Re: 3 pedal challenge!
You are going to have to play the following gigs: A metal gig, a rock gig, a blues gig, and a jazz gig.
You may have one two channel amp and three pedals to do ALL gigs.
FOr simplicity - lets assume the amp is a MArshall DSL 401 or a Fender Hotrod Deville.
What THREE pedals do you take and how do you use them?
I think my pedalboard can already do this. Just give me any Fender amp and I'm set.
Xotic SL Drive - Main gain sound
TC Electronic Spark Booster - Compressor/EQ/Tone Sweetener/Boost (Depending on the gig)
SD Vapor Trail - Delay
I pretty much always have delay on of some kind. For the blues gig I'd probably set it up like a bit of a reverb, just very subtle and in the background. To be honest, I'd probably keep it on the whole rock gig too. Metal gig, for some solos.
The Spark booster is a beautiful pedal. I bring it to every gig I play. If I get an amp I don't like, I use it as an EQ, or to sweeten up the sound of an amp. It can even make a solid state amp sound more dynamic. For the rock and blues gig I'd run it after the SL Drive as a volume boost, or maybe with a slightly different EQ sweep to stand out a bit more during solos.
SL Drive is my general gain pedal of choice. It's pretty responsive, I might even keep it on for the entirety of the blues and rock gigs, because you can roll off the volume knob on your guitar to get a nice marshally clean tone with it, and then run it full open for a screaming lead sound. I have mine set up for a mid/high cut, so it's pretty smooth and big sounding, but that's more my personal preference. The only gig I'd run them in a different order is for the metal gig, where I'd run the Spark Boost first, and use the mid boost option to tighten the sound of the SL Drive. It can get pretty heavy when run that way, but of course I'm not a metal player so I rarely use it.
The jazz gig is probably most complex, because I'm really into modern jazz guys like Nir Felder, Mike Moreno, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Ben Monder, Bill Frisell, Jakob Bro. Guys who aren't afraid to blend the old and the new, guys who have big pedalboards and like to play with them. I'd set the delay to a lush, modulated sound and really let it ring. I might hit a harmonic and play with the Delay knob to get different pitches as part of my solo. I might use the SL Drive to create a wall of sound, or just a long singing note. The Spark Booster will do whatever. I know you can set it to really fatten and sweeten the sound of your guitar, I usually have it set as an always on in jazz settings to give my solidbody a bit more of the air of a semi-hollow. Modern jazz guitar tone is in a really cool place now, where guitarists are using pedals, and amps and pickups as part of their instrument, part of their sound. We've finally hit a stage of acceptance with jazz guitar, where anything goes, anything can benefit your music, we've finally gotten past some of that past elitism of 'jazz guitar SHOULD be..' or 'that's not really a jazz sound'. It's pretty cool.
