Most creative pedal you have ever owned

[clarket2]

Hi all,

 

I have been getting into pedals semi-seriously over the last few years and have slowly been building up a board for experimenting with new sounds etc.

 

From reading these forums there is clearly a depth of knowledge and experience here and was interested to know which pedals/effects have sparked the most new ideas/new directions for people.

 

The ones that spring to mind obviously for me would be:

 

Line 6 DL4 (particularly after some pointers from Steve Lawson)

Meris Enzo

 

But really interested in other people's experiences... 

 

Cheers

Tom

[SumOne]

I'd probably say the C4. It can do things like sound like an upright bass (thanks to patches by  @Quatschmacher), which encouraged me to play Jazzy DnB stuff that I wouldn't usually do with the Bass Guitar, or things like a droning synth or Rave stabs which encouraged me to use the Bass Guitar to play along with House and  Techno beats and play in ways that I wouldn't usually do. 

 

I've owned and then sold C4s twice as the lack of hardware control frustrates me for anything other than home use.....tempted to get another one though!

 

 

 

 

Edited November 7, 2022 by SumOne

[Quatschmacher]

The Future Impact, with the C4 a close second. Managed to get the latter to function as a drum machine to when mucking about with its sequencers and creative routing. 

[PaulThePlug]

Zoom B1on...

[paul_5]

Lovetone Meatball. Love it!!

[ThirteenDevils]

hx stomp

[Oomo]

https://www.ehx.com/products/superego-plus/

 

Being able to freeze chords/sounds is really fun, especially for creating backdrops to build more sounds on top of.

[BigRedX]

Helix Floor. The only thing likely to replace it will be whatever flagship device Line6 come up with next.

 

Alternatively the Linn Adrenalinn, the only effect I use that the Helix can't replicate, but it doesn't spend as much time processing my bass as the Helix does.

[KellyS]

It's the KMA Tyler Deluxe, less about the actual pedal and more about what I can do with my other pedals because of it. The obvious thing to do is use it as a clean blend, but I've had great fun running a compressed bass tone with effects on the delay and other such nonsense.

Also any envelope filter reminds me why I enjoy playing bass so much. It's fun.

[bassbloke]

Probably my mxr bass octave deluxe.  I can literally spend hours recreating analog synth sounds 

[Lunoxx]

13 hours ago, BigRedX said:

Helix Floor. The only thing likely to replace it will be whatever flagship device Line6 come up with next.

 

Alternatively the Linn Adrenalinn, the only effect I use that the Helix can't replicate, but it doesn't spend as much time processing my bass as the Helix does.

Uh I've never heard of the Linn Adrenaline, but it looks very interesting. In what context do you use it, especially in combination with your helix? 

[BigRedX]

12 hours ago, Lunoxx said:

Uh I've never heard of the Linn Adrenaline, but it looks very interesting. In what context do you use it, especially in combination with your helix? 

 

It's only used for the filter sequencing functions and goes through one of the effects send/return of the Helix and so can be treated like any other Helix module, and is also connected via MIDI for patch change and MIDI clock.

 

For the band I use it with, we have computer controlled backing so this provides the MIDI clock for tempo control. So far I've only used it on one track which we don't currently play live, but the plan is to start doing more with it because it's easier to bring to gigs than a additional synthesiser keyboard.

[Al Krow]

Much more modest for me at £50 used: my little Zoom B1-4.

45 bespoke patches (with 5 "clean" tones in between for transition) which have been a lot of fun to put together and tweak plus led lit tuner provides me with a perfectly adequate standalone gigging board which can slip into my gig bag.

Drum machine and headphone amp for home practice is perfect. (There's also a looper, but I find it a bit limited so tend not to use it).

[Baloney Balderdash]

I left my Behringer TU300 tuner pedal with a blank canvas and a set of basic brushes and acrylic paint colors, and when I got back to check 15 minutes later it had created an almost perfect 1:1 replica of Robert Ryman’s “Arrow” (1976). The Dia show is a spiritual time capsule :

Edited November 9, 2022 by Baloney Balderdash

[lidl e]

On 07/11/2022 at 12:47, clarket2 said:

Hi all,

 

I have been getting into pedals semi-seriously over the last few years and have slowly been building up a board for experimenting with new sounds etc.

