Buddy Emmons please respond

Steel guitar amplifiers, effects, etc.

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Larry Behm
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Buddy Emmons please respond

Post by Larry Behm »

Buddy the reason you run you guitar>volume pedal>effects>amp vs guitar>effects>pedal>amp is? By running the effects before the pedal wouldn't the effects unit be getting a stronger signal from the guitar? (As I was writing this I reaslized the answer may be that you might play with your volume pedal more wide open)

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Larry Behm
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Brad Sarno
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Post by Brad Sarno »

Hey Larry, I know I ain't THE Buddy, but I'm a buddy. I think that generally effects units of that nature follow the volume pedal because you wouldn't want to let the volume pedal changes effect the reverb or delay envelope (decay). It sounds very unnatural to alter the reverb trail volume. Since reverb is there to create the illusion of a natural reverberant acoustic space, if its decay fluctuates, it would confuse the brain, sound weird, and possibly render you permanently insane.

Brad Sarno
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Paddy Long
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Post by Paddy Long »

Brad, on the same subject, what is the best plugging config for a matchbro ?? between pickup and vol pedal, or after the volume pedal ??

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ajm
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Post by ajm »

To add to what Brad said, steel pickups are often kind of hot, and may tend to overdrive an effects unit fairly easily. That could be another reason.


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Artie McEwan
Buddy Emmons
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Post by Buddy Emmons »

Larry,
Brad and Artie gave the two main reasons why I don’t go from the guitar straight to the effect.
Paddy; the MatchBro Dobro components are designed in conjunction with the MatchBox, which is essentially an impedance matching device that requires placing it after the pickup. To run it behind the pedal would render the MatchBox circuitry useless.
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Ken Fox
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Post by Ken Fox »

I usually play with a pedal board:

pickup>Hilton digital sustainer>Tuner>distortion>compressor>echo>digital reverb>stereo chorus

I tried the volume pedal before the effects chain and then after the effects chain. Never really liked either. I finally ended up with:

pickup>sustainer>tuner>distortion>compressor>volume pedal>echo>digital reverb>stereo chorus>out to two amps

This allows full signal to the distortion(which it needs to be predictable), allows the compressor to smooth oout the distortion, the echo and reverb tail are maintained when the pedal is pulled back.

I can do the same thing on a Profex 2 by inserting the volume pedal as an effect in the chain and placed in the chain where is does the same as above.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Ken Fox on 22 April 2004 at 08:32 AM.]</p></FONT>
Buddy Emmons
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Post by Buddy Emmons »

I’m kind of like you, Ken. After over forty years of fooling around with effects, I can make just about anything work but I lost interest trying to make effects designed for a guitar pickup work with a steel guitar. Now I’m down to a little reverb and a little more of echo, and a lot of inspiration.
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Paddy Long
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Post by Paddy Long »

Thanks Buddy, thats what I thought, I appreciate your response - regards
Larry Hamilton
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Post by Larry Hamilton »

Since I usually try to keep things simple, I have for many years just used reverb and a little delay. It's nice to find out that Buddy Emmons thinks the same way. I hear players use an array of effect, processors, etc. and they sound great, but not having to play for a living for a number of years I have always just kept it simple much to my liking. Just my two cents.

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Keep pickin', Larry
George Kimery
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Post by George Kimery »

I have always run my RV-3 Reverb/Delay before the volume pedal. I have always thought that reverb should be before the volume pedal. Did I mis-understand, or are you guys suggesting that the effects, in this case reverb, be after the volume pedal or are you saying all effects EXCEPT reverb should be after the volume pedal?
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Ernie Renn
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Post by Ernie Renn »

George;

Reverb is one of the effects I always put after the pedal. I believe reverb should be allowed to breathe. Obviously, the reverb effect is defeated by turning off the pedal. It removes the effect that you're using it for in the first place, the natural room echo. The only time I have ever put a delay before the pedal was when my delay bypass switch went out. Normally any delay or reverb is after the pedal. (At least for me it is...)

Because of wide variety of tunes we play, I have a few different effects. Here's how my effects chain is set up.
Steel/Guitar -> EQ -> MatchBro -> Boss Super OverDrive -> MXR Envelope Follower -> MXR Distortion + -> Volume Pedal -> MXR Dyna Comp -> DigiTech 2112 -> DigiTech IPS-33B Harmony Machine -> Midi-Verb III -> Peavey amp, (I use either a Session 400 Limited, a Nashville 400 or my old LTD, sometimes into two of them.)

Hope this is of some help.

