"Off Book" Pedal Usage Anyone?

[stevo]

Has anyone here found that they use a pedal "off book"?

By "off book", I mean a pedal was designed for one thing, but we find it useful for another. Case in point, the Atomic Brain is the preamp out of a Space Echo. EP boosters come from Echoplex. Angus Young has a preamp from a wireless system.

I ask this because I suddenly realized I'm doing this myself:

- If I play through my Jetter Vibe with the knobs all the way down, it changes my modded brownface clone into a very credible blackface. I've tried parametric and graphic EQs and this is the only thing that really does it.

- I have a Chasetone EP pedal that has a dark/bright switch. It works great to reduce the ice pick unpleasantness I sometimes get from Boss Choruses. I love Boss Chorus but it becomes tricky to include them in a pedal chain with compressors or the Atomic Brain. This ends up being a quick and effective solution when needed.

- My Klon clone makes a great sort of clean fat boost - thickens up my Strat very nicely. Maybe not quite off book...

Anyone else find that they use a certain pedal for something it wasn't designed for?

 

[ramjac]

Just the normal audio crimes that occur on a daily basis around here.

 

[TV the Wired Turtle]

Has anyone here found that they use a pedal "off book"?

By "off book", I mean a pedal was designed for one thing, but we find it useful for another. Case in point, the Atomic Brain is the preamp out of a Space Echo. EP boosters come from Echoplex. Angus Young has a preamp from a wireless system.

I ask this because I suddenly realized I'm doing this myself:

- If I play through my Jetter Vibe with the knobs all the way down, it changes my modded brownface clone into a very credible blackface. I've tried parametric and graphic EQs and this is the only thing that really does it.

- I have a Chasetone EP pedal that has a dark/bright switch. It works great to reduce the ice pick unpleasantness I sometimes get from Boss Choruses. I love Boss Chorus but it becomes tricky to include them in a pedal chain with compressors or the Atomic Brain. This ends up being a quick and effective solution when needed.

- My Klon clone makes a great sort of clean fat boost - thickens up my Strat very nicely. Maybe not quite off book...

Anyone else find that they use a certain pedal for something it wasn't designed for?

yes I use my Jimmy Hendrix Wah as a door stop


https://www.google.com/imgres?imgur...2ahUKEwjRvfDBk-L2AhXEBDQIHZ4PB6MQMygDegQIARBG
https://www.google.com/imgres?imgur...2ahUKEwjRvfDBk-L2AhXEBDQIHZ4PB6MQMygDegQIARBG

 

[DennisC]

Uh ... I play around and stuff, ... run my Theremin through them, but that isn't that off ... a lot of reverb and a bit delay makes it sounds wonderful ... I might have gotten into torturing neighbours accidentally a few times with it, huh huh, but ... so far, I haven't come across much that is abused by me, I mean there are no Theremin pedals, and plenty guitar pedals, while they all, so to say, are pedals to run any instrument of a certain spectrum of frequencies through. Be it a mandolin, guitar, theremin or a cat meowing on commend, or those whiny crybabies of furballs the guy on the Muppets' Show beats upon (these poor little ... what even are they suppo ... anyway...). That's maybe a bit off label, but then again, not that off...

I sometimes use the Behringer delay I have, as it has a dual output, to seperate identical or non-identical signals and process further differently. With, like, two amps ... overdrive on nondelayed, clean delayed ... or the other way ... or differently overdriven and another delay in one of them, or no delay at all, just seperation of two signals, ... or or or ...

But, that isn't against its purpose ... that feature was a key reason why I bought this very pedal and not any of the, otherwisely, comparable ones.

Does that count already?

 

[Desirsar]

Simulations of Turkish instruments in the Diva plugin through a Nocturne Marquesan sound amazing. They also play nice with my monophonic synth pedals somehow. But, yeah, I'll reamp any synth plugin and send it through overdrive just because. You can always go straight for Deep Purple, add some dirt to your favorite B3 plugin...

 

[stevo]

Uh ... I play around and stuff, ... run my Theremin through them, but that isn't that off ... a lot of reverb and a bit delay makes it sounds wonderful ... I might have gotten into torturing neighbours accidentally a few times with it, huh huh, but ... so far, I haven't come across much that is abused by me, I mean there are no Theremin pedals, and plenty guitar pedals, while they all, so to say, are pedals to run any instrument of a certain spectrum of frequencies through. Be it a mandolin, guitar, theremin or a cat meowing on commend, or those whiny crybabies of furballs the guy on the Muppets' Show beats upon (these poor little ... what even are they suppo ... anyway...). That's maybe a bit off label, but then again, not that off...

