Processor Guide

deathdr_87

deathdr_87

Awesome Guitarist
Alright I'm writing a guide to processors... actaully im writing about my korg ax100g. pls. dont post netihng here unless its a guide for another processor (and mods pls. make this sticky)

firstly a COMPLETE patch has 2 drive channels, an expresion pedal selection, a modulation effect, an ambience effect (either 1 or both) and a few other parameters such as noise reduction and program level.

firstly u should select the 2 drive channels you want (or 1 if ur going to only use 1 drive channel)
now the options are on the dial in the top left (off, acoustic, CL COMP, Tube od, big fuzz, etc...) now if u want a clean channel you could try either off, acoustic or CL comp - thats a compressor, you could also use a tube od - thats overdrive, or top boost on very low gains. then to select the 2nd drive channels switch to channel B by pressin the button in the top right - itll say something like channel A/B. then again select your drive channel. Now for both A/B - select the relevant gain, bass, mid and treble settings. also select the NR level by pressing the NR LEV button and turnin the bass knob. (to change any setting - refer to the table on ur processor, for example, if you press the AMB utton and change the Bass knob it modifies feedback for an ambience effect if that setting exists for it).

now think aboutyour modulation - several options are available such as chorus, falnger and several pitch mods. the est way to figure out wat to do is to just screw around with it. same for pedal and ambience - ambience effects are mainly reverbs and delay settings. you can set the delay time by using the treble knob.

it is advisable to save your work often. press write once. now the number will begin flashing in the LED. go to the relevant number youwant to over write using the up and down buttons at the bottom. then rpess write again to save the patch. . to rename your patch press NR LEV. then using the treble knob you can scroll through all the letters of the name and using the gain knob you can change the selected letter to any other letter available. again save the patch as described above. there is a lot more to learn - go through your manual again - it will help.

deathdr
rep me.

(oh ya - mods pls. delete any posts that are not guides coz they just clutter things up)
 
Ok the second guide - for a digitech rp 200 Artist.


now a complete patch in this consists of a pickupsimulator, compressor, some effects like wah or a whammy bar simulator, an amp model (drive channel) an eq setting, a cabinet effect, a noise gate, the other effects (chrous, tremelo, etc..), a delay, a reverb ad a volume control.

now to edit an effect - select ur starting point by using the up/down footswitches. ull see various lgihts light up along the left column for each patch. these indicate which efffects are on.

to edit that patch - press select. now the relevant efect that is selected to edit will lghit up in the elft column as opossed to which ones are on. use the paramter knobs (the 3 round ones) to select which effect u want and to edit their chracteristics. ok ill give an example- in the wah effect mode - knob 1 (the left most one) edits the pickup simulators - the 3 optinos are off, sinle->humbucker (ud sue this if u ahve a sngle coil and want tit to sound more like a humbucker - this doesnt really work that well) and humbucker -> single (also doesnt work too well).

then knob 2 adjusts the type of wah - like cry wah, boutique wah, sweep wah, etc...

knob 3 adjusts the position from toe down to toe up - now wah is foot cointrolled, but a toe down makes the starting point toe down... expereiment with different settings on this...

u can go throghu the rest of the effects seeing wat each parameter knob does.

now to save an effect - u pres the store button. the first chracter will start flashing on the led.. suing the parameter knobs u can change the name - knob 12 changes the letter, knob 2 controls which lettter ur editing. once uv got ur name - press store again. use the footswitchs to select which patch u want to overwrite. press store again and ur done!!

this is just a simple guide on how to use ur processor... hope it helps.

deathdr.
(ppl - pls. post guides on ur own processors)
 
i will as soon as i get it.but can anyone enlighten me about the Expression pedals.like what is it do and used for.
 
expression pedals: they are basically analog input devices - they allow u to modify a parameter of an effect in real time. you can press them up/halfway up/ 0.8743612315431 way up or however fine u want (theyre not actaully that sensitive haha - but you get tjhe point)

now a wah pedal has an expression pedal which controls the frequency gate. other effects have different uses for expression pedalsthough most expression pedals are usually on processors - they control volume, and level of effects mostly - always go for a processor with an expression pedal coz if nothing else it gives u real time volume control... (if you can afford individual pedals - my advice stands anulled)
 
good thread..............

from now on-------deathdr will be known as "pedal dadu":p:...........nt ronnianand :dance:
 
You cant beat ronnie at pedals...definitely..newaz reps for ya deathdr..for your efforts:beer:
Lefty..make deathdr the 'processor dadu';)
 
Ok instead of writing up specific guides right now - I'll put up a general processor guide. Specific guides will be available on request.

