Effects units with Little Walters.

Austin Tripp · Post by **Austin Tripp** » 18 Mar 2013 7:12 am

I'm picking up my brand new Little Walter 50 Saturday at Phil's shop and I was wondering what effects units everyone was using with them. Main thing is reverb and delay of course. I have a TC M350 I use with my rack, would this work with the LW50?

Austin Tripp

Franklin · Post by **Franklin** » 18 Mar 2013 7:38 am

Austin,

Yes, start with what you own....My opinion is the TC stuff can sound a little too digital. I prefer the sound of analogue pedals.

The Wompler reverb pedal sounds great......I use a Benado "Steel Dream".....It is three hard wired boutique pedals....It has a reverb, delay, and over-drive.

Paul

Austin Tripp · Post by **Austin Tripp** » 18 Mar 2013 8:04 am

Thanks for your input Paul. It is greatly appreciated. Ill see how the TC sounds and if nothing else, ill try the steel dream.. Thanks again!

Austin

Dan Tyack · Post by **Dan Tyack** » 18 Mar 2013 10:22 am

Hey Paul,

Benado describes this as a 'spring type' reverb, is there actually a spring in the thing? I don't know how you would do an analog reverb pedal without a spring (or a plate).

Brett Lanier · Post by **Brett Lanier** » 18 Mar 2013 11:10 am

When the LW's first came out, I remember Phil saying that there was a spot in the back of the cabinet for a one space rack mount effect. I wonder if that is still a feature.

Dan, I think you're right(no spring). However, all the best reverb pedals feature a dry analog signal path that gets blended back in with the digital.

I wonder if phone app technology could ever reach a place where our guitar signal would be sent to a distant location, re-amped in an echo chamber and sent back into our pedalboard. I know I'm not going to be the one to do it...

Dan Tyack · Post by **Dan Tyack** » 18 Mar 2013 12:00 pm

I want to use the echo chamber at Capital Studios in LA!

Jonathan Cullifer · Post by **Jonathan Cullifer** » 18 Mar 2013 3:34 pm

Brett,

I believe it's still an option. There is an effects insert between the preamp and power amp sections.

If I had one, I would probably use a pedal in front of the amp and opt for the smaller chassis.

Paul, are you using the Benado unit for recording as well as live?

Brad Sarno · Post by **Brad Sarno** » 18 Mar 2013 9:03 pm

Wampler (and by default, Benado) does a really cool thing. He retains a truly analog dry signal path and then uses digital delay and digital reverb that tonally model the analog sound. So you keep your dry path fully analog all the way thru, and the digital effects are warm and analog-ish and blend in parallel with the dry path. The Benado all-in-one units are very cool. I'm glad to hear about the Steel Dream!

B

Dan Tyack · Post by **Dan Tyack** » 19 Mar 2013 7:49 am

Brad, does Wampler do the reverbs and delays for Benado? Who made that great sounding delay/reverb pedal you were using at Dallas.

That's a great idea of keeping the dry signal all analog, I'm pretty sure that my TC Nova pedal goes into the digital path. I'm going to have to try those pedals (the Wampler and Benado).

(I always wonder what Judge Wampler did after he left People's Court

)

Mike Sweeney · Post by **Mike Sweeney** » 19 Mar 2013 8:10 am

The problem you run into with a lot of rack units are they are line level units and not instrument level. So if you're running them in line between the guitar and amp you MAY have a problem with digital distortion. I am with Paul on using stomp boxes. The boutique pedals are great and there are a lot to choose from. I use Hardwire stuff which isn't boutique but it's istrument level so no digital distortion. And I'm very happy with the sound of the pedals I use. And they didn't break the bank either.

Olli Haavisto · Post by **Olli Haavisto** » 19 Mar 2013 2:40 pm

Dan, I don`t know about Nova, but the TC Hall of Fame rev and Flashback delay are both "dry analog through" And they sound great and will work before the amp OR in the loop. Recommended.

rodger_mcbride · Post by **rodger_mcbride** » 20 Mar 2013 5:19 am

Does "analog" mean there are no transistors in the circuit? I'm trying to eliminate transistors and op amps from my chain and still get the benefits of a pedal format for various effects.

mtulbert · Post by **mtulbert** » 20 Mar 2013 6:00 am

Not sure as this may be a new definition. To the best of my knowledge there is no analog effects pedal. They all contain DSP chips of some type.

