***The Official Guitar Thread***

uncle_rufus said:
My vote noise gate wise (and if I were ever to buy one) would be the Fortin Zuul... it's clever in that it has 2 inputs and 2 outputs where one is the actual signal (to be gated) and the other is a "key" which you are meant to pass the dry signal from your guitar (so you'd need to route through a splitter at the start of your chain). This way the gate is controlled using a "pure" signal and can't be confused by the harmonics etc. added by other pedals that come before it. As an added bonus you might as well then take the dry signal and amp it up with a second amp to do the whole wet/dry thing which is very effective
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that's not unique I don't think, the NS2 does this provided you run into it early in your chain and use its send-return properly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0VqCfe4Q9c
the only issue is Boss pedals are buffered which can cause problems with wahs and fuzz where they often need unbuffered signals.

edit: just looked into that Zuul and it's mini version. Expensive but do sound good. And true bypass. yeah that key tracking is useful as you can move this right back in the chain if you need to, but still filter based on original clean signal. Really rather good. Shame it's so expensive!!!
 
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ik9000 said:
the keeley pro is ok so far. Threshold has to be set lower than I'd expected so the limiter it affecting more of my signal than I'd like. I did some wave profile recording in cubase and you can see it at work. It's doing what I wanted it to, just provided I can get the threshold to a better setting. I'll fish my other guitar out of the chaos cupboard tomorrow and see if it gives a different result. It's possible the pickup height isn't quite right and giving a weak signal level. I've yet to finish the set up on this thing.

It's amazingly compact. I was expecting something huge but it's the same size as the route66 v3 or similar VisualSound/Truetone combi pedals. There's a great youtube vid comparison of the cali76 TX vs the Keeley Pro. I haven't watched it all yet, but just the size difference (and half the price) would make me favour the Keeley Pro for my use case. Gig board real estate is precious. Smaller the better IMO.
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Nice, sounds like it is working well for you! I got to admit, I was looking at the Cali 72. But quickly snapped myself out of it, really no need for me to have anything like that or the Keeley Pro level!

On the topic of Gibson prices, they have become quite insane. Second hand prices have also inflated. I keep the odd look out and I haven’t seen an R9 pop up for anywhere near the same price I paid at the start of the year. I totally appreciate a lot of time and skill goes in to building a guitar but the brand new prices are eye-watering across the range, not just Custom Shop, and are definitely not sensible.

Heads up that the Trio Plus has a very good price on Amazon at the mo, £144. I've never seen it this low brand new, this is normally the price they sell second hand for! I’ve bitten on it, hoping it will improve my soloing and make practising more interesting. Am a bit concerned it is a bit too advanced for me, I'm guessing though if I look up the chord progression of say Am, play a few bars, I'll be able to practice A root pentatonic soloing over it. Like I do with YT backing tracks.
 
ik9000 said:
nice! does that mean it has the lacie pickups or is it old enough to miss that era?
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Will have a look, need to have a look at the state of the electrics anyway.

I think the model is this as it matches the configuration (light coloured neck):
  • 27-4302: 3 single coil pickups, 5 position selector switch, 1 volume, 2 tones, System I tremolo, maple fingerboard, 25.5" scale length, top-mounted output jack.
The pickups have the metal per string clear without a plastic cover so I suspect they’re not lace pickups which seem to be plastic without the metal showing.
 
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2StepSteve said:
Nice, sounds like it is working well for you! I got to admit, I was looking at the Cali 72. But quickly snapped myself out of it, really no need for me to have anything like that or the Keeley Pro level!

On the topic of Gibson prices, they have become quite insane. Second hand prices have also inflated. I keep the odd look out and I haven’t seen an R9 pop up for anywhere near the same price I paid at the start of the year. I totally appreciate a lot of time and skill goes in to building a guitar but the brand new prices are eye-watering across the range, not just Custom Shop, and are definitely not sensible.

Heads up that the Trio Plus has a very good price on Amazon at the mo, £144. I've never seen it this low brand new, this is normally the price they sell second hand for! I’ve bitten on it, hoping it will improve my soloing and make practising more interesting. Am a bit concerned it is a bit too advanced for me, I'm guessing though if I look up the chord progression of say Am, play a few bars, I'll be able to practice A root pentatonic soloing over it. Like I do with YT backing tracks.
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Do you mean Cali 76?

I am pretty done with pedals, there isn't really an effect I want that I don't already have, or anything new on the market that I actually need. After a fling with the idea of an Epi, put the lid back on GAS.
 
Raymond Lin said:
Do you mean Cali 76?

I am pretty done with pedals, there isn't really an effect I want that I don't already have, or anything new on the market that I actually need. After a fling with the idea of an Epi, put the lid back on GAS.
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ah yes, I mean’t the Cali76. I had a moment over the weekend where I had my heart set on one. But then a reality check kicked in; this is my first compressor, the Keeley Plus will do it for me for half the price... stop being a money wasting idiot!

I think ducking the epi makes sense. Even if it has decent electronics, you probably won’t enjoy playing it due to your issues with finish, it’ll likely just sit there and not get much play. Think of it as money towards something you’ll want to play.
 