To start off with:

Now most guitar processors have a series of PATCHES. A patch is basically a acomplete setup that you use to produce a SINGLE tone.

Now on to creating a patch:

The first thing ud want to set is the drive channel (a.k.a. amp simulator, drive amp, etc..) Each amp usally has 2 settings: gain and level. Gain is the amount of amplification of the drive channel - it mostly affects how the drive channel responds to the sound - it usually doesnt change volume but only 'how much' of the drive channel is put in. Level is the volume level. I'm going to list out some of these drive amp sims and some advice on them:

1. Off - this is a bypass (the guitar sound comes out like it went in (not technically - there is some change - but its not significant)
2. Overdrive (OD) - This is a standard overdrive system - generally modelled on the old marshall or vox tube amps - this can be set to give a little fuzzy sound on low gains or a killer lead sound on medium to high gains
3. Classic Distortion - again based on old marshalls/fenders is my guess - this has a nice sound - the sounds cracks up a it occaisionally - ut thats how its suposed to sound
4. Metal distortion/metal stack - (normally based on a boss MT-2) killer distortion for killer metal riffs - sometimes sounds good for rock/blues/pop - it really depends on how u usse it.
5. Fuzz distortion - based on 70s style fuzz amps - very popular then - old style sound.
6. other distortions - ull have to experiment and see for urself...
7. acosutic simulator - doesnt really sound too good as an acousitc but sound like a nice clean guitar on low gains.

next ud set the equalizer:
most processors have a three abnd eq - (dont get one with a 2 band eq - ud want three bands)
Now some common settings are: medium bass, medium mids and high treble for warm distortions, flat eq wqith just a slightly higher bass for acosuitcs sims and watever eq satisfies u on clean - but this one is the real killer - put ur mid to 0, bass to 6 and treble to 10 - turn on metal distortion - and hear ur guitar scream - absolutre killer tone - for some reason loads of ppl dont like this - ut i love it - sounds like a megadeth solo.

now onto ambience effects and reverbs:
now ambience effects are reverbs and delays - korg processors only have 1 delay with adjsutable delay, feedback and mix - i ithnk this gives laods of control over the sound - but its not liek the autodealys ud see in a speicalist delay rack that imposes dealys as u play... still its good enough... the delay is the time after which the delayed sound is sonded in milliseconds. the feedback is the number of time it goes back in - for a repeat delay - mix is the volume of the dealy.

reverb - this is the most interesting aspect of thje procescor - u can set reverbs to anyhting from a room type reverb which just adds abit of reverb to an arena trype reverb in hwihc the sund really resonates... abosulte killer!

next onto cabinet simulators:
now cabinets are bascially the speakers out of which the sound comes out -
in the simualtor ull see numbers like 4x12 and 1x10, now the first nuber shows the numer of speakers and the second numer the size of the diameter of the speaker in inches. eg. 4x12 means 4 speakers of 12 inch diamter each.

ok im tired of typing - will post on modualtion effects later... hope this helps ull for now

deathdr
 
hey death ...
i have AX100G ...

everything is fine ... but ... (isn't that always the case ;-)

i cannot get the classic southern rock distorted sound from it ... the one like Lynryrd Skynyrd, Eagles, Led Zepp ...
I used Overdrive (but that was not too twangy ...) so went for CL Dist ... but i dunno y these KORG guys have made that so high gain ... in twangyness it sounds ok ... but somehow i feel it has too much of gain ... it sounds as if the amp is frying ...

if i reduce gain then again it loses the punch ... mebbe have to play around or tweak the EQ ...

anyway if u can help ...

one observation ... using the flanger or phaser (even though u might've turned the effect to zero - not off - i repeat dont switch it off) gives an entirely diff sound ... which is not flanging or phasing ... it somehow plays around with certain frequencies ...

like the one Edge does in Discotheque ... (can be had by using flanger)
 
ZOOM 606 ( mght help people hu hav a 505 2)
overall:
has 42 preset patche's ( all of em SUCK big time )
if u wanna make a new patch them u hav 2 overwrite a custom 1 !!

the EXPRESSION PEDAL !!:

the pedal's ok , has a DECENT wah , no match 4 my CRYBABY :cry2:
Besides the volume and wah, you can also control:

Drive (Distortion) gain
Chorus depth
Flanger speed
Phaser speed
Tremolo Speed
Slow attack envelope
Step Effect speed
Input sensitivity for the Cry effect
Modulation frequency for the Ring Modulator
Pitch shift width or mixing balance
Mixing balance between dry and wet (Doubling / Delay / Reverb)

but while choosing u can only choose 1 of em
u cant choose wah and the vol pedal!!