What Dan points out correctly is the ability of a pedal to maintain the dry signal which if from a tube preamp or amp can be analog and then mixing in the effect.

This could be what is meant by an analog pedal. I am ready to be corrected if this not correct.

Michael Hummel · Post by **Michael Hummel** » 20 Mar 2013 6:51 am

No! "Analog pedal" means there are no DSPs, and therefore no analog-to-digital nor digital-to-analog conversion in front of and after the DSP.

Brad Sarno's Earth Drive pedal is a good example of an "analog pedal". And, when you have the pedal "off", your signal is routed around the electronics (mechanical or true bypass).

Everyone has their opinions; I use both "analog" and "digital" pedals for different purposes quite happily.

Mike

rodger_mcbride · Post by **rodger_mcbride** » 20 Mar 2013 6:56 am

Forgive my ignorance, but if transistors are used in the circuit is it still considered analog?
rodger

Olli Haavisto · Post by **Olli Haavisto** » 20 Mar 2013 7:01 am

Yes. Converting the signal to digital and back will make it "not analog".
Having transistors in the circuit instead of tubes makes it solid state.

Mike Sweeney · Post by **Mike Sweeney** » 20 Mar 2013 7:01 am

No Rodger. It's only digital if it has digital signal processors [DSP]. All the early [stompboxes] were analog pedals delays, choruses, fuzztones etc.. Then after digital got better and cheaper a lot of the pedals became digital. I don't think there was ever an analog reverb but I may be wrong.
Those old pedals are highly sought after and bring big bucks because of the sound.

Michael Hummel · Post by **Michael Hummel** » 20 Mar 2013 12:13 pm

Peavey Valverb! And several other modern ones...

http://www.peavey.com/assets/literature ... 301653.pdf

Mike

Franklin · Post by **Franklin** » 21 Mar 2013 5:21 am

Dan Tyack wrote:I want to use the echo chamber at Capital Studios in LA!

Couldn't agree more.....I got to experience it for a week last year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nxhA0_97_w

Michael Hummel · Post by **Michael Hummel** » 21 Mar 2013 6:31 am

What a great sound. Nice assembly of real players, ultimate in pure taste. Not one note out of place.

Who was the acoustic player at the beginning of the video? At first I thought it might be Dean Parks, but I'm not sure.

Mike

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 21 Mar 2013 6:37 am

The "bucket brigade" type delay, such as the popular SAD1024 chip is analog.

From Wikipedia:

A bucket brigade or bucket-brigade device (BBD) is a discrete-time analogue delay line, developed in 1969 by F. Sangster and K. Teer of the Philips Research Labs. It consists of a series of capacitance sections C0 to Cn. The stored analogue signal is moved along the line of capacitors, one step at each clock cycle. The name comes from analogy with the term bucket brigade, used for a line of people passing buckets of water

Michael Hummel · Post by **Michael Hummel** » 21 Mar 2013 11:41 am

One of the first effects pedals I made for myself was a delay pedal based on the SAD1024 (I worked for Philips Semiconductors at the time). I varied the delay time by changing the frequency of the clock signal fed into the SAD1024.

Rather than a true "analog" chip, I would call the SAD1024 a "hybrid" kind of device. While it is true the audio signal was sampled in the analog domain, it required this digital clock as an input, and, being a sampled system really required the same sort of anti-aliasing filter as a digital sampling system.

In any case, designing and putting this thing together provided quite an education for a young engineer!

Cheers,
Mike

Dan Tyack · Post by **Dan Tyack** » 21 Mar 2013 12:04 pm

Michael Hummel wrote:What a great sound. Nice assembly of real players, ultimate in pure taste. Not one note out of place.

Who was the acoustic player at the beginning of the video? At first I thought it might be Dean Parks, but I'm not sure.

Mike

Looked like Dean to me.

Tim Heidner · Post by **Tim Heidner** » 22 Mar 2013 8:38 am

Franklin wrote:
Dan Tyack wrote:I want to use the echo chamber at Capital Studios in LA!
Couldn't agree more.....I got to experience it for a week last year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nxhA0_97_w

Man! Both of those session videos they have up are just amazingly beautiful songs.

Dag Wolf · Post by **Dag Wolf** » 22 Mar 2013 9:54 am

Paul, How do you hook up the Benado effect to the LW?

Thanks,
Dag