What pedals can you not live without?

[Dark Helmet]

I cannot live without a tuner. I can get by without the rest if I need to.

this.

[mr_william]

like others have said, a tuner's needed.

i can get by with a single channel amp and the volume knob on my guitar... so i don't 'need' a pedal to vary my tone - some do, if theres no footswitch, they'll be playing clean or dirty all night.

i do like to have the amp crunchy and use an sho clone or treble boost for leads, which gives me a tone i can't get from the amp alone.

[Norrin Radd]

Which pedals? A Shiba and a delay.

All this pedal tuner nonsense makes me think of this:

[JRogero]

My top 3 pedals:

3. Hard Wire Chorus I leave it on 100% of the time but I usually have it set to be very subtle. Adds a nice little sparkle to my tone.

2. I rarely turn off my holy grail since the AD30 has no reverb

1. Line 6 DL4 Delay is a huge part of my sound

[Jondog]

I like to see Edge play without delay...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6Go2DK9VtQ&sns=em

[bfitz]

1: Korg Pitchblack - How anyone gigs without a pedal tuner is beyond me
2: My OLERaudio SHO clone to give my guitar a kick up the arse!

[BillyBlaze]

I usually use a Peterson Strobe Tuner (clip on the headstock style).
But am looking hard at the Korg Pitch Black tuner pedal, if I have the pedal board room.

If I hold on to the TH-100 Head I will be looking at getting a Reverb unti too....probably something of the EH flavor.
I am using the I-Spot to power everything thusfar and have never been let down yet.

[amesav]

Only pedal I need is the Orange channel footswitch from clean to dirty ,The rockerverb 50 mk1 does it all

[irish_admiral]

Tuner, then any decent delay & overdrive. Don't mind which...

In fact, even don't necessarily need the overdrive if you get the amp set up right.

[Wendigo]

The gas pedal in my Camaro.

[a.hun]

Whole lotta tuner love here!

Yeah I use them too, but for gigging bass I can easily get away with an A440 tuning fork. Shove that next to a p/up and it comes through the amp. (If things aren't too loud I can do it purely acoustically.) Quick tune up from the A string using 5th + 7th fret harmonics and I'm done, usually in about 15 seconds flat. Only exception is my 51RI P bass with it's doubled up bridge saddles and reverse direction tuners - that takes longer. Like a vintage style Tele I need to use a working compromise offset which I'd need to programme into a tuner but haven't. Funnily enough I have way less problems with my 3 saddle tele then with my 2 saddle P bass. Haven't quite sussed out why yet.

I got used to tuning up guitars by a variety of different harmonics and given the same A440 fork I can still do that. Tuner is way easier though and you don't need to hear anything at all so much better for live work.

FWIW my Peterson Strobostomp 2 pedal has just gone on the blink. None too happy about that...

Other Pedals?
Guitar:

Well I don't really gig on guitar, (though it has happened), but if I did I'd always have my Award Session JD10 preamp along. Running into the amp but also handy as a Sansamp style direct to PA backup. This pedal is amongst my best sounding 'amps', and people have done whole albums with nothing else. ( Like BrianGT HERE). Fender cleans to screaming Marshall high gain or great controllable clean to crunch - they are all in there. It is totally analogue, sounds and feels like there are valves involved, (not so), and it has a great switchable speaker sim. For pure tone shaping and / or gain changes this is a really great tool. They're not making them right now though which is a bummer. They were always a real bargain. In the US it went under the name Morley JD10. If you ever see one just grab it, I promise you'd not regret it.

For that theoretical guitar gig I'd also grab my EH Holy Grail Plus Reverb. Save the hassle of hauling my real valve reverb, can sound damn close to as nice, and is way more versatile. No noise issues, very good reverb IMO.

Oh and my Danelectro 'Dan Echo' is a good fun delay, doing from 'tape echo' sims to modern 'hi-fi' repeats.

Think live I'd make good use of a volume pedal. Don't currently own one though.

Oh yeah, and I'd be gigging the R.30 so I'd need my Orange footswitch for channel swaps!

Bass: Okay more chance of real world gig use here.

Boss PQ50 4 band fully parametric EQ. (Not a pedal, but a 1/2 rack width unit.) Not a must but a great problem solver for difficult rooms. Can also subtly sweeten up most amps sounds with my own 'sweetner' settings. The only amp I've found which it can't really improve is my Hiwatt, but even there it is good for room problems. So not vital but I'd really miss it. I've hauled it to gigs for a long time and it often helps improve my core sounds a lot.

Recent big convert to the Tech21 VT Bass Sansamp pedal. It does compress things a bit (usually not a bad thing for bass), but the extra tone shaping it can give is really useful. Great for setting up a 2nd totally different bass sound for different style songs or different basses. Also usable for a small edge of overdrive, but not so great for too much more than that IMO.

Talking of compression I recently also grabbed a MXR M87 Bass Compressor. Again not usually vital live (especially not with amps with built in natural valve compression ), but well useful to have for tightening up sounds and dynamics. Sounds / works much the same to me as a good quality studio compressor, just in a compact pedal. Has all normal comp parameters, just simplifying things with four preset ratios: 4, 8, 12 or 20dB of gain reduction. Great visual indication from the row of LEDS makes setting it up a doddle, and it works a treat for guitar too. I'm well pleased with this thing.

Don't use it much but my old Boss CE-2 chorus does sound really nice and I like it enough to have spent a year hunting it down when it got 'borrowed' once...

Thats about it. I do have some more pedals which I occasionally drag out, but I usually don't use any. If I do though these are my favourites.


Andy.

[hellagnar Brosevelt]

Haven't been on in awhile. Good to see all the familiars still here.

Right now with the Bassman. I cant go without E.P booster, Signa Drive, FRV-1, TU-2

When I finally find a Rocker 30. It will go E.P Booster, Signa Comp, FRV-1, TU-2.

[Gorgar]

Analogman Beano Boost treble booster, MXR Distortion+.

[Orangesoda]

If I could choose just 2 pedals it would be a tuner and MI Audio Crunch Box....absolutely LOVE the crunch box. With those 2 I would be set for a gig. Crunch Box FTW!

[terminate_user]

My Strymon Flint would be sorely missed.