Looking for good reading material

Hi all...

I was wondering if any of you had any good reading articles on pedals and effects. Listening to John Petrucci's solo CD has really peaked my interest in cleaning up my personal tone.

His guitar while yes, rock and crunch is just amazing. It's so clean sounding. Nothing ever sounds out of place. I fully understand that a lot of it is his amazing skills, quaility of components in his guitar and amp, but, I have to guess that there is some degree of how he sets up his effects as well.

So, I'm wondering are there any whitepapers out there that talk about guitar tone and pedal theory. What pedals work well with each other, settings that on pedals that work well with each other... Things like...

If I use Chorus, is it ok to also use a Flanger? If so, what settings on the pedals would you use so that they blend well and not sound like they are fighting for dominance with each other.

How much delay is good how much delay is bad.

What effects are going to do nothing but harm your tone by creating mud.



Anyway... Just looking for some good theory reading on this subject.


Thanks
Rick

Yup.. I've had the same problems for years.. The thing is.. I find a tone that works and I stick to it for a while, then I get bored of that tone and go through the whole thing over again to find a new tone. I can always go back to the original of course.. but every now and then I will find a tone and forget to make a note of the settings and I have never been able to get that tone again.. very frustrating.. I'm sure some sound engineer guru could work it out since I have a track with the tone in use but it's not worth it at this stage..

Anyway.. yeh.. my biggest challenge over the years has been basic EQ stuff bass-mid-high.. these three seemingly simple components play a huge role in tone, especially when you get the more complex EQs..

Anyway, yeh.. I hope you find what you are looking for :)

Here is something I found that looks to be of value.

http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Features/25-secret-ways-to-get-the/

Wow.. that's a pretty awesome link to be honest.. it covers a lot more than just effects pedals and each tip has its own separate page of detailed information. I can't spend a lot of time reading it now because I am at work but I did have a quick look and was impressed.

I've also added this to the list of links that is stickied, which I suppose I should go through at some point and see if they are still valid etc

Here's one of the best articles I've ever read about tone in general, the whole idea is based on use of EQ before and after the preamp. It's a pretty good read and makes a lot of sense.
http://www.amptone.com/truesecretofamptone.htm

Superhuman, that is a great article. My POD3x has EQ. I didn't play around with it at first, but when I added it to the effects chain I had setup, I was WOW'd by how much you can alter the sound of your tone. Interesting to see how much this guy drives the point of using EQ pedals.