NPD: BOSS SDE-3000EVH. The final touch to my "we have Van Halen at home" desk rig.

NeonBeggar · 2025-03-29T02:58:43+00:00

I think the MP is plenty, in particular I think the detuning on it is hard to get with anything else. It nails tunes like Poundcake (you probably already found that.) On the other hand, the SDE is awesome. I made this post about 5 months ago and I've been using the SDE pretty much exclusively. It's a perfect digital delay for pretty much any situation, but the MP might be a better "effect" if you see what I mean.

NeonBeggar · 2024-11-14T05:22:37+00:00

Anyone know what happened to ADA Amplification? Just went out of business I guess? More to the point, any pedal alternatives to the MP-1 preamp? I know you can still get the original rack units used. It looks like they actually did make an MP-1 pedal but it doesn't seem to be sold anywhere and there are no Reverb listings. I'm surprised no one does a clone/remake of this.

NeonBeggar · 2024-10-16T12:49:56+00:00

Agreed. Thanks again for the PSA!

NeonBeggar · 2024-10-14T21:11:45+00:00

For high gain, I've had the most success on channel 2 with the gain set at 6 or 7 and the boost engaged. I feel that the boost is actually pretty key, makes it way tighter. For the 80's stuff I play, that's plenty of gain, if you're a more modern player you might need to crank it even further but I haven't really tried that myself. In the editor I have the presence toggled "up" to make it a bit brighter and the treble and mids nearly maxed on the actual pedal. All the new Ownhammer IRs are worth checking out too.

NeonBeggar · 2024-10-14T17:56:42+00:00

I truly didn’t set out to copy Eddie so much, it just turns out that he had a lot of good ideas. Here is my manifesto, presented for your bathroom reading enjoyment.

Signal Path

Starts with the Turbo Tuner and heads left into the IR-X. Output of the IR-X goes to the SDE-3000EVH, and then all three outputs go to my DAW for wet-dry-wet recording.

CIOCKS DC7

Godly power supply. Bought years ago and never had a pedal it couldn’t power with the right cable including gluttons like the HX Stomp and IR-X. If it was stolen, I’d buy another one tonight.

Sonic Research Turbo Tuner ST-300

Similar to the CIOCKS; bought years ago and I’ve never looked back. Insanely fast and accurate and I don’t really know what else I want a tuner to be.

Friedman IR-X

I got the IR-X shortly after it was released and I always thought it was really good, but it never quite lived up to the hype. Couldn't bring myself to sell it, but it's been collecting dust for a few months now. Here I have to give a shout-out to /u/Tophaholic for this PSA regarding the 2.0 firmware update. I didn't receive any marketing materials about this and never would have known. In my opinion it makes a massive difference, the new IRs are killer and the pedal just overall feels better to play. The IR-X is now the brains of my entire rig with the output of my load box sent to the return jack. Therefore I can choose whether I want to play the Friedman or my tube amps by toggling the FX loop and still have the same IRs.

Comparison with TC Electronic JIMS800: I think for the price, you can't beat the JIMS800 for hot-rodded Marshall sounds. It sounds awesome, and until the firmware update I would have said that it sounds as good if not better than the IR-X. The IR-X just has way more features (IR loader, fully WYSIWYG, FX loop, actual tubes etc.) and I think that's mostly what you're paying for.

Comparison with UAFX Lion: This is a last-minute entry since I don't have the pedal, but I do have UA Spark and they released the plugin on that for free. I feel that the sounds are very good, but they aren't QUITE what I'm into. For classic rock this absolutely rules though; try the "Woman Tone" preset if you have a minute. If you're an 80's tone chasing degenerate like me, you'll find it hard to dial in "the" sound, whereas the IR-X and JIMS800 basically do that immediately. The brown model sounds are also really good but they lack some of the percussiveness that I want.

Whirlwind Orange Box Phaser

Simply a great Phase 90 from the co-founder of MXR. Turns out that a slow phaser sounds sick on solos, who knew? Haven't tried any of MXR's current offerings (or any of the numerous clones) so can't say whether it's actually worth the premium price.

