Guitar Rack effects

sist_si · 1 Feb 2008 at 09:16

Hi guys,
I've recently got myself a new rack tuner and i'm going to get a rack case to house it in.
I also want to expand my effects a little bit so I'm looking to get a rack effects unit (with pedal board). Primarily, I want to be able to set up different clean sounds on there while still using my marshall distortion.

At the moment, my clean sound is basically my marshall JCM2000 head with a tiny bit of overdrive on the 'crunch' channel with a little bit of compression and chorus on an external pedal. It's this I'll want to recreate to start with.
I also have a boss delay pedal so that will be another effect I'll need to create.

Anyway, can anyone recommend a reasonably priced rack unit that would loop through my amp head? Is this possible with the 'effects loop'? I'm not too much of a tech head when it comes to this.

Tk7 · 1 Feb 2008 at 10:05

Personally i'd go for a pedal board instead. I used a JCM2000 DSL100 for a few years, and used quite a few pedals in front of the amp. I never got the sound I wanted through the effects loop.

I used a Boss PSM5 to power the rest of the board and switch the whole pedal board loop in or out.

Just my opinion but I prefer the sound of hand picked pedals rather then a rack. I just feel racks are a bit of a compromise.

RetiredGreyFox · 1 Feb 2008 at 11:04

POD Pro

Andelusion · 1 Feb 2008 at 13:44

The Rocktron Intelliflex and TC Electronic GMajor fall around the £300 mark, very popular units and very controllable via a variety of controller floorboards.

Generally, time based effects (delay etc) go in the effects loop, you'd run either of the above processors in your effects loop and things such as compression/distortion/wah etc infront of the amp (so they go through the preamp stage, the effects loop bypasses this).

What is your budget?

sist_si · 1 Feb 2008 at 14:08

That just went stright over my head Andelusion! haha.
If I got myself one of your suggestions, could that be rigged up to replace my current clean sound (compression, chorus alongside my Marshall head) but also have foot switches available to select things like delay/whatever?
For my distortion channel, I'm gonna stick with the marshall but essentially I want to have my 'clean setup' running underneath everything if you see what i mean.

I reckon I could stretch to £250...was gonna look at 2nd hand maybe.

Andelusion · 1 Feb 2008 at 14:23

Well things start to get complicated when you start to want to switch channels on your amp AND effects from an external processor(s) all at the same time, you need to do a bit of research into MIDI switching then.

But yes the 2 units I suggested both feature all of the most common effects e.g compression, delay, reverb, chorus etc.

You're going to want a controller for the rack, the Behringer FCB1010 is a very popular choice: http://www.guitarampkeyboard.com/en/behringer-fcb-1010/1590 with this alongside your rack unit you'll be able to switch between whole presets on the rack unit (a preset may consist of chorus and delay for example) then use other pedals on the board to switch individual effects on/off.

sist_si · 1 Feb 2008 at 14:45

cheers for your help Andelusion.
ok, sounds like i'll have to do a bit of research. I might pop into my local music shop and see if they'll show me whats what. I'll get a better idea if i can see how it'll all work.
I think ideally i do just want to colour my basic clean sound and then just switch between clean and distortion on my marshall but it'd be great to be able to replace other external effects such as delay in the one unit as well and switch between those (while always having my basic clean setup there)