I've played around with my PodX3L enough to have a better idea of what I'm liking (or what's actually useful to me) as far as tones, and I'm starting to play around with discrete pedals/discrete effects. I know, I can't let well enough alone!

I'm looking for a decent two-channel overdrive for the melody side of my NS that can go from acoustic-clean to bluesy to nice & crunchy. I really only need two or three tones at the most.

I'm driving a hi-fi cab setup and sometimes going direct to P.A. when necessary.

As I was researching, this caught my eye:

http://www.tonebone.com/tb-trimode.htm

Anybody have experience with this manufacturer/product--or others that might work well with an uncolored amp setup?

You just made me do a doubletake, before coming here, I was visiting this site:

http://proguitarshop.com/store/effects- ... edal-p-728

My SansAmp GT-2 may be on it's last limb, looking for something new. Haven't tried one yet, closest store possibly stocking one of these is close to an hour drive from me. I remember Dave Brosky posting something about this pedal. I'd even settle for the Classic version as well.

I like that site, lots of video demonstrations of these pedals. I pretty much ruled out the "Ice 9" pedal (sorry Mr. Satriani). The Fulltone OD pedal looks pretty good as well.

What I'm hearing around my area is people are not buying these too much, few of the GC's stock anything like these anymore. Apparently people are going back to mic'ing their favorite cabs/amps instead of getting any type of amp/cab simulators. See lots of the Sansamp bass DI's. I also have one of those, works great on the NS.

I'm looking for something to use for my guitar as well. Don't feel like buying amps& effects for each individual instrument I have. A good OD pedal makes my Fishman & AI amps sound like normal guitar amps.

LOL! Great Minds....



I was looking at the Sansamp Tri AC, as well (lots of control and 3 tone presets available), but it looks like it was discontinued.



That's encouraging. I've read on some guitarist sites that pedals "really need a guitar amp" to sound good. Personally, if I have to lug two cabinets around, I'd rather go hi-fi stereo.

I just got back from playing my guitar with a weekly group lesson and my GT-2 did OK. I used longer cable and a fresh battery. Seems the "British Mode" is a bit noisy. I still don't get how I was getting odd noises in Protools, but thankfully none of that ever recorded.

Just told Greg Howard I'd take his Tech 21 double drive. Price is right, and I checked out some sound samples on Tech21's site. Funny thing happened tonight - I needed two different OD tones but didn't have time to tweak. The DD should alleviate that with three programmable presets.

One of the things about the NS is that I've had pretty good luck with just about every effect I've run it through. Good instrument to really test what a pedal can or cannot do. I also have a TC Nova systems multi effect that's not as big or fancy as the Boss and Line 6 products, but the tone & effects are top notch. Great stombox style layout that makes common sense. But for my weekly guitar outings bringing the TC in it's Fuhrman board & Vox Wah & expression pedal is overkill and consumes space, which is often limited.

Glad to see there's a comparable Tech. 21 product out there. I keep hearing good things about Sansamp's products.

I also found there's a used TC Nova Drive at our local guitar shop--looks like I need to take my NS in and check it out!

...and my 9-year old just noticed I could change font color...so I did. )

The peddle looks interesting but one thing bothers me, the sound bites. If you read the descriptions on how the bites were recorded you'll see they used different guitars, amps and speakers depending on the desired tone. Different amps, guitars and speakers will give you different tones without the assistance of a peddle. I wish they had recorded everything using the exact same equipment so we could hear what the peddle itself did to the tone. And it would have been nice to hear sound bites full volume on the guitar volume knob then backing off the guitar volume knob to see how the sound cleans up "like a tube amp."

I saw a TriAC at a music store this weekend. They seem to stock almost every pedal out there, and some have a lot of dust on them. That TriAC might have been sitting there that long. Found out my GT-2 might not be bad, the guy there told me the "British Mode" tends to be noisy. Like Ray said, amps make a difference and the Loudbox is a bright amp, so the noise probably is made worse. Although I can't explain what happens with it it Protools. Anxious to see what Greg's pedal will do. For the NS, if you don't have a Sansamp Bass DI, try that one first. You can get an overdrive sound with it, and make the bottom end be as competent as a standard bass guitar.

One thing I need to play with on the Nova systems - I have an expression pedal hooked into it. Apparently it works with overdrive and distortion to control the amount of distortion in realtime.

It looks like the Nova Drive will do that too (which could be helpful)--but I think only if you map a midi expression pedal to the right parameters. That, and the ability to map other parameters to a midi controller make it a pretty future-flexible option. Still in an analog signal path unit.

If you're looking for something that does clean/blues/crunch, this is the single greatest pedal I've ever seen.

http://www.customtonesinc.com/

The Ethos is as close to that "Dumble sound" as I've ever gotten (think Larry Carlton, Robben Ford, etc.). And by the way, it's really really close. The clean channel is warm and completely clean. The gain channel is warm and has the ODS tone. Kick in the boost and it's crunch city. It has the output level of a pedal but it acts more like a preamp. Touch sensetivity is excellent. The speaker simulated output run straight into a mixer or full range monitor sounds amazing. The other output (no speaker sim) is great in front of a nice clean tube amp.

I own amps by Marshall, Engl, THD, Bogner, Roland, and Gibson. This little pedal sounds as good or better than any of them in it's own unique way.

The one downside is that the waiting list to get one is probably something like 9 months (it was when I ordered mine last year).

Still, I'm so blown away with this thing it was easily worth the wait.

Karma

I was up late last night playing with this. The trick is to find the right volume levels, because as the pedal is pushed from the lowest limit to the highest, the volume also increases. If there's not enough volume to start with, then there's nothing but silence. Makes for a cool effect though, acts as a volume pedal with an edge. Too bad it doesn't blend an even volume wet/dry signal. I believe someone here posted a "Keystation" pedal by either Pigtronics or EH that does something like that.

that Ethos pedal looks pretty cool, thanks for sharing, Karma.