Some pedals to compliment my AX8 rig

hippietim

Axe-Master
I still buy pedals. I can't help it. So over the last few weeks I've accumulated quite a few pedals that I hadn't had a chance to try out until this weekend. Most of what I'm looking for these days is to augment my Fractal rig with stuff that's not in the box. That really is a limited category of things at this point.

BBE Sonic Maximizer mini - I've always had a love/hate relationship with things like these "exciter/enhancer" gizmos. I haven't actually tried one in a long time. I'd read about the BBE stomps and finally decided to give one a try since they came out with a mini version. When used in moderation, it actually does a surprisingly good job at accenting highs without sounding shrill. The low end boost was not as useful to me because I generally don't find myself lacking in low end with anything - having said that, again used in moderation it actually does a nice job filling out the low end without getting woofy or flubby. It worked just as well with clean and dirty tones. My issue with the pedal is that it adds noise - with the guitar volume wide open it's not very noticeable but when you roll back the guitar volume it becomes a little annoying when you have an otherwise super clean signal. Essentially, the noise is a constant level independent of the input level. Not likely a keeper.

EHX Synth 9 - there are some really cool sounds in here. Like all the EHX 9 pedals, there are non-subtle leaps/cuts in effect level as if there is some sort of extra boost/cut when the input level hits certain thresholds. I've found that it's best to run a compressor in front of them. Contrary to popular belief, these pedals do have tracking glitches. With certain models the sensitivity is pretty touchy and you can make all sorts of weird noises from string scrapes and such - event lifting your hand off the strings can trigger some things. So clean technique is still important (note that it's not as bad as the pitch to MIDI stuff). Getting high notes to sound good with things like the sax and clarinet is tricky - again a compressor helps. The Prophet for staccato bass notes is really cool. The Oberheim mode is surprisingly good - you really can have some fun with this. The Mini Moog model takes some work to get anything resembling the smooth glissando of the real thing. Here's the thing though - the fundamental tones of the Boss SY-300 sound appreciably better to me. Two things that the EHX has going for it is that it seems to do a better job generating the octaves and the Prophet tone is pretty hard to replicate with the Boss unit. Might be a keeper.

EHX Mel 9 - meh. Unless you're copping the very specific Beatles tunes that are well known Mellotron tunes, this thing is underwhelming to me. For my use, the Synth 9 covers things much better. The Mellotron tone I would like the most is what John Paul Jones used for the Rain Song and it isn't in this box (at least not to my satisfaction). Not likely a keeper.

Digitech Dirty Robot - this thing is kind of cool. It's got two modes - filter with a sweep and vocal/formant. The filter is not quite Moog quality but it's fun - for example, I was able to get a good sound for the filter sweep in Crazy by Seal. The formant setting was more like a different filter than anything vocal sounding. Not likely a keeper.

Digitech Mosaic - this pedal aims to make your 6-string sound like a 12-string. To me, it has more of that organ-like POG character than a 12-string. The key difference is that you can taper the effect of the high notes. This is huge. It really makes things sound much smoother than any other polyphonic octave pedal I've used. It works clean. It works dirty. One thing I want to try is running this in front of the Boss SY-300 - it could be the key to getting smoother multi-octave sounds. For some reason I was in DADGAD tuning by the time I got to this pedal. Naturally I had to try Kashmir. Very, very cool. This is definitely a keeper.

TC Electronic Sub 'N Up Mini - this was a nice surprise. If you want to add an organ pedal to your arsenal, this is a great way to go. The on-board controls are fairly limited with just three knobs but with the Toneprint ability it is very powerful pedal. This is far more versatile than you would think. The variety of sounds with just the Toneprints from TC is impressive. I didn't get a chance to hook it up to the editor but I had previously perused the parameters available and there is a lot of potential here. The ability to have multiple presets is really nice (even if you do look like dork sticking your telephone up to your guitar pickups). Another keeper.

