I need pedal recommendations (reverb, tremolo, dirt, midi)

[Benn Roe]

I'm playing a Gibson SG Standard through a Fender Quad Reverb. My pedalboard currently contains (or will shortly contain, in the case of one or two of these) the following:

TC Electronic Polytune 2 Blacklight
Ernie Ball VPJR (modified to include a buffer)
Idiotbox Effects Han-Taun
Line 6 DL4 (modified to have real footswitches, include an external tap tempo jack, and include a footswitch to enter looper mode)
Strymon Timeline
Chase Bliss Audio Tonal Recall
Earthquaker Devices Afterneath
Montreal Assembly Count to Five L
Electro-Harmonix Freeze
TC Electronic Ditto X4
Selah Effects Quartz Timer V2
DB Instrument Amp 4E

Over the last year or so I've been carefully upgrading the offerings on my board and I still have a few holes in my sound.

REVERB: I like the Afterneath a lot, and want to keep it on my board, but I want a more conventional reverb as well. I'm more into hall than plate or spring-style reverbs. I've had my eye on an Old Blood Noise Endeavors Dark Star, but I'd probably only use it in delay mode and I've probably maxed my allowable delay quota for a single pedalboard. I'm consistently tempted by the Strymon Big Sky too, but I think it probably has more features than I need. I'm much more likely to set-and-forget with a reverb pedal than I am with delay, and there's probably cheaper options than the Big Sky that still sound great.

TREMOLO: I was going to get a Chase Bliss Gravitas, and then I got enamored by the Walrus Audio Janus. Then I started thinking that a joystick probably wasn't a suitable replacement for tap tempo in a tremolo, and the fuzz side of the Janus doesn't excite me all that much without the tremolo integrated. I started looking around for a good tap tempo tremolo and came across the David Rolo Twin Peaks, which seems sweet but only has on-board tap tempo, and I'd much rather sync with the Quartz Timer so I don't have to mess with multiple tap tempos. So now I'm back to looking at the Gravitas, but open to other suggestions.

DIRT: Right now the only dirt on my board is the Han-Taun, a Klon-style overdrive which serves my purposes well, but I find myself often wanting to accent heavier parts with something bigger sounding. I want something crisp and full, with lots of sustain. I'm not really sure whether that means fuzz, more overdrive, or maybe even just compression, but I need something.

MIDI: I want to be getting the most out of my midi-capable pedals, especially if I end up getting a Gravitas and/or Big Sky, but I'm new to midi and don't really know where to start. I know I need to get an Empress Effects Midibox for the Chase Bliss pedal(s). And other than that I want something reasonably compact, but I want to be able to set presets that each send enough PCs (and possibly CCs, though they seem less important with all the in-pedal presets available) to set ALL my midi pedals simultaneously, and most of the midi controllers I've found with that capability are huge effects loop rigs. Is my best option an event processor? I've seen a lot of people using Disaster Area controllers, but is One Control any good? I'm probably going to need a few loops anyway, but I'd rather split those up over small innocuous pedals to be determined once I have my midi control established. As you might imagine, I'm running out of space.

Anyway, any thoughts or suggestions on any of this would be much appreciated. I feel like my board's getting close to where I want it.

[D.o.S.]

Do you have a moment to talk about our lord and savior the DOD Death Metal?

[D.o.S.]

But for srs what kind of music do you envision using this for? You have a shitload of gear already and tone buzzwords mean different things to different people.

Like mebby share a song where you're like "hey this song has really great dirt I bet I could use what they're using"?

[Benn Roe]

I started to try to write up a description of what my band sounded like, and realized I was replacing tone buzzwords with genre buzzwords. I don't know, post-hardcore? Post-rock? I can be more specific, but probably not without sounding like an asshole. Mogwai meets Shipping News?

I'll try to dig up a song.

[Benn Roe]

I guess this is the sort of dirt tone I had in mind:

[rustywire]

Shoutout to another SFQR owner
Mine doesn't get use these days but I haven't been able to talk myself into parting with it.

