WorshipCentral

I think that pedals can be used like any other instrument. Instead of thinking of a pedal as something that changes your tone, I think that it they should be thought of as "what does this add to what I am already doing".

There are some really creative people sculpting sonic structures in a bunch of modern worship.

Think what keys would look like if they were all variations on an acoustic paino.

The tough part is walking the line between adding to the worship experience or just showing off..... :)

www.worshipmusicians.com

tasty topic : )

i just wrote an essay but sounded like an idiot so am starting again. and now i notice that mastertone snuck in and said what i was going to say. hurrah!

i reckon the most important thing is having a good fundamental tone coming from your amp and guitar. if thats good then a few pedals can help get a few extra flavours happening - but its all coming from a good place : )

also depends so much on your style. an old blueser could rock out three kinds of hotness with a guitar and a cranked valve amp. or the aspirational edge style players could drag in a wall of voxes and rack loads of gear. like mastertone said though nice to find a balance where you are getting the sounds that add to the band sound without making a spectacle.

what amp and guitar are you using?

I play a strat through a vox pathfinder 15. Simple setup, but remember, I'm a keys player :D
-The Andyman Can

I like simple. I just use an old beat up fender deluxe 112 with a clean and overdrive channel and then a delay pedal. Admittedly, I don't play electric guitar as much as I do acoustic or keys so I don't invest a ton into my electric guitar setup.

Finding the sound you want is an endless task, especially for leccies! Valves are essential in my opinion, but historically all valve amps are sooooo loud. We've a Fender Deville (or something) and the level never makes it past 1! Silly. Some lower powered amps are becoming available but cost boutique prices. My amp has one valve (Tungsol 12AU7) in the pre, a solid state power and with a Greenback in there sounds OK and plays at realisitc levels. But it just broke. Now I'm thinking about the Vox Tonelab LE (it has a valve in it) straight into our PA...had an SE but it was too big and did too much, the LE looks tempting now the price has tumbled. