Re: Marshall JCM800 head: tell me about gain boost/OD pedals
Thanks, Simon.
Not having any trouble with mids, though. I think it's the Carvin cabinet. Had kinda the same punchy, mid-friendly tone with my RocPro1000 head. If anything, I'd probably be better off using the GE7 to cut the mids slightly, then turn it off for solos, using the SD1 and the guitar's volume knob for saturation.
I was able to spend a couple of hours with the Line6 M13 pedal modeler today, and here's a bit of a review:
The M13 can be set up in just about every way imaginable; you can run 4 pedals at once, and they can be anything, even 4 of the same model or type. They are arranged internally so that "Channel" 1 feeds into "Channel" 2, 2 into 3, and 3 into 4. However, like I said, you can put Chorus on 1 and OD on 2 if you want.
It's also got 3 pedal options per "Channel", so you can have 12 possible pedals in a given layout (called "Scenes"), and 12 "Scenes" each with 12 different (or identical) pedals.
Or you can set up the same pedal on all 3 spaces with 3 different settings in a Channel.
Only issue I have is that there's no numbers in the display for any of the Dist/OD/Boost pedals, so exact settings are kinda hard to gauge.
If I were sitting here with a "real version" of a modeled pedal (i.e. Chandler TubeDriver) and set its Drive to the "8" line of the knob, I'd have to guess at where 80% was in the LCD bar display of the M13.
The only knob with detents is the Model/Type select. All the others are smooth-turning, which means once you start tweaking EQ or Delay or really most any settings, especially the ones that do have numbers (Delay, EQ), it's really easy to jump from -1 to +1 when you're trying for 0.
It can interface with an Expression pedal through 2 dedicated Expression Pedal inputs (luckily one came with my Line6 AM-4 a few years ago, so I had one to use with it), and while the affected parameters are preset, you can adjust each pedal's reaction to the Expression control easily - and you can end up adjusting all enabled pedals at once, which can be a pain when it's tweaking your Drive level, EQ parameters, and working a Wah at the same time.
It's definitely as easy to operate as real pedals - you pick your pedal, and the knobs that have an effect are indicated on-screen. If it ain't on the screen, it won't have any effect.
Each pedal has a colored LED indicating what type of effect it controls, - Yellow(ish) for Dist/OD (and that includes Comp and EQ and Volume pedal), Green for Delays (and only delays), Orange for Reverbs (and only Reverbs), Purple for Filter effects (Pitch-related stuff), Blue for Modulation (Chorus, Phaser, Flanger, Panner, Tremolo, etc).
When the pedals are Engaged, the LED lights up brightly. When the pedal is Off, the light is dim, and still in the corresponding color.
To set up the Expression pedal, you push it down then up to see what it changes in a given enabled pedal, decide what parameter(s) you want it to affect or not, and set the parameter to where you want it in both Up and Down positions just by turning the associated knob. Don't want it to mess with your Distortion while the Wah is engaged? Set your Distortion to the same settings in both positions.
However, if you do find you want the pedal to act as a Gain boost + mid or Level shift (for rhythm/solo tones) for your Distortion, as well as not make changes when you engaged the Wah, then you'd have to set up another identical Distortion pedal and set your Expression pedal settings in that one.
That's where it starts to get a bit convoluted, plus you're eating up 2 pedal spaces with the same Distortion pedal, but in a live situation it's really not feasible to switch from a dead-on Looks That Kill tone to a dead-on Master of Puppets tone unless you plan to swap out the kick and snare, not to mention have a vocalist who can go from Vince Neil to James Hetfield.
Still, you'd have the same issue with a rack unit and a single expression pedal. The ART X-15 (with its dual treadles) would be the only one I know of that wouldn't give you that problem.
But, since the M13 can run 2 expression pedals, it's not a bad idea to have 2 of them.
However, you can't have 2 pedals in a Channel active at once, which means if you have 1)Comp, 2)Dist/OD, 3)Chorus, and 4) Wah, there's no room for the Noise Gate or Volume pedal. While you can have those as pedals in one Channel, you can't have the Noise Gate in Channel 4 and the Wah in Channel 4 active at the same time.
As I'm typing this, I'm building a pedal chain in my head to compensate for that (i.e. "not running Chorus and Wah at the same time, so I can put the Chorus on Pedal A of Channel 3 and Noise Gate on Pedal B of Channel 3, and then have the Noise Gate on Pedal B of Channel 4 with the Wah on Pedal A of Channel 4 so that when I'm using the Chorus I've still got Noise Gate...")
Now imagne that in a live setting while thinking about the changes for the song and "where did I put that other Noise Gate?" at the same time.
Given the fact that the Volume pedal LED is the same color as the OD/Dist LED, if you screw up and stick another OD/Dist in Chan 4 with your Wah and Volume pedal (it can happen), you're going to get a nasty surprise if you hit the wrong one.
It's a volatile game of Concentration. Or Operation:The Wacky Doctor's Game. Step on that other OD by accident. Go ahead, I dare ya.
Gonna take massive planning to set up live patches. I'd suggest setting up any unused pedals in a given Channel for redundancy (i.e. 2 Volume pedals), just to help with the tap-dancing misfires.
For all that, I can see the benefits of having a "real" pedalboard over the M13. Your choices may be limited, but there are those "minor details" like a Noise Gate that are pretty much self-solving, a Volume pedal that works without having to turn it on or off, and a Wah that's always ready.
Obviously you can chain those to the M13, which is what I intend to do at least with the Volume pedal.
Using it as a front-end slammer actually works just as well as using "real" pedals. The settings for the Rat model and the real Rat are different, but the end results are the same.
The M13 also has quite a few "famous" fuzz models - Octavia, Muff, etc. Not a fan of those tones (unless I'm doing some Hammer House of Horror soundtrack stuff), but they're there.
Really liking the FX it comes with, especially the pitch-related stuff. Nice synth-type effects I can use for my non-Metal stuff.
Still waiting on my MetalZone to arrive - maybe tomorrow - so I can compare the real thing to the model. As it is now, I'm getting convincing Ride The Lightning rhythm tones with that model.
The other models (Chandler Tube Driver and Rat) are good for vintage 80s Priest/Maiden, which is a good thing.