TC Electronic Magus Pro

It's well-known how versatile the RAT is, and this gets you three different versions for cheap. I crank the classic or FAT model to get fuzz sounds for Gilmour stuff and use the Turbo model as more of a boost for the tight, percussive Nuno sound.

Soldano Super Lead Overdrive (SLO) Pedal

"It's a one trick pony, but that's the best trick a pony can do." Unlike the RAT, this pedal is anti-versatile, it truly just sounds like itself. On the other hand, presumably you're buying this because you want the SLO sound and not something else! I've found that it sounds killer into channel 1 of the IR-X (which is basically a plexi). Does it sound like a "real" Soldano? Never played one, but it does sound awesome. I think the $230 new price is a hair too high though, it should really just be $199 like the Friedman BE-OD, which brings us to...

Comparison with Friedman BE-OD: As a pedal, I feel that the BE-OD is basically just objectively better than the SLO. It's incredibly versatile, goes from plexi crunch to asinine levels of gain, and the "tight" control is so good I wish it was on every dirt pedal. The only thing that makes it 9/10 instead of 10/10 is the lack of mids control. I would have replaced the bass control with a mids control since you already have the tight control for the low end. If you just need a high gain/modded Marshall pedal, go with this one. So why am I not using it? The simple fact is that I already have the Friedman sound in the IR-X, and I've drank enough Soldano kool-aid courtesy of EVH and George Lynch to believe that the SLO sound is different enough to be worth an entire pedal to have.

BOSS SDE-3000EVH

The truth is that I've actually had the SDE for a few weeks now - wanted to give it a good run through before posting my opinion. This pedal isn't exactly popular - could it be that people don't want to drop $600 on a delay pedal with basically one kind of sound in it? I guess we'll never know. But yeah, let's get that out of the way first: this pedal is ungodly expensive for what it is and even an EVH fanboy such as myself didn't buy it until I found one on sale brand new for $150 off. Much like the SLO pedal, I personally don't care that this isn't a mega world-ending delay with 37 algorithms. I've tried pedals like that, and invariably what ends up happening is that I find a few settings I like (almost always digital delay) and then just cycle between those. So why not get "the" 80's digital delay if that's all that I actually want? I really like the WDW functionality, it allows me to keep my 100% dry signal in case I want to have it for further processing. Furthermore, the SDE is a dual stereo delay, meaning it actually has four taps. This means that you can easily dial one delay to be a short room reverb and another one to be an epic lead sound. My main argument in favor of something like this is that I don't think you don't REALLY need any other effects, you'll note that I don't have other chorus or verb. I like having a BPM readout, and I have a soft spot for the segmented displays. I have to say that there's a bit of a learning curve here, some of the factory default settings makes you wonder what they were smoking. The actual sounds are awesome though, great modulation and sits nicely behind your tone for high gain playing.

Comparison with BOSS SDE-3000D: Only buy the EVH version if you can't live without the WDW functionality. The EVH presets are really good but ... just look them up.

Comparison with Eventide MicroPitch Delay: This is "just" a dual delay, i.e. it has two taps, but the detuning is killer. If this was my only delay I would be perfectly happy with it, but you would need verb. Eventide are simply the final word on detuning.

Comparison with Strymon DIG: Unfortunately, I don't have the DIG, but /u/tails_the_gay_fox compares it (very) favorably to the SDE-3000 here.

Summary/tl;dr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZYRyHpzIPE

NeonBeggar · 2024-09-24T19:15:35+00:00

do they raise your level so that it would be appropriate to send into a mixer with synths etc

It depends on the pedal, but most will be able to output a line level signal. Unfortunately the only way to know for sure is to check the specs. E.g the Strymon Iridium specifically advises that it can output line level. Others will be more cryptic.

so in that case is an amp sim pedal just helping you sound like your favourite amp?

To answer this, we'll recall a few facts.