 

From reading these forums there is clearly a depth of knowledge and experience here and was interested to know which pedals/effects have sparked the most new ideas/new directions for people.

 

The ones that spring to mind obviously for me would be:

 

Line 6 DL4 (particularly after some pointers from Steve Lawson)

Meris Enzo

 

But really interested in other people's experiences... 

 

Cheers

Tom

Any chance you can share those DL4 pointers?

[lidl e]

Maybe not most creative for the sounds you can achieve, but the most creative pedal ive ever seen is this fella

 

https://www.raingerfx.com/product/minibar-liquid-analyser/

 

Very clever and oddball. 

 

Ive just recently learned about these rainger effects. Hes one of your guys.

 

Some of them look really cool and interesting  

[funkydoug]

I'd have to say the terribly uncool Boss ME80 in manual mode is my most creative pedal because of the absence of screens, menus, settings, presets combined with the sheer number of possible sounds. Plug n play

[Simon C]

I’ve not owned many.  I’ll say the Laney 85 - an Octave pedal.The octave down and octave up both sound good.  I’ve played with a blend of the one down, the direct and a bit of the up.  It sounds really good.  The focus allows you to pick the type of octave sound you want, from clean to what I describe as “gnarly” (I play with it fairly clean).  
 

I bought it mainly for using with my fretless, so I could play higher up the neck (easier for intonation with my smallish hands). But…..

 

On Teenage Kicks I play around the 9th to 12 frets on the D and G strings during the lead breaks, with mainly the octave up for a guitar solo on the bass (kind of).  And Wonderful Tonight (which I usually play on the fretless) sounds great on the fretted played higher up the neck with the octave down, the unaffected sound and a bit of octave up blended together.
 

It won out in a 5 octave pedal shoot out I did in the shop.

[Elfrasho]

I'd go with the HX stomp.  But for pure creativity, probably the bass synth wah!

[clarket2]

On 11/11/2022 at 14:25, lidl e said:

Any chance you can share those DL4 pointers?

Mostly things about using blank loops were the real eureka moment for me

[clarket2]

Also I may not have appreciated how expensive starting this thread might be.... some of these look rather cool

[Owen]

On 07/11/2022 at 20:30, paul_5 said:

Lovetone Meatball. Love it!!

I had one of those when they came out. I got a truly spectacular sound out of it. Then I looked for another sound and NEVER got the original one again. I was so frustrated I flogged it. But did make a £200 profit on it, so don't feel bad for me. 

[paul_5]

5 minutes ago, Owen said:

I had one of those when they came out. I got a truly spectacular sound out of it. Then I looked for another sound and NEVER got the original one again. I was so frustrated I flogged it. But did make a £200 profit on it, so don't feel bad for me. 

Mine cost me a fraction of that to make!

[WinterMute]

Line 6 Bass Pod XT Pro got me started, Stomp HX after that, but the Quad Cortex is the single most interesting and creative tool I've come across.

 

The Helix is a brilliant board, my guitarist uses one and it's very good indeed, but I felt the playing experience with the QC was better and I really like the capture options. I'll be interested to see where Line 6 go after the Helix, it's been around for a while now.

 

It's all a bit pricy though.

[BigRedX]

7 hours ago, WinterMute said:

It's all a bit pricy though.

 

Really? IMO in real terms it's never been cheaper.

 

My first multi-effects was a Roland GP8 plus the foot controller and expression pedal which I picked up for a few hundred pounds in the early 90s. However I'm pretty sure that original new price when it was originally released was closer to £1k. That's for a unit which was essentially 8 Boss pedals in a pre-set order fitted into a 1U rack with a terrible parameter access user interface. 

 

By comparison the Helix Floor which when released was about the same price of around £1k is streets ahead in terms of sounds, configuration, and user friendliness and overall versatility.