New to Effect Pedals

Hey everyone,

I've never gotten an effect pedal before, and was wondering if anyone on here could suggest a few. I mainly play stuff like Jimi Hendrix, Pearl Jam, Tom Petty, Joan Jett, and other classic rock bands. So I'm guessing that some type of overdrive/distortion pedal would be good, but I really have no clue.

Thanks!
Cheneil

I have a fulltone plimsoul overdrive/distortion. This is basically 2 pedals in one. With the stage one of the pedal you can have some very nice overdriven tone for those classic blues/blues rock sounds. Then when adding phase 2 you can swim more in the distortion territory for those nice rock/hard rock tones. It's very versatile and it sounds great. Theres a couple of good videos on youtube if you want to hear it. Not too expensive too.

Hey Seb!

I'm not quite ready for my first pedal but I've started boning up on the subject. I did a Bing search and PlimSoul gets some rave reviews by owners and magazines alike and there's some good video demos out there as well. Thanks much for this tip.

john

Also check out the BOSS OD3 and OS2 pedals... I tried an OS2 just a little while back, and thought it sounded great. Half the price of the Fulltone. There's a lot to choose from out there. I notice that Guitar Center has nice display units that make it easy to try out lots of different pedals. Ibanez TS9 would be another worthy investigation.

I don't have any specific suggestions because I am at about the same point as you, just in the beginning stages of developing my PAD (Pedal Acquisition Syndrome). But here are a couple sources to learn about the different effects:

1) This video specifically deals with Compression. But this guy has a series of Youtube videos called Effects 101. Most are very basic but he discusses the different effects rather than recommending different brands of pedals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nM5GsNNbyA#t=0

2) There is a magazine put out by Guitarist Magazine called "Guitarist Guide to Effects Pedals". It is great!
http://www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/music-bookazines/the-guitarist-guide-to-effects-pedals/

It goes through explaining every effect and then recommends three different pedals (cheap, moderate, expensive) for each effect. It also has a lot of other articles, "101 Best Stomp Pedals", "Effects Boards of Five Gigging Pro Guitarists", etc. That website above says that it is sold out. I bought mine months ago. But I was just in Barnes and Noble a couple days ago and they still had one on the shelf. If you are in US and a major city you might want to check your local B&N.

I Dont Know How To Post You Tube Videos To The Forume As Of Now.but I Would So Recomend To Google 30 Pedals In 30 Days.goodluck ...and If Your Goin After Jimi Hendrix Tone As So Many Tried,you Will Need A Good Fuzz Pedal,octivator Pedal,and I Forgot The Third One.but Thats Whats Google For.and To Mention A Fender Strat Would Help Too,and A Marshall Plexi Amp.but The Good News Mf Has A Plexi Pedal Worth Ceckin Into.happy Hollidays.....axe2

Depending on the type of amp you're playing through would depend on what kind of pedals you woud want to steer towards... If you're playing on a multi channel high gain amp you can utilize one of the channels to dial in your distortion and use the other channel for cleans...

I would recommend for a good starter pedal simply getting an Electro Harmonix Big Muff Pi fuzz pedal (under 100 dollars). It was my first pedal back in the day and it's still my go to distortion pedal. It's the backbone of Jimi Hendrix's tone as well as Mike McCready of Pearl Jam.