Re: Sound vs function

[William Walker <billwalker@baymoon.com>]

   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