I sometimes use the Behringer delay I have, as it has a dual output, to seperate identical or non-identical signals and process further differently. With, like, two amps ... overdrive on nondelayed, clean delayed ... or the other way ... or differently overdriven and another delay in one of them, or no delay at all, just seperation of two signals, ... or or or ...

But, that isn't against its purpose ... that feature was a key reason why I bought this very pedal and not any of the, otherwisely, comparable ones.

Does that count already?

Sure! I've actually done that too with a stereo pedal - lot's of fun iterations can be had there.

 

[J Bird]

I've used stereo pedals as splitters, cranked Brains as drive pedals and a Behringer Tube Monster pedal to assess preamp tube strength and character.

The pedal that went from totally useless to indispensable is this old DOD envelope filter. I don't remember exactly when I got it (over 20 years ago), but I remember that it only lasted a hot minute as a guitar pedal.

When I plugged my Farfisa Compact Combo into it (followed by an old Boss DSD-3) is when the cosmos revealed itself in sound. With one hand noodling on the keys and the other twiddling the sensitivity knob, there isn't a more spacey sound in the universe. That is when the 'Organism' was born -- a Juno 60 on top of the Farfisa. Endless hours traversing the interstellar reaches.

 

[wabash slim]

Korg's RT-20 Rotating Speaker Pedal does a pretty decent Uni-Vibe impersonation, as well as the Leslie FX it's meant to do.

 

[Electrosynthesis]

I use short delay times on my Strymon El Cap to modulate the sound a bit. It sounds good.

 

[DennisC]

I've used stereo pedals as splitters, cranked Brains as drive pedals and a Behringer Tube Monster pedal to assess preamp tube strength and character.

The pedal that went from totally useless to indispensable is this old DOD envelope filter. I don't remember exactly when I got it (over 20 years ago), but I remember that it only lasted a hot minute as a guitar pedal.

When I plugged my Farfisa Compact Combo into it (followed by an old Boss DSD-3) is when the cosmos revealed itself in sound. With one hand noodling on the keys and the other twiddling the sensitivity knob, there isn't a more spacey sound in the universe. That is when the 'Organism' was born -- a Juno 60 on top of the Farfisa. Endless hours traversing the interstellar reaches.
View attachment 178011

... one time, the preparation for a dentist visit had to counter fear without Valium (run out of it and forgot to arrange new before dentist appt), and pain of course, and used the same medicine for kind of both, I got myself so high it didn't wear off the rest of the day ... and came to finding me lying on the floor, in front of the amp, adjusting feedback by Bigsby and messing with the above mentioned delay pedal.

I wouldn't say that not recording this is the loss of a masterpiece, but there is something to this. Letting lose and catching it again, ... how come I never do such when I'm ... uh, how's that to be called ... unhigh? Am I even?

Likely, not even comparable ... musical value, it may bear, but finding it in such a mess seems harder than elsewhere, while what you describe sounds pretty classy. But then again, a bit of a notgiveanEff I am, of course, and I don't give any other letters either - playing in that state, in that way is a great pleasure I never wanna be unable to enjoy.

 

[DennisC]

Sure! I've actually done that too with a stereo pedal - lot's of fun iterations can be had there.

Sure that, ... but then again, it can only make something good into something great, or even ruin something that thrives from being simple.

Like, for example, the easiest (to me) Stones song to play is Brown Sugar ... but I love it (and can't get my head around them not playing it anymore - finally, I convinced myself that that is the reason not to go see them this year, and not tight money and insane pricing), and even ... I'm talking about the main rythm guitar here, the inverted chords ... doesn't even require to be tuned open G, just leave out some strings and you're fine ...

I just came back from a short work week and have 17 minutes left I'm allowed to do loud things here. I think I should play instead of write about playing, so ... later, Ladies!

 

[Synchro]

Has anyone here found that they use a pedal "off book"?

By "off book", I mean a pedal was designed for one thing, but we find it useful for another. Case in point, the Atomic Brain is the preamp out of a Space Echo. EP boosters come from Echoplex. Angus Young has a preamp from a wireless system.

