Pedals !!!

[Stone]

Howdy all, so being the Gear Forum i notice that many people use actual pedals as opposed to what is in their modelers
and some even add certain flavor of pedal to their modelers
is there really that much difference in the Toanz that warrants buying a hardware equivalent be it OD, Fuzz, Reverb, Delay ?

I also notice a lot of Modeler owners have multiple rigs, a Modeler setup then a Pedal Board and Amp setup and some form of Hybrid as well


Being a broke ass Mofo I is curious

Cheers

 

[Warmart]

@Stone !!! It's probably best for your wallet not to ask these kinds of questions

 

[Stone]

@Stone !!! It's probably best for your wallet not to ask these kinds of questions

Well my wallet is empty, im just curious ? seeing how great my FM9 is i cant really see how hardware pedals would be better

 

[la szum]

Howdy all, so being the Gear Forum i notice that many people use actual pedals as opposed to what is in their modelers
and some even add certain flavor of pedal to their modelers
is there really that much difference in the Toanz that warrants buying a hardware equivalent be it OD, Fuzz, Reverb, Delay ?

I also notice a lot of Modeler owners have multiple rigs, a Modeler setup then a Pedal Board and Amp setup and some form of Hybrid as well


Being a broke ass Mofo I is curious

Cheers

Boredom + discretionary income.

 

[James Freeman]

is there really that much difference in the Toanz that warrants buying a hardware equivalent be it OD, Fuzz, Reverb, Delay ?

Not really.
Helix or Fractal can do pretty much anything, but there is something special about turning knobs and pressing buttons on a physical hardware that does just one thing, it's all in front of you on a board.

 

[Stone]

there is something special about turning knobs and pressing buttons on a physical hardware

yes that makes sense for sure

 

[Stone]

discretionary income

well

 

[la szum]

There is only one option left, Mike. Be broker.

 

[Whizzinby]

I dont cross streams between my modeler setup and amp/pedal setup. Its just a different experience flipping switches and turning knobs in a traditional amp / cab / pedal setup. It’s fun.

 

[TSJMajesty]

On the Fractal, e.g., if you want some type of say, preset ambient Reverb-y + chorus + delay thing that's in a Strymon, some factory preset that sounds absolutely GLORIOUS, yeah, it can be done in Fractal-land. And I know there's people who could create it.

But if you're like me, good luck trying to figure out how.

 

[duzie]

 

[la szum]

I dont cross streams between my modeler setup and amp/pedal setup. Its just a different experience flipping switches and turning knobs in a traditional amp / cab / pedal setup. It’s fun.

Same. Except for the Meris stuff that I want to find a way to integrate with the Fractal, as well
as recording non-guitar instruments and voices.

 

[laxu]

Your Fractal can do pretty much anything I can get out of my ridiculously expensive "mostly Strymon" pedalboard. I honestly wish Fractal would release a delay+reverb pedal using their models. I love those, they sound so good.

What Fractal won't do is have all those controls on the effects just a "grab a knob and turn" experience away. You will have to go back and forth between blocks to adjust say your drive settings when you change your amp settings. It also won't have the user interfaces designed specifically to make one effect type easy to use. With pedals you often compromise on what you can do, but in turn get a curated experience that might be just what you need.

As an example, the Strymon Volante is my favorite delay pedal. You can get whatever it does soundwise from the tape delays on the Delay and Multitap Delay blocks on Fractal. But on Fractal, just to do something like "I want to reduce the level of the repeats for this tap to half" means finding the control, then rolling a virtual knob back to 50%. On the Volante, it's "hold one of the playback head buttons for a second". That's super easy to go back and forth to try it out. Technically the Fractal is more versatile because you can set it to anything between 0-100%, but most of the time you don't want that level of granularity for a delay tap.

Fractal often has this "it's super tweakable (good)...but it's too tweakable (bad)" issue where it ends up being a headscratcher for many users. Like why do I need to know that there's a negative value for delay feedback that inverts the phase? Why isn't that just a "invert feedback phase" button next to it so you can easily try if inverting the phase of the feedback loop signal sounds cool?

Thank Cliff for those good default settings for most fx models so you don't have to mess with the controls too much to get a great sound!

I think with the next gen we might be getting close to the point where it no longer makes much sense to use pedals because the multifx experience is almost as good to work with, without having to worry about power supplies, cabling, how to control all them together etc. I thought the Quad Cortex got close already, but its effects just don't sound that great.

 

[FuzzyAce]

I was thinking about this the other day and tried a few pedals back and forth. Running an HX model, WhoWatt 100 setup.
Real pedals were TS9, Green Rhino MK4 and a BK Tube Driver. I went back and forth real vs. virtual. Virtual sounds great but there was a noticeably better feel, punch, attack from the real pedals. The tone was fuller. I may compare a Phase 90, Univibe vs. virtual next go round, although I can already tell they're different based on my experience with the real thing. The HX fuzz face is not even close unfortunately. I think the virtual stomp models overall are pretty great, but if you have the real thing to compare to imo the pedal would win almost every time based on sound and feel (which is understandable). Functionality and ease of use is a toss-up though.

 

[Whizzinby]

Same. Except for the Meris stuff that I want to find a way to integrate with the Fractal, as well
as recording non-guitar instruments and voices.

I may try to do that this weekend to compare them and hear the Meris verbs in stereo. (Which is the real drawback to pedals, luring you into wanting a stereo amp/cab setup )

 

[DrewJD82]

I still dig putting different fuzz/distortion/OD's in front of models, but if I were going to use an OCD on something, I'd just use the Fractal model instead of my actual OCD. There's stuff I certainly can't dial in, fuzzes and the Dover Drives. For the most part, though, when I'm looking at pedals now I'm looking to use them with an amp more than a Fractal.

 

[KingsXJJ]

Let’s face it… pedals (and amps!) are sexy and fun. Modeling is tone porn. Pedals/Amps are a warm body next to you. IMO. YMMV.

 

[KHAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!!!!!]

Pedals/Amps are a warm body next to you. IMO. YMMV.

Like Fred Garvin: Male Prostitute?

 

[la szum]

I was thinking about this the other day and tried a few pedals back and forth. Running an HX model, WhoWatt 100 setup.
Real pedals were TS9, Green Rhino MK4 and a BK Tube Driver. I went back and forth real vs. virtual. Virtual sounds great but there was a noticeably better feel, punch, attack from the real pedals. The tone was fuller. I may compare a Phase 90, Univibe vs. virtual next go round, although I can already tell they're different based on my experience with the real thing. The HX fuzz face is not even close unfortunately. I think the virtual stomp models overall are pretty great, but if you have the real thing to compare to imo the pedal would win almost every time based on sound and feel (which is understandable). Functionality and ease of use is a toss-up though.

Pedals in modelers are mostly a steaming pile of compared to the real deal. Mostly.

 

[the-trooper]

many people use actual pedals as opposed to what is in their modelers

I welcome threads like this, mental disorders should be openly talked about without stigma.