pedals for electric mandos

[Mandolin_Mayhem]

i was thinkin bout gettin an electrc mando and was just curious which f/x pedals sounded good.

thanks all

Mayhem

[Mike Crocker]

Pretty much the same as for electric guitar. Distortion from mild gain to full out balls-to-the-wall, delay from mild reverb to full echos, chorus, a good EQ, wah-wah, and a noise gate. Many companies have multi-effects units, like Zoom, Digitech, Boss, etc. I use Zoom and Boss but have owned many others.

Don't forget a pre-amp, and volume pedal...the more you do with feet and less with hands the better.

I like as much signal as possible going to the effects, so I order them this way: mandolin to preamp to distortion to EQ to chorus to volume/wah. A stand alone wah might go after the preamp if I had one, but mine's combined with the volume.

I like the Marshall Guv'nor distortion, Boss chorus, George Dennis volume/wah, and Behringer preamp/DI.

What I want? Boss EQ-20 for its presets, and a stand alone tuner pedal.

So much gear, so little time and money!

Peace, Mooh.

[jmkatcher]

Compression is nice too. It really seems to help the ambience for lack of another word.

[bjc]

Chorus for clean stuff, overdrive for rockin' it out and a echo for gettin' crazy...I'd recommend separate units for each effect so that you can replace (if needed) each sound...and tremelo pedals are cool...look at Boss stuff they seem pretty good...but there are other cool things out there as well...

[Mandolin_Mayhem]

wow... so many options... i cant wait till im not broke anymore...

thanks all! youve been extremely helpful!

[mandroid]

get a bundled DSP pedal , save money , have only one thing to haul, and no wad of 9v batterys to buy. many EFX are contained in one devise, wall wart powersupply.

I have a Yamaha DG stomp.
Boss, Zoom , several others make some .

take your 'axe' [hatchet] to the store and try several.

[earnest]

I like the Boss or DOD octave pedal. Joel

[Dennis Schubert]

The Roland MicroCube amp is a cute little accessory -- very popular among guitarists and lap steelers as a grab-and-go amp for jamming. Very small, very light, runs on batteries or a wall-wart power supply. Plenty loud to jam with acoustic players, also has a line out. About $125 discounted price.

This little amp emulates different types of amps with different overdrive characteristics via selections on a rotary switch (Roland Jazz Chorus, Blackface Fender, Vox, Marshall, Mesa-Boogie, etc.) and has two banks of built-in effects. One EFX knob gives you varying degrees of chorus, flanger, phaser, or tremelo. The other EFX knob gives you digital delay or reverb. Other controls -- tone, pre-amp gain, volume. Simple and easy to figure out.

More of a practice tool than performing amp, but I have plugged the line out direct to a PA and it sounds okay. Not as many options as a whole pedal board full of effects, but still good tool for experimentation and enjoyment.

[Mandolin_Mayhem]

one more thing... im lookin at a few right now but i dunno if i gotta get a specified pedal or i can just use a guitar pedal. all the sites list the pedals as guitar or bass pedals and im very unexperienced with electric instruments. i dont wanna spend a bunch of money on a pedal i cant use, ya know?

well, thanks for all your help folks!

Mayhem

[recklessmando]

Guitar yes, bass no.

[Mandolin_Mayhem]

awesome thanks

[wsm]

Check out this site for some great do it yourself type gadgets.

The Mutron III clone is one of the best wah effects/envelope filter around.

[mmukav]

Mayhem----I recently picked up a Mandobird, and am also looking at effects pedals. I've played the mando through my Peavey Delta Blues amp, all tubes. I've tried it straight up, with reverb, with distortion, and vibrato. Pretty cool.

I've been looking at multi-effects units and don't want to spend too much $. What I like the best is Behringer's
X V-amp. A floor unit with expression pedal. Looks nice for $70. I do know many out there like seperate pedals for lots of reasons, but gotta save some money for now, but want something to mess around with. It has tons of effects, amp modeling, and can work with both my guitar and mandolin.

Lots of choices....if I do wind up with the X V-amp, I'll let you know how it is.

Mike

[Ken Waltham]

I use a 1959 EM200 for our shows, and "Y" it with my Telecaster using an A/B box.
So, I have a Boss inline tuner, Dynacomp Compressor, Boss Distortion, and a Marshall Bluesbreaker 2.
If I was only buying for the mando, I'd get an inline Boss Tuner, and the Marshall Bluesbreaker 2.
It has a clean boost, and a distortion boost. Really all you need.

[Jim Yates]

Here's Willie P. Bennett's gear page:


Stage Gear

by Willie P. Bennett

Welcome to the world of gear. I've heard it said that you're only as good as the tools you work with and partly this is so. But I also believe that if you don't have a specific sound in mind, you won't recognize it once you stumble across it.

And I do mean stumble.

In my hands: one 1991 Flatiron Artist 5 mandolin. I bought it brand new from the Twelth Fret in Toronto. It is made of whole woods as opposed to plywood,is X braced as opposed to tone bars. F holes, maple back and sides, spruce top, ebony fingerboard and bridge. It's had a couple of minor modifications which are ivory capped bridge and an ivory nut to enhance the sustain.

At present I string it up with D'ADDARIO J67 Mandolin Strings. They are nickel wound as opposed to bronze wound and the gauges from high strings to low strings are: E .011, A .014, D .025, G .039. Occasionally I substitute a .015 for the A string which provides a little (perhaps infinitesimal) more sustain when I'm using the slide.

The slide is 5/8's sparkplug socket. I believe that mass equals sustain.

I use a heavy flat pick and use the rounder edge as opposed to the pointed end.

The pickup that I have installed is an under the saddle frankensteined guitar piezo strip that has been cut down and shimmed the full length between the bridge and the feet of the bridge. I don't like to use a lot of EQ on the mandolin. I believe when you get the pickup in the right place, it will reproduce most of the dynamics that your pick hand can articulate.

On the floor: 6 Boss floor pedals chained/configured left to right starting with: PSM-5 Power Supply and Master Switch, TR-2 Tremolo, RV-2 Digital Reverb, DD-5 Digital Delay, PS-3 Pitch Shifter/Delay, BD-2 Blues Driver. These are all at least a couple of years old and I bought all of them used from pawnshops. All of this runs mono to an Ernie Ball volume pedal which in turn runs to a BSS (Brooke Siren Systems) AR 116 Direct Box which has the AR 117 phantom power update. This D.I. was bought used at least 5 years ago from a pawnshop.

My on stage amplifier of choice is 1970 Fender Princeton Reverb. It's 12 watts and I love the tube crush and it mike's very well. I run the amp approximately in this way: volume 4 1/2 to 6, treble no higher than 5, bass at least 5 but no higher than 7.

In my mouth: I used to use Hohner Miesterklasse harmonicas but they became too cost prohibitive. (lovely tone though). And now that they have their new modular system pretty much all their reed plates are manufactured the same.

I've moved on to Lee Oscar Harmonicas. They seem to last a long time and they hold their tuning pretty well. I use an old Hamilton harmonica holder. They don't manufacture these anymore. I prefer it because it's smaller and doesn't get caught up in the mandolin or guitar strap too much.

That's about it. When it comes to sound it's all very subjective. They don't call 'em toys for nothin'.

Go ahead and have fun!