2StepSteve said:
ah yes, I mean’t the Cali76. I had a moment over the weekend where I had my heart set on one. But then a reality check kicked in; this is my first compressor, the Keeley Plus will do it for me for half the price... stop being a money wasting idiot!

I think ducking the epi makes sense. Even if it has decent electronics, you probably won’t enjoy playing it due to your issues with finish, it’ll likely just sit there and not get much play. Think of it as money towards something you’ll want to play.
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My first compressor was a Pigrtonix Philospher's Tone back in 2014. The ones that went sideways, I actually didn't like it and returned it. It made my signal chain hum like nobody's business some reason, perhaps it was faulty.

I then didn't get one for a couple of years, I remember wanting a fully size Cali76 but I could not justify the cost (I think those are like £400-500), and they take up too much room on the pedalboard, so when they released the Compact I had a moment of weakness. But my philosophy of getting something good and be done with it had taken off and the whole GAS thing around then was exploding.

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Raymond Lin said:
My first compressor was a Pigrtonix Philospher's Tone back in 2014. The ones that went sideways, I actually didn't like it and returned it. It made my signal chain hum like nobody's business some reason, perhaps it was faulty.

I then didn't get one for a couple of years, I remember wanting a fully size Cali76 but I could not justify the cost (I think those are like £400-500), and they take up too much room on the pedalboard, so when they released the Compact I had a moment of weakness. But my philosophy of getting something good and be done with it had taken off and the whole GAS thing around then was exploding.
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Totally get that mentally of buying once and being done with it. The Cali76 does sound good, but just couldn't justify right now. Though....... nope. I really should just avoid all forums about gear!
 
my tip is don't covet, use what you have and learn how to use it as well as you can. Then and only then look at something else. Otherwise you end up with a box of stuff gathering dust.
 
ik9000 said:
my tip is don't covet, use what you have and learn how to use it as well as you can. Then and only then look at something else. Otherwise you end up with a box of stuff gathering dust.
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It's a good tip. Guitar gear really is the absolute worst GAS pitfall I've ever come across in a hobby or interest.
 
ik9000 said:
image should tell you. If it's got the poles showing it's not lacies.
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Certainly not lace pickups (yes it's in a pink case... that was the only case the shop at uni had after the guitar slipped off it's stand - the case is also a good 30 years old):

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2StepSteve said:
It's a good tip. Guitar gear really is the absolute worst GAS pitfall I've ever come across in a hobby or interest.
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I don't get this with cameras (although perspective is different), or cars, computers or bonsai trees. I have more invested in guitars than all my other hobbies put together i think. The good thing though is that although the money is spent, it's never gone, it can even be profitable and liquidated. It certainly is better than smoking.
 
Raymond Lin said:
It certainly is better than smoking.
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Definitely, and healthier too!

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The Trio+ arrived this evening. I'm really impressed. This pedal may be getting on now, but damn, it's good! I remember someone here said a while back how good this pedal is, totally agree.

I can already really see it's potential for practising. I used to play YT backing tracks and practice soloing along to them with the pentatonic scale. This pedal adds a whole new dimension. I hit the band button to enable learning and played a few chords in the key of Am and away I go, an endless loop with drums and bass in the key! I'm kinda amazed! Can control the volume of the bass and drums. It literally is like having a band in the room, the samples of the instruments in the genres I have heard tonight sound very good and convincing. For £144 it could be the best money I have spent to help me become better at guitar.

I have the pedal connected to my amp at the moment, it sounds good. My effect pedals need to be moved so they are routed through the effects loop on the Trio+, i'll see about doing this tomorrow perhaps.

The whole song building and making aspect is advanced for me, I am definitely not there yet, and won't be for a while. I'm still learning about keys, soloing and theory in general. But I think you could literally record a whole song on this using the looper and the 5 recording parts of the Trio+.

Even just letting the drum pattern run, for practising timing, it's way more fun to practice accompanied by drums rather than a metronome. I can't see this going anywhere!
 
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it's an interesting concept. I've been looking at getting a drum machine (not to mention an electric drum kit - but I didn't get furloughed so that went on hold) and I wonder whether the money is better going there. This is a good practice tool but I'm looking for something a bit more customisable for actual composition work.

Having looked at a few videos on the trio consider getting the footswitch for easier operation + more functionality.
 
I think you are right, for actual composition work, you'll want something more advanced and customisable. You are completely at the mercy of the drum patterns which have been programmed in to the Trio+, there is no way to change these. I think the Trio+ is more like a jamming and practising tool. I can see though how you could lay down the ideas for a song with it.

It's definitely unique, I get there is probably a ton of software out there that can do the same thing, but I really do not want to be tied to my PC when I want to play. As a tool to just play a long with, practice and improve, standalone; I think it's a winner!

Edit: I'll take a look at the foot switch, thanks. Again, not sure if it'll be adding features which are beyond me at the moment. I keep hearing rumours that Digitech are going out of business, though there has been chatter of this since 2019. Looks like this pedal isn't available on Andertons anymore at the moment, which is.. interesting.
 
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