DRIVE :
has many types of drive's like clean, us blues, ms drive, bg drv, pvy, drv, od, dist, lead, fuzz, metal 7th , acoustic.

dunno y acoustic was put ,ause clean and acoustic sound the same!!
out of all of em i only use dist , ms, pvy and OD !!
the FUZZ is Horrible !!!!!!!!!! :protest:
has an ok dist .

THE GAIN!!
if ya put ur gain on 30 ( Full) is plain noise , sounds just like it ur the wire came loose !:boxed:

ZNR-Zoom Noise Reduction System
Noise problems that occur due to high gain and distorted sound can be solved using the ZNR, features of ZOOM technology!!!

has a built in tuner ( u can change the frequency also !)

has a main vol control also !!

overall itz an ok proccesor
cost : rs 6500 :annoyed:
 
good one alfons... - i agree with u on the patches of the zooms - my friend ahs a 505 - god it sounded bad until he redid most of the patches!

to answer sslayers question: im not sure wat u mean - i wrote a patch which has a clean sound (actaully a lil overdriven) that sounds like skynyrd and led zep and the second drive channel sounded like most of their distortion parts. i have 2 patches actuallt for these type songs.. in 1 the solos use the tube od drive channel - dnt reember wat i put as the eq - and the opther uses cl dist drive - that is lil heavier and is more for the slightly more distorted solos. i got really close to their sound - onm the clean tone - always put light chorus - it makes it sound more like skynyrd and led zep.

i normally use not too high gains for these sounds - high gains seem to crack up too much.. hope that helps...

about waty u said aout the falnger - ya - even when u turn the pdeal down to zero - the falnger is still on - hence it modulates the sound - actually u mgiht be interested to know that even in bypass/tuner mode- we dont get a true bypass - it still flattens out the original toneof ur guitar - that is a problem with the ax100g.

now back ot modulation effects to pick up where i left off:

modulation effects are: chorus, flanger, phaser, tremolo, stereo panning, autowahs, pitch modulations, and sound attack (changes speed of response)

by defintions they modulate ur sound.
the most commonly sued mod is the chorus so ill go with this first:
now the korgs and most processors have 4 basic controls for chorus - speed, depth, feedback and level. the speed is the attack speed or how fast does the chrous work - change the speed setting and ul lsee how much of a differnece it makes - this is sometimes known as attack. next comes the depth - that is how much chorus - by defintion this determines how much out of tune will the chorus go... next is feedback - as usual feedback determiens the number of times the effect is applied to itself. level is the volume.

now pretty much the same parameters apply to phasers and flangers- flangers are absically faster and deeper choruses. phaser put the sound waves out of phase to create a sweeping dynamic volume and frequencey level - the depth controls how much phase difference and speed controls at wat speed the phase difference is varied - there is feedack for multiple phase differnces - high settings jsut sound bad! - there is no level control bcoz its simply a phase difference. - digitechs rotary speaker effect is pretty much a phaser and flanger combined

next comes the tremolo effect - this is basically like a breaking of the sound as if u were picking - thats wat th eeffect started off as - but its ascailly meant to break the sound. the est example i can think of is oulevard of broken dfreams - u can clearly hear the tremolo effect..the speed controls how frequently the sound breaks. i think the depth controls how long the reaks are for - not sure of this- rarely use this effect. no feedback or level control -duh.

stereo pan - this is usually a post recording effect that is used to change the speaker from left to right and to create a sweep in the sound.

im not discussing autowahs or attak speed mods coz idont use either and dont know nething about them

last is the pitch mods - now this is where technology really shines in the korgs - firstly theres the free pitch mod attached to the expression pedal that decides how much to modfy the pitch by (it actually adds a second note on top of wat ur playing) this allows maximum freedon ut more often than not the mod wont be on key - now comes the magic- in a fixed interval pitch mod - this plays a fixed interval - eg. a mjaor 3rd of the note ur playing...

this is really useful - trust me - ul lend up using it to make ur solos sound etter thoguh make sure u dont use it with chords - itll sound really bad!!!

well thats all for this.. maye more detaisl later...

happy processing
deathdr
 
a comment regarding KORGS ...

