music)...

If I was doing guitar-based music things would probably be a bit different. If you want to use something and it doesn't fit with what you do, maybe do something different ? That sounds both simple and stupid but heh...

[neonblack]

See, I can do that all day long in the bedroom (TWSS). Right now I'm running Mini->Small Echo Array->Rm-1n->Ghost Echo. The two reverbs are being loaned to me but I have a spring verb on the way. I can play ambient style stuff or weird shoegazey stuff like this all day long but I don't consider those "songs" and I want to write "songs."(I don't mean all ambient/gaze stuff. Just the stuff I end up noodling around with)

I do like the Small Echo Array for short slapback type stuff with different combinations of heads for percussive pingy delays but it can get too mushy real quick and the effect sort of disappears when I use it with reverb, and just turns into kind of an ambient wash. Which is fine for some things but I dunno.

This may be coming from a late night post-frustrating-playing-session downer kinda place though.

[tremolo3]

Nothing bad with playing with toys and waste your time either. Just choose the right tools for the right job and call it a day.

[goosekevin]

i have been struggling with this a bit lately too
i definitely dont 'need' half the shit i have for the 'songs' im writing
i seem to only be able to write on acoustic anyway but even that is slow and hard for me. when i start doing gigs later this year it will likely just be accoustic too which is scary.

ultimately im content with having separate 'writing' and 'jamming' mindsets and goals. sometimes its really fun and satisfying to make a fucktonne of noise and let it mutate and evolve but only for that one time and then it is gone, some of my most important personal musical touchstones have been just that, noisy pedal based improvs that make me feel a certain way at a certain time.

I think both can coexist, if you have the financial means to do so. currently i do but when i move out im probably going to have to sell some of my 'weirder' stuff but tis fun for now

i dont know if this makes sense im tired as hell

[backwardsvoyager]

i don't think you should worry too much about it, neon. whether or not anyone here well and truly needs most of the stuff they play with isn't a really clear cut question and if you can afford to have these things and mess around with them even if they don't translate into written material nobody can tell you otherwise.

if a type of effect just isn't sticking for you i think it's better to just stop paying attention to it, keep a delay around if you can afford to do so and use it when you want to fuck around because there's no guarantee you won't end up clicking with it in a new way sometime, but being at your most creative with just an overdrive pedal or whatever is nothing to feel uncomfortable about.

creative blocks can be related to far more than stuff like pedals so i don't think it's worth overthinking it in regards to what you think is necessary for you. some people are able to write by fucking around and making noise and deciding to then recreate or condense things they've done with that gear, some people write simple things and then think about what they could add afterwards, nothing wrong with either or anything in between.

for me, i love flangers more than the universe and life itself, but i don't always feel that creative when i'm playing with one, so i play clean or with a little distortion grit then add it afterwards on parts where i feel like its an enhancing effect (everything, obviously).

[Ev_O)))]

So I play guitar in a band that plays a weird mash of neo-soul and psychy stuff. There are 7 members and probably 4/5 of us actively write music for it. If I write a "song" (I don't do words but like a bunch of parts) then I mostly stick to my base tone to play the main line. It's a very clear, barely on the edge of breakup tone with a bit of subtle spring verbyness and occaisionally slapback. If we work on someone elses song, then I tend to defer the main line to the other guitarist and use all my weirder effects to create my own little space within the group. It's a good balance for the group as it creates a wide variety of sounds and vibes across our set as well as satisfying all angles of my own playing.

So my point, basically, is that sometimes the group environment, rather than the bedroom one, is good for finding places for make weirder sounds. It becaomes very clear very quickly where others can pick up any "slack" created by whatever you are up to. I definitely do things at home with all my shit that I would never do in the band, but for other people's songs I definitely use said shit to do things they can't.

[DarkAxel]

loved CT5 at home, absolutely hated it in any musical context... aside for the most basic functions (straight reverse delay )

I wrote so many riffs with it I could never use

And yeah I do find myself writing without efx and then trying what works. So for example my tremolo pedal mostly doesn't get used, but i already know what kind of riffs and writing it can enhance and give some extra movement to, especially chordy stuff... which I do alot, I like that as a bassplayer in a trio

[Eivind August]

I think of pedals as a means to an end. There are loads of effects I like when others use them, but have no interest in owning (modulation, most reverbs, loopers etc.). Just go with what sounds you want to have in your arsenal. I've spent years trying loads of different stuff, and always come back to oscillating fuzz > MASF glitch stuff > delay(s) > moar oscillating fuzzes whenever I write, jam, or fuck around in my bedroom. Sometimes I do GAS for some effects outside of my usual sound, and try to think about how I'd use it instead of how cool or rad or hypeworthy the pedal is (for instance the CT5). When I don't come up with a clear answer, I try the effect out. It's always fun to experiment with new sounds, but my usual setup have so many options to tweak and alter my "main sound" that I tend to be content. That doesn't stop me from trying out any oscillating fuzz I come across, though.

tl;dr: Go with what you have fun with and what you need, don't get too hung up in the concepts or ideas of certain tools.

[gnomethrone]

I'm pretty much the same, man. Drive, a little modulation, verb, fuzz. Anything else and I kinda lose it. I just started messing with a stereo setup tho it's really cool being able to keep my main sound chugging along while sending the other off into dirty reverbed delayed modulated space time. Would recommend.

[JonnyAngle]

If you're Oooking for a spot to use more effects, I like the "noisemakers" as a segue n between songs when playing live. I hate silence between songs, so I fill it with ambiance. Bridges that are instrumental can be another spot to add the noise. Usually I don't write with effects, but add them afterwards.

[DRodriguez]

I'm of the mind that a good song shouldn't need a whole bunch of effects, but that effects can vastly add to the song. I almost always write the base of my songs on an unplugged electric. Then, I see what pedals fit well when recording. At this point it's all about adding layers and textures for me, and this is where pedals really come into play. You can make some crazy sounding things that would sound like crap solo, but double tracked, panned real wide, and with the volume pulled back, you can get some textural awesomeness. My clearer lead tones rarely have that many effects on them.