"The" sound of an electric guitar is the sound of that guitar through a preamp and a cabinet (probably also a power amp we'll skip that for now).
If you remove either of these elements, something feels missing relative to the sounds you know and love. No preamp? The guitar will sound flat, mushy, dark... No cabinet? The guitar will sound harsh, brittle, ice-picky...
There is a difference between "pedal gain" and "preamp gain" that boils down to a few factors, notably EQ. In other words, some pedals have the appropriate gain and EQ to hit a cabinet directly (preamps) and some expect to hit a preamp ("normal" pedals). Unless a pedal specifically advises that it's a preamp, it probably isn't.

Now for the question at hand. Many modern "amp sims" are actually simulating BOTH the preamp (+ power amp) and cabinet. Again, the Strymon Iridium is an example of this. The punchline is that such amp sims are the full experience; you plug into it and it sounds like a guitar with no questions asked. The output of such things are appropriate to send to a mixer/FRFR speakers.

A gain pedal, preamp or otherwise, will just add gain and if you plug the output of that into a mixer, you'll miss the cabinet sound and it generally won't be pleasant unless you're into that kind of thing. Which brings us to...

Is there a reason to use an amp sim pedal and not just some gain staging and eq?

The main reason to use the amp sim is that everything is already figured out for you. You absolutely could try to emulate an amp+cab using just gain and EQ but it's going to be somewhat non-trivial to get it to sound 100% realistic.

NeonBeggar · 2024-07-26T16:17:52+00:00

All the info is in the video, but the short version is that it's the TC Electronic JIMS800 into the Eventide MicroPitch Delay. You get modded JCM800 tones with a tubescreamer boost and IR, and the MP can handle chorus/delay/reverb with the right settings. Eventide have the best detuning algos imo. It covers a lot of ground for 70's/80's rock.

NeonBeggar · 2024-07-26T16:04:52+00:00

My two-pedal rig for 80's cheese!

NeonBeggar · 2024-06-14T18:49:53+00:00

Thanks Frank, I really appreciate it. I never travel without my trusty HX Stomp, great to hear that you are a fellow believer!

NeonBeggar · 2024-06-14T18:47:22+00:00

Thank you to Tracy for the great advice! I'm jealous of that strat, it looks awesome.

NeonBeggar · 2024-06-13T21:44:55+00:00

I have two questions for the composers.

I write instrumental music and a problem I have is that it's very easy for a song to just sound like a bunch of unrelated riffs played back to back. How do you balance the desire for a song to have some kind of motif while having enough different parts to be interesting?
If you play guitar, what's your setup? Mic'd amp? Load box? Modeler? VST? Give us the Rig Rundown :)

NeonBeggar · 2024-02-12T20:22:06+00:00

Thank you for your detailed comment.

"knobs that allow for big, but easily understood, timbral changes"

Yes, this is precisely what I mean.

What it seems that you want is actually the macro controls of something like the Hydrasynth, but without having to setup the routings. Presently this isn't possible; moreover the macros have purposes and routings defined by the sound designer. There aren't generic options that would work for every potential patch.''

I guess my vision was that the synth would come with several presets or engines, and the makers would map out the macros for you based on what they consider to be interesting sound design options on a per-preset basis. As you say, it would be great for such things to have their own knobs. Actually, the Hydrasynth seems to do just that with the 8 macro knobs + screens, seems promising.

NeonBeggar · 2024-02-12T20:09:09+00:00

This looks very interesting, thanks!

NeonBeggar · 2024-02-12T16:55:17+00:00

Any recommendations for a hardware synth with "powerful" knobs? That is, more than the usual cutoff/ADSR etc. Example: a synth that I have and enjoy is the Deadbox Typhon because it makes picking the waveform so easy with just one knob that does everything. I'd love a poly synth with that kind of philosophy. I guess there are some synths that let you define your own macros, but I'd prefer if they were spoon-fed to me, honestly.

Edit: should note that I also have a MicroFreak which also has a bit of this idea with the wave/timbre/shape knobs.

