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Re: Sound vs function



Too bad I don't get a kick back from Custom Tones for all of the recommending of the Ethos pedal I do. Well thats not entirely true, he did do me a solid by getting me one quickly in time for the NAMM show two years ago. I believe its at least a year wait on those right now, maybe two. But i second Richards remarks, best $400 I ever spent, on a stomp box, as it really is a complete two channel preamp. Mark Hamburg brought up the point of there being no way to check from one effects block to the next if there is internal clipping on the M series stuff and I would venture to believe this is a common problem in most multi effects of this type, particularly if you are doing like Mark is doing ( and myself for that matter) which is running gain and distortion pedals at the front of your change. Add to that highly dynamic effects like filters and its easy to get clipping without seeing where it is coming from. I would imagine running a keyboard which has an even more powerful output signal than most guitars, would be even more susceptible to this kind of clipping. This may be a function of cheaper A/D converters but even my timefactor which I believe has superior headroom and A/D converters (at least it sounds that way to me) can start to self clip if you push the feedback to self oscillation. What I've noticed about the M-5 is because its only one effect at a time it seems less likely to self clip. I think many of us have gotten in to the effects Jambalaya mode of sound creation where we create our sounds out of increasingly complex combinations of effects. Nothing wrong with this for sure but its also really valid to strip back ones choices, from time to time and often times the leaner sounds work best, and provide contrast with the more complex combinations. My current loop rig goes like this, keeley compressor, ethos preamp, Line 6 M-5, Eventide time factor, Dtar preamp, Tc fireworx, or g sharp or nova reverb running in the Dtars insets and looperlative running in the Dtar's effects loop. I can either leave the rig in mono, or use both individual xlr outs from the Dtar and run the Looperlatives outputs separately to there own channel strips for a big stereo spread. This rig gives me flexibility for both acoustic and electric guitars, and to move from electric to acoustic is simply a matter of bypassing the ethos. Though I have a lot of choices usually its just some kind of delay a bit of verb, compression , and different flavors of clean and dirty. The M-5 is there for specialty effects and anything else beyond my basic food group needs, I have a lot of choices , but not so many as to be a distraction.
Bill