ilovefuzz.com

My minimalist shoegaze guitar board would go:

MidFi Clari(not) (fuzz version) + EQD Sea Machine + some kind of 'verb (maybe one of the EQDs, or the TC Hall of Fame). And that's about it.

Scrounging old digital rack stuff might get you some of your best bang for your buck on reverb, delay, and modulation. Yamaha SPX-90 (et al.), GEP-50, FX-500; Alesis Midiverb (especially II), Quadraverb, Wedge; and, if priced right, the Lexicon LXP-5, can give some really nice stuff. I think the Yammy FX-500 can even do a mod and reverb simultaneously. Downside is that sometimes these don't play well in every pedal chain before an amp and the bypasses are often tone suckers. But the effects can be great and sometimes you get really lucky on the price.

A lot of pedals sold in big box stores leverage (i.e.-steal) existing designs to good ends. Starcaster Chorus = Boss CE-5, Flanger = Boss BF-2 or 3, Distortion = Boss MT-2 Metal Zone; First Act Distortion = Boss DS-1, Delay = decent analog-sounding lo-fi digital delay. Especially at giveaway used or pawnshop prices, useful stuff on the cheap.

Yea, rack stuff is the best 'budget' shoegaze (and generally effects-heavy anything) route if you're willing to deal with the learning curve. Check out what you're looking to buy in Youtube demos, see if the manual is available online (it is for all but the most rare stuff these days, and if it's Roland, Yamaha, etc, almost always available even if it's 35 years old), and go from there.

Just expect to have to spend some quality time with the units to get to know them and how to make them work for you - the old pro gear is not 'turn on, sound like god.'

A HM2/Rat/Muff, Boss DD3, and Boss RV5 would be a perfectly passable starter set up. A low gain overdrive or another fuzz on top would be gravy.

As far as actually playing, start out with finding some simple chord progression that you like the sound of and tweak the pedal settings to your liking. I think the only songs I can cover are "Taste of Cindy," which is just F# B C# and "Drive it All Over Me," which is also absurdly simple. The important thing is to move a lot of air and not sound muddy. Step 2 is to play with dissonance and shit.

a lot of early shoegaze was done with the modulation stompboxes that were available for low cost in the UK at the time, i.e. the late 80s. Boss, Ibanez, and other Japanese-made choruses, phasers, and flangers often appear in equipment lists from those days. the rackmounts mentioned above were also used quite a lot, as were other rack units which are more dear nowadays like the TC2290.

Though for MBV stuff, a whammy can help too.

Find a store with a bargain pedal bin. They rawk HARD!

dubkitty wrote: as were other rack units which are more dear nowadays like the TC2290.

At least decent ducking delay is finally available outside Eventide and the 2290; I daresay I like the Digitech Time Machine's algorythm for it more than the old stuff by a mile.

theavondon wrote:

tuffteef wrote:all you need is a big muff and feelings.

For real. Shoegaze is about textures, so find some fun chord shapes, move them around the neck and let open strings drone over them. A muff and a memory boy should be dandy. With that said, Boss HM-2's are pretty sweet texture machines.

When I was a younger shoegaze dude, it was all about the Big Muff (green Sovtek), Boss DD-3 and CS-2, or whichever the stereo chorus was. Oh and one of them Super Phasers. Still all pretty cheap, but for the Muff.

A phaser type pedal of some sort will help. But what you really need to do (if you don't already of course) is learn to ride that tremolo bar! Thats where your going to get the most expressive whooshing/kinetic sounds out of the pedals you already have.

dubkitty wrote:a lot of early shoegaze was done with the modulation stompboxes that were available for low cost in the UK at the time, i.e. the late 80s. Boss, Ibanez, and other Japanese-made choruses, phasers, and flangers often appear in equipment lists from those days.

two words, To-kai or one word, Tokai.

Well HEY there little fella...

i like it already. given how much i love my Tokai guitars, you had me at "Tokai"

not at "to-kai"? but really that flanger is probably my only "keeper" pedal at the moment.

EDIT: And I've wanted one of these for a while:


stereo chorus