TC Electronic Wiretap Riff Recorder - I got this on a whim because Music Corp had refurbs for sale cheap on Ebay and I tossed out a lowball offer and they took it. It does just what you'd expect, turn the pedal on and it records until you turn it off. Why not get a looper? This thing is completely brain dead simple, records 8 hours of riffs with no cards or anything else, and it syncs with your phone via Bluetooth (didn't try this yet). I actually wish this thing could hold a battery - it's not something I'd leave in my rig but the ability to just plug it inline with anything is really compelling. I have tons of 9-volt batteries sitting around that I never use so I may actually wire up a connector and leave it attached along with a jumper cable. Keeper!

TC Electronic Mimiq - this is something many people have tried to do with delays/mods/etc. It supports stereo but I just hooked it up in mono. It's not something I would use all the time but there is no doubt that there is a little something special here when you kick it in. I liked it with 1 or 2 dubs - 3 started to make a mess of things (maybe it'd be better in stereo). I want to experiment with it in stereo but that will probably be with my Axe-FX in my recording rig. I think this is a keeper too.

Boss JB-2 Angry Driver - ok, so the AX8 has plenty of overdrive/distortion models but I got this anyhow. So shoot me. This pedal is the collaboration between Boss and JHS. It's basically a Blues Driver and an Angry Charlie. I think it sounds great. I haven't had a Blues Driver in a few years but I think this sounds at least as good (if not better) than any Blues Driver (stock or modded) that I've ever used. I actually have an Angry Charlies and the JB-2 delivers enough that my Angry Charlie will be getting sold. I may be wrong but I think the Blues Driver side has more headroom than the original - I didn't compare the Angry Charlie side with the actual pedal but I think it may have more headroom than the original as well. Regardless, I was happy that I could get the tone I wanted with some dynamics while maintaining levels the way I wanted. The pedal has some excellent operating mode options - individual, series, parallel - plus an external switch input for more options. This would make my short list for "if you could only have one drive pedal". Keeper.
 
I love my new Friedman Buxom boost for the front end. The tight control is to die for! Check out Pete Thorn's demo. Although he uses it for a Bassman amp I use it to push the front end of my real Friedman JJ with the Ax8 in the loop
 
I have a King of Tone in front of the AX8 and a TC Stereo Ditto Looper afterwards.

King of Tone has the buffer option, and I have quite a range of guitars - one of which is very sensitive to input impedance (68 Tele), so that helps there and gives me a quick way of levelling out input levels - so it's basically a buffer and two stages of clean boost for me.

Ditto - because I've just got used to how the TC Ditto pedals work, I like not having to add blocks/give up CPU/footswitches for the looper - plus if I'm playing at home I can adjust the volume with my toe.

I know I could do that with another expression pedal - but that seems like a waste of a pedal too :)
 
I use the Mooer Fifty Fifty 3 pedal in the FX-Loop as 2nd amp block to the Angle Severe. Panned hard L/R and two different IRs. Sounds damn great.
 
Has anyone used a Big Sky with the Ax8? I absolutely love that pedal and was thinking of buying one but I wasn't sure if it would work well with the Ax8.
 
Has anyone used a Big Sky with the Ax8? I absolutely love that pedal and was thinking of buying one but I wasn't sure if it would work well with the Ax8.
No reason why it wouldn't work great. Put it in the FX loop in stereo and fly through the clouds of verb.
 
Just got a Freq out - Have not turned it on yet

Mimic is cool - BEST IN STEREO

Sub N Up - Kicks butt - Great pedal

TC Electronic Wiretap Riff Recorder - The Beez Kneez man. Love it, however I found myself going back to my Zoom Q3 to for video of more complicated leads i stumble upon.

Thanks for your input on these pedals!
 
Key with the Mimiq is not just stereo, but dual amps/cabs on the stereo outs (need axeII of course for that). Two slightly different copies of your playing going to the same amp sounds bigger, so it’s still cool, but slightly different playing with a different sounding amp, can sound really huge.
 
I still buy pedals. I can't help it.

Zombie thread, but resurrecting because I found this when searching to see whether someone had done a Digitech Dirty Robot patch. Laughed out loud - I resemble the above remark. Thanks for the reviews!
 
Hi dumb question, so do you guys run some of these in front of Axe 8 or just through the loop. Can someone point me to instructions on putting a pedal in the loop, never have tried..thanks
 
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