My friend it seems to me you are week in two area's and i mean no offense when say this just a suggestion from a fellow blues man...

The first as others have said you have a decent guitar but you need to concentrate more in improving your amp..More so than worrying about pedals..The amp next to the guitar is the major source of your tone..After you master the ability to play...The pedals come last..Pedals should not be used as the basis of your tone..More so to color your tone or give yourself a variety of tones..

Secondly by the gear you are using i'm going to guess you are relatively new to the guitar..So lets talk a bit about your choice of pedals...First a chorus pedal is a major tool in a blues man's box of tricks..One example is Cold Shot by Stevie Ray Vaughan..That shimmery sound he gets is a chorus pedal used pretty heavy..Next you need to consider a Compressor for clipping and sustain think of Mark Knopfler and just about all he does...Next is the Delay a delay does not have to be used as a U2 sound or a long drawn out repeat Eric Johnson,Johnny Lang,Jeff Healey,Gary Moore,Clapton and almost all classic rock players use a delay to thicken there sound..Then you have the wah pedal which just about every modern Blues man uses..Then you get into phaser's,vibes and other modulation pedals that are used from Hendrixs to Trower and many others..

What i'm trying to get at is really for blues and classic rock you need to look at the whole spectrum..When it comes to pedals Overdrive /distortion is a very small part of what can be used to create your signature..Do not dismiss them outright study them all then decide what you need..To just say what other dirt pedal can i use and dismissing all others is like only learning barre chords and nothing more..You severely limit yourself on what you can achieve...

Ah, that's what is was. You can hear it on "In Session" with SRV. I don't know if I would have caught it if it weren't for the fact that you can compare Albert King's tone to Stevie's. You can definitely hear some kind of effect on Albert King, now I know what.


Yeah, I just got one about a month ago. Tremolo is really the only modulation effect that I use on a regular basis. You hear it a lot in blues. Recently I saw Jimmie Vaughan and the only pedal he was using was a TR-2. When you have two Fender Bassmans you don't really need anything else.



I always thought that was a rotary speaker effect, I don't really remember hearing of SRV using a chorus pedal. I'm pretty sure what he was using was a vintage Fender something or another. It's speaker didn't rotate but the cone around it did, producing a similar sound. I really wish I could remember what it was called. However, that said you can use a chorus pedal to get that sound. The chorus on my amp works very well for Cold Shot, Couldn't Stand the Weather etc. And I didn't have to pay $2000 for it.

I had a Boss super overdrive back when I first started playing guitar. I didn't really know what it was for and I bought it under the assumption that it was the same thing as a distortion pedal. And it was cheap. At the time I was very into metal and very disappointed in the pedal, so I sold it nearly immediately. It did add some nice warmth to my tone and I wish I still had it. I don't remember it well enough to give a better description.

But I generally agree with everything that's been said so far about amps. Your amp is hugely important to your tone, and a good tube amp will sound 100 times better than a pedal made to emulate it. I know you said you weren't gigging or anything, but even if you're only playing for your own enjoyment an amp upgrade would be a good thing. My first "real" amp was a Peavey Classic 30. It responded very well to pedals and for $350 (used) it can't be beat. Now I use my Fender Deluxe VM for everything. And both of those amps have good sounding drive channels, which is another tone you can use in addition to your pedals.

Thanks, all. I believe I have all the information I need to move on from this point.

Hi Bill: no, no - it ain't that simple! You can start a thread but you don't get to finish it!

Guys are going to be posting suggestions that may or may not have anything to do with the question you asked for WEEKS and there's nothing to be done to stop 'em!

We haven't even begun to suggest different guitars or pickups yet - there's so much of this thread left to run!

...Enjoy your playing, man. 'S all that matters.

Cheers - C

The thread must go on!

Hi Bill: no, no - it ain't that simple! You can start a thread but you don't get to finish it!

Guys are going to be posting suggestions that may or may not have anything to do with the question you asked for WEEKS and there's nothing to be done to stop 'em!

We haven't even begun to suggest different guitars or pickups yet - there's so much of this thread left to run!

...Enjoy your playing, man. 'S all that matters.

Cheers - C