KORGS have got very nice pitch mods when us keep them on fixed basis (like adding maj 3rd or min 3rd note to the original note) ... u are not using a pedal in this case ...

however when it comes to using the variable pitch (that is use it as a pedal effect) ... it is horrible ...
variable pitch means: suppose u play a note ... and then depress the pedal slowly ... KORG starts generating additional pitches based on the depression of pedal ...
so if the pedal is fully depressed there will be two sounds one - the original sound + one which is shifted (its upto u how u mix those two sounds) ...
man u can make ur guitar sound like a bass guitar using this effect ... or use the effect for those Dive Bombs (speciality of Eddie Van Halen/Steve Vai) ...

but the sad point is ... the shifted pitch is delayed as well as distorted ... :(
so it sounds really weird ...
if u listen to Tom morello (RATM/Audioslave) u will know what effect i am talking about ...

and the tremolo effect is used very often in old southern rock kinda music ... in recent times prob the best example would be riff/intro of "Like a Stone" by Audioslave ...

hey death ... i dunno i use the almost same settings ... for clean tone i use very slight overdrive ... and for dist is use very slight CL Dist ... but i dunno ... lynyrd skynyrd and Ted Nugent seem to be a distant tone ... but anyway thanx ...

autowahs are nothing but automatic wah pedals ...
purpose of wash pedal is to boost a certain band of frequency ... so if the pedal is at zero position ... all the bass freq are boosted ... and the rest is attenuated ...
as u move the pedal ... more and more mids are boosted ... with the wah pedal fully depressed trables is also boosted (at this position whether bass and mids are alos booted depends on the manufacturer of the pedal - infact thats y diff pedals sound diff) ...

in auto wah, this frequency band pass depends on your picking attack ...
so if u pick very lightly ... the wah will be on low ... as u increase the picking intensity ... the wah will increase ...
 
@DeathDr. I dont want to pin point but there is a small mistake in your definition for Expression Pedal.

Expression pedals are not input devices. They are basically Potentiometers or Variable resistors. Let me give various examples of how it us used.

Pre-Distortion Volume Pedal: Offer resistance to the input guitar signal. With more resistance there's more voltage drop across the resistance which results in a cleaner tone even with crunchier distortion. At the lowest resistance your volume is full with very minimal voltage drop across this resistance.

Expression Pedal Assigned to Gain: This is again variable resistance which controls the amplifiers gain. Higher resistance causes lower gain.

Drive: This is a variable resistance connected between the two stages of the amp. The first stage is usually a buffer offering high input impedance so that it doesn't cause loading effects on your guitar. There is a slight signal strengthening also at this stage. The output of this signal is given through a variable resistance to the amp that distorts the signal. Stronger the resistance weaker is the signal strength resulting in softer distortion. It reverse for a strong crunchier overdrive.

Wah: Wah is basically a bandpass filter. The variable resistance changes the RC characteristics which affects the frequency of the signal.

I can talk about all the pedals but dont wanna bore with too much info.
Even in processors Expression pedals only change the resistance values of a particular circuitry. There are various buttons or switches which connects this variable resistance to the appropriate circuitry that giving you a parameter to change.
 
:nw::nw:GOD Ronnie.....
Hey why dont you start a stompbox guide thread man,that would be super cool....you can put fundaes on how each effect works plus which product offers what features...
 
i stand corrected on the expresion pedal - i always thought it was digital... but theres a thoguht - a digital epxression pedal - wonder why no processor uses that?

ya and wah - its a bandpass filter - or in simple terms a thing that allows some frequences to go through more tha nothers to create the crazy sounds. haha..
 
A Digital express pedal is pretty cool. I guess it can be easily done. Then it could allow you to have a remote wireless expression pedal. That's a nice idea. I am not sure if it exists anyway.
 
Boss GT6/GT8 which one is better? I heard there is no drum machine in either of these?
Is there any other good processor matching these?

I'm sorry if i got the wrong thread.
 
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