Question about pedals

[outlawten5]

I recently bought my first tube amp. Laney AOR 50 watt head and 4x12 cab. Would I be better off getting a Boss GT100 or Line6 HD500pod than buying a bunch of individual pedals? Thanks

[straycat]

You would have more choices of tones.
I wouldn't mind to have a TC Nova system to play with.

[DonP]

I'm not a pedal guy - I play straight through my AOR 50. But since the question you asked is really about pedals vs. an all-in-one, I've heard a lot of good things about the T.C. G Major.

Stray - what is the Nova system?

[Radiohead]

Not a fan of the Boss stuff. Had a GT 10 and thought the modeling sounded like ass. Effects were OK. Which ever one you go with make sure you can connect in the 4 cable method. Google it, if you need a diagram. The 4 cable method will let you put boosts and wah's before the preamp section and put time based effects after the preamp but before the power amp section.

[outlawten5]

I would want it just for the effects I think, although I am sure I could tweak my sound a bit.

[pianoguyy]

The real question is going to be:
How much effects do you really use?

20 years ago, the reason I got into rack gear is because my pedals were limited. I would spend hours dialing in the perfect sound, and then I would never be able to change the knobs or else I would lose that sound. That meant I needed to go buy a 2nd and 3rd flanger, or a 4th distortion pedal. But the rack gear was the digital stuff that I could store settings. I had a distortion unit that gave me 128 different distortions, and I could use my midi pedal to do frequency sweeps (similiar to a wah). And then multi effect units. I never needed pedals again.


No reason to have a pod if you are going to use simple stuff like one wah and one echo.

[pianoguyy]

I would want it just for the effects I think, although I am sure I could tweak my sound a bit.

But some effects want to go before distortion and some want to go after. They sound different depending on where you put them in the line of succession. That's what he meant about the 4 cable method.

[jgcable]

Here is my suggestion. If you play live and you don't have a full time guitar tech traveling with you.. go with individual pedals. If you play at home.. go with the GT100 or something like it. Why do I say this? I play live constantly and I DON'T have a full time or a part time guitar tech. For effects only through my Mesa Boogie Single Rectifier I use a Boss GT8 in the loop set to manual mode. It has been flawless for years. I use it for amp control too. Anyway... last gig something happened to one of the settings (totally my fault) an my tone was for shit. Nasaly and flanger sounding. A processor like this is complicated and I didn't have time to figure it out so I did the entire gig dry into the amp and luckily I borrowed a footswitch to turn the solo boost feature on my boogie on and off.
I also have a full stomp box pedal board. When something ever went wrong with that I was just able to disconnect the bad pedal and I wasn't stuck with nothing.

[Newc]

Definitely take a realistic look at what effects you need vs what you want. Nothing wrong with wanting the widest variety available, though. For the effects you actually need for live playing, if it's less than 5, get the individual pedals. For the ones you want to play around with, get an all-in-one for the house.