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Ernie
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David L. Donald
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Post by David L. Donald »

In a perfect world.
Steel to matchbox, or better yet Brad's Blackbox, branched to a tuner,
then either a Matchbro then distortion, or the Hilton,
then any other effects and into reverb last.

It is good to have a distortion BEFORE the pedal to have a completely consistant distortion sound at all volumes. IF you want that.

But it is ALSO good to have a distortion After the pedal,
so that you can change the amount of distrorion for different passages at different volumes.
ie rhythm and hits at low volume and low distortion,
but then on a single note line more pedal , and it can scream or growl at will.
I use this much more.

Still the reverb comments above are clear, if the reverb is being raised and lowed by the pedal it is very unlike nature and will sound bizarre.

It is your environment, much like a room, so it should be last in the chain.
Rooms don't change their sound when you are quieter in them.

Brad, I would like to see a separate tuner output on your black box. Too many tuners affect the sound, a totally discrete tuner right off the box would be GREAT.
Kill the pedal, tune a note and keep going, with a pristine sound.

Here's hoping you have that when I am ready to buy...
and I will be buying.
<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 23 April 2004 at 05:02 AM.]</p></FONT>
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Ken Fox
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Post by Ken Fox »

I must admit all I use on steel in that pedal board is echo and reverb. The rest is for the Tele. I never use compression, distortion on the steel. Sometime I run the stereo chorus. With two amps is has a nice full effect. <FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Ken Fox on 23 April 2004 at 07:08 AM.]</p></FONT>
Phil ONeill
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Post by Phil ONeill »

I have been guessing this stuff forever so its great to follow this topic.Can somebody advise me how to connect a Goodrich LSW dd3 rv5 to a Nashville 1000 or a session 400 LTD.Should I daisy chain or use the effects
loop.If I use the loop which one for what?
Sorry for the big question bu I would appreciate ths help.
Settings for the pedals would be appreciated
also.
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Ernie Renn
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Post by Ernie Renn »

One thing I should mention: When you use two amps, be careful with your volume. It's very possible to get some sound cancellation. Meaning that to you, setting in the between the two amps, could be hearing it a lot quieter than it really is.

Of course I had to learn this the hard way: On a TV show where I was running into two amps. I played Buddy's rendition of "Blue Eyes". I got a direct copy from the station and I was barely on it. It sounded like I was playing in the next room.

One way to combat this problem is to set the tone on the amps drastically different. Set one to do the lows and clear highs and the other to do the mids. The blend can give you a pretty sweet sound. Image

Good luck!

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Ernie
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Will Holtz
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Post by Will Holtz »

If you are getting large amounts of cancelation when using two amps, then the amps probably are 180 degrees out of phase. To fix this you need to invert the signal going to one of the amps/speakers. The best way to do this is probably to swap the wires going to the speaker. A less ideal way would be to build a cable that swaps the signal and ground wires and use this to send signal to one of your amps.
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Larry Behm
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Post by Larry Behm »

My volume pedal does not turn off and I do not pump my pedal so maybe this is why I do not notice a decrease in the tail of the reverb etc. Also in the club I might feel great if you could just hear the steel at all, let alone how long my tail was.

Larry Behm<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Larry Behm on 26 April 2004 at 04:59 AM.]</p></FONT>
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Francesco Porcu
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DigiTech IPS-33B Harmony Machine

Post by Francesco Porcu »

Ernie Renn wrote:George;

Reverb is one of the effects I always put after the pedal. I believe reverb should be allowed to breathe. Obviously, the reverb effect is defeated by turning off the pedal. It removes the effect that you're using it for in the first place, the natural room echo. The only time I have ever put a delay before the pedal was when my delay bypass switch went out. Normally any delay or reverb is after the pedal. (At least for me it is...)

Because of wide variety of tunes we play, I have a few different effects. Here's how my effects chain is set up.
Steel/Guitar -> EQ -> MatchBro -> Boss Super OverDrive -> MXR Envelope Follower -> MXR Distortion + -> Volume Pedal -> MXR Dyna Comp -> DigiTech 2112 -> DigiTech IPS-33B Harmony Machine -> Midi-Verb III -> Peavey amp, (I use either a Session 400 Limited, a Nashville 400 or my old LTD, sometimes into two of them.)

Hope this is of some help.


Hi Ernie, I just read this post now, and my question is can you get from DigiTech IPS-33B Harmony Machine? In Paul Franklin's mobile rack I see that he uses it in the 112 program, but on you tube in the various tests I see that in the 112 program there is a descending eko, I don't understand what sense it has. Thank you so much for your answer. Francesco
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Ernie
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