I ask this because I suddenly realized I'm doing this myself:

- If I play through my Jetter Vibe with the knobs all the way down, it changes my modded brownface clone into a very credible blackface. I've tried parametric and graphic EQs and this is the only thing that really does it.

- I have a Chasetone EP pedal that has a dark/bright switch. It works great to reduce the ice pick unpleasantness I sometimes get from Boss Choruses. I love Boss Chorus but it becomes tricky to include them in a pedal chain with compressors or the Atomic Brain. This ends up being a quick and effective solution when needed.

- My Klon clone makes a great sort of clean fat boost - thickens up my Strat very nicely. Maybe not quite off book...

Anyone else find that they use a certain pedal for something it wasn't designed for?

Which Boss Chorus are you using? I have a CE-2W and it seems pretty well behaved.

Im not much for overdriven sounds, but I’m known to use either a Soul Fold or a Sugar Drive to fatten up the sound, a bit. The gain/drive is set pretty low, so there’s little, if any breakup, but the sound is a bit rounder and more resilient. If, OTOH, I use my Super Chili Picoso FET preamp, that tends to make the sound edgier, even through there‘s no clipping happening in the pedal.

The best sounding overdrive I ever had broke all of the rules. It was a Boss FDR-1 Deluxe Reverb pedal. If was a digital emulation, designed to sound like a Deluxe Reverb amp. You could set it to a very light overdrive and it was perfect for fattening up the sound of a bright solid body, such as the Jaguar I had at the time. The onboard reverb was pretty decent, as well.

yes I use my Jimmy Hendrix Wah as a door stop

View attachment 177916

Smart Alec. I love it!

 

[audept]

Has anyone here found that they use a pedal "off book"?

By "off book", I mean a pedal was designed for one thing, but we find it useful for another. Case in point, the Atomic Brain is the preamp out of a Space Echo. EP boosters come from Echoplex. Angus Young has a preamp from a wireless system.
SoloDallas does a version of this preamp as a pedal now:

 

[Merc]

Just the standard stuff for me. But it did remind me of a JHS Haunting Mids pedal a few years back. Placing it before or post certain pedals can slightly change the use/sound of the other pedal. Fast forward to 3 minutes in for a quick explanation and examples towards the end.

 

[stevo]

Which Boss Chorus are you using? I have a CE-2W and it seems pretty well behaved.

Im not much for overdriven sounds, but I’m known to use either a Soul Fold or a Sugar Drive to fatten up the sound, a bit. The gain/drive is set pretty low, so there’s little, if any breakup, but the sound is a bit rounder and more resilient. If, OTOH, I use my Super Chili Picoso FET preamp, that tends to make the sound edgier, even through there‘s no clipping happening in the pedal.

The best sounding overdrive I ever had broke all of the rules. It was a Boss FDR-1 Deluxe Reverb pedal. If was a digital emulation, designed to sound like a Deluxe Reverb amp. You could set it to a very light overdrive and it was perfect for fattening up the sound of a bright solid body, such as the Jaguar I had at the time. The onboard reverb was pretty decent, as well.

Smart Alec. I love it!

At times, any Boss chorus can be ice pick, especially if used after a compressor. Stone style compressors not as much. Waza is great - I find it much easier to keep it tamed. I have two other Boss pedals that contain the original bucket brigade chip and I had though I might never get rid of them. But this Waza is so good...

That FDR-1 story is a great example.

 

[stevo]

I use short delay times on my Strymon El Cap to modulate the sound a bit. It sounds good.

I sometimes use the modulated setting on my Hardwire reverb or my TC Electronic delay just for the modulation to add some thickness to the tone.

 

[Shadowy_Man]

I use short delay times on my Strymon El Cap to modulate the sound a bit. It sounds good.

When I had an El Cap I would set it 100% wet and use wow and flutter and tape age to simulate a worn-out tape recording.

 

[capnhiho]

Hmmmmm….
It appears to me that a few folks here aren’t just using pedals “off book”…..

 

[juster]

I use the Mooer Tone Capture GTR pedal to sample the guitar on different graphic EQ settings, so the pedal becomes a graphic eq with presets.

 

[rockinforJesus]

I use short delay times on my Strymon El Cap to modulate the sound a bit. It sounds good.

You can get a decent chorus sound out of the El Cap too