Dr. Scientist Tremolessence & Radical Red Reverberator
Both will be an excellent compliment to the QR's long spring & trem

For dirt, because Fenders are lightly midscooped they love Tubescreamers/other mid-boosting drives for boosts & low gain stuff. Avoid pedals with scooped voicing as a general rule unless you stack with another mid-humped pedal. I went from my #1 amp and platform being the 100w QR to a 50w Selmer with mids galore...and the only dirt pedal to survive that transition is a Harmonic Percolator. It somehow just works perfectly with both amps. The Catalinbread Karmasutra or Fredric Effects Utility Percolator are what I would recommend unless you're ready to track down & put up some bigger bucks for a true HP-1 from Chuck Collins.

[01010111]

Disaster Area Effects is coming out with a new line of midi controllers. They all have built in smart clocks too. So, with one of those you could access all your presets (add a ton of presets when it comes to the Tonal Recall), and sync up your timeline, Tonal Recall, line six dl4, and ditto. With all your midi capable stuff it'd definitely be worth the effort of learning how to sync all that up.

[OddKnowledge]

So, I just listened to that song you posted, i'd like to her what your band eventually sounds like.

as far as dirt goes, you can't really go wrong trying out what a lot of people at that time were using. I'd say get a Rat or tubescreamer and see what you can do with it. sometimes things just WORK.

[tremolo3]

If you want to go serious and get the most of your pedals, MIDI wise, then get a Liquid Foot, a Mastermind or a Gordius.
Liquid Foot Mini is small, will try to find mine and other guy's pedalboards in a minute...


Have you checked the Empress Tremolo2? Can get synced with MIDI too and it's orange, but the Gravitas is smaller and I know you are trying to save some space.

Dirt and reverb... idk, I'm extremely happy with my Space and my yellow Boss pedals. But maybe a rat? a boutique one so you can get more internet cred.

[tremolo3]

There you go:

viewtopic.php?f=149&t=393&p=1032966#p1032948

viewtopic.php?f=149&t=393&p=1014601#p1014601

[jrmy]

I guess this is the sort of dirt tone I had in mind:

Sounds like something you could achieve with stacked overdrives...

Maybe try something like the DOD Looking Glass?

Skip to around 4:42
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_BnQ5dsYPc[/youtube]

Or the Boneshaker
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXUrSuTHbko[/youtube]

Or the EQD Gray Channel (skip to the 4:10 area)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhV145G1pcE[/youtube]

[BoatRich]

The Grey channel is fucking awesome, especially stacked into a RAT or an HM2, TS->Rat is a great tone for Fender style amps, and OCD's work great with them also.

[frigid midget]

"carefully upgrading"...Yeah, that definitely sounds better than 'GAS' ;p

Anywho, as far as dirt goes...If you're after a compact all-in one solution that's not just a rat (no low end, fizzy depending on the amp) or a tubescreamer (bluesy low gain)...Maybe a The Elements might work? Low gain, high gian, brutal high gain, fuzzy gain, you name it...

Also; That klon clone into a decent muff could sound heavey and thick. Or even just a Musket on its own sounds brutal imo. Can be dialed in for distortion-y fuzz tones or vice versa, or just gilmour-esque classic muff tones, or fat filthy doomy tones, or something in between.

Btw, those names you dropped...Mogwai, shipping news....Makes me curious what that clip was you posted. I can't seem to watch it for some reason
Fwiw, I doubt their dirt pedals are anything shocking. I'm sure I googled their boards at some point during the last decades, and though I can't rememeber much of it, it's the usual Rat/BMP/etc type stuff everyone was using in that genre/scene...

The Afterneath; I hear ya. Loved mine, but since I only had once spot for a reverb pedal, I ended up replacing it for a more conventional one. I lknow it doesn't seem too secksy with all the fancy pants boutique alternatives out there, but an RV-3 is still the shit impo. It's good enough for countless 90s/2000's postrock and shoegaze bands, so it might do the trick for you as well? And it'll leave you with enough spare cash to go nuts on those other pedals you're looking to upgrade

[D.o.S.]

I guess this is the sort of dirt tone I had in mind:

Sounds like something you could achieve with stacked overdrives...

Maybe try something like the DOD Death Metal?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKLpM2cCeWw[/youtube]

Ayyyyyyyyy this guy.

[Eivind August]