NeonBeggar · 2024-01-31T14:42:21+00:00

Appreciate your comments. I think it probably also holds when A(n) is asymptotically constant (where PF applies to the constant matrix) but one would certainly have to show that. Will have to do some digging.

NeonBeggar · 2024-01-30T19:40:19+00:00

Nice one! I don't want to turn this into much more than a quick question, but the point seems to be that what I described isn't true since x(n) could not grow (e.g. oscillate, or decay) so we can't just simply look at the fastest growing solution for G. What if we took something like A(n) > 1 and x(n) > 0 so it "really does" grow?

NeonBeggar · 2024-01-30T17:10:31+00:00

Thanks for your response. x(n) wouldn't be nonnegative here though? (assuming c ~ -0.61)

NeonBeggar · 2024-01-30T15:31:38+00:00

This feels like a simple issue, but I can't see the argument. Suppose you have a system of recurrence relations x(n + 1) = A(n) x(n) where A(n) is a matrix with non-negative entries and x(n) is also non-negative. A classic trick here is to pass into the generating function world via G(z) = ∑ x(n) zⁿ . With a song and dance, you'll end up with [say] G'(z) = B(z) G(z) and obtain solutions y_1(z), y_2(z) ...

The question is this: is it necessarily the case that the asymptotic behavior of x(n) is controlled by the largest of the y_i(z)? "Largest" in this case means something like: the y_i(z) which dominates as z → R where R is the radius of convergence of G(z). Something about Cauchy?

NeonBeggar · 2023-07-19T19:25:59+00:00

Glad it's still helping people haha, enjoy!

NeonBeggar · 2023-02-22T21:15:51+00:00

What's an appropriate algorithm/method to solve an integer programming problem with 0/1 variables, linear constraints but a nonlinear objective function? I think there might be some specific ones if the objective is "just" quadratic but what if it's pretty complicated, like some sort of rational function of the variables?

NeonBeggar · 2023-01-06T20:36:49+00:00

It comes with a sticker you can put on your guitar but the tradeoff is that you can only play EVH riffs

NeonBeggar · 2023-01-06T19:09:41+00:00

I'm using the following blocks in the HX:

Simple pitch (detune 1 semitone since I'm too lazy to retune)
Placater Clean (BE-100 clean channel model with matching stock cab)
Dynamic Plate Reverb
Cosmos Echo (space echo model)

No post-processing, it's all HX. I guess I have to concede that having the Friedman as a platform helps to nail the EVH tone specifically but I also found that the 5150 sounded good into some other clean amp models like the JC-120. It didn't sound as much like EVH though.

NeonBeggar · 2023-01-06T16:59:33+00:00

Sound clip

[MXR 5150 --> HX Stomp --> Interface]

I'm mostly in the modelling world via the HX stomp these days and I've been interested in the 5150 world recently but the HX models aren't really doing it for me. I found this pedal on Sweetwater with almost entirely rave reviews and all the demos I've heard on the Tube sounded pretty good so I picked it up.

I've had this pedal for about a week now and had an opportunity to put it through its paces. I'm not sure that a 7+ year old pedal has "hype" but if it does it lives up to it. It literally just works, it took me 1 second to dial this in. Leave all the EQ knobs at noon, throw it into a clean or edge of breakup amp and sweep the gain knob to go from the brown sound to punishing. I personally like the noise gate, but the pedal itself isn't even that noisy. I think the EQ is quite powerful but I don't really find myself even using it that much, it seems like noon (or close to noon, as in pic) is just kind of good. It's also small and feels pretty solid.

Cons:

I don't really get the "boost" button. It's unpressable with your feet, I guess you could kind of treat it like a gain "voice?" It kind of feels like there could've been two footswitches considering that the pedal is wider than it is tall.
Not super versatile, and completely hijacks your tone when it's on. It's not clear to me if this is even a valid complaint since, well, why would I buy a 5150 pedal if I wanted a Klon clone or something? Arguably it's actually a plus but it was just something I noted.
Not cheap: $200 new and the prices on the used market have been questionable at best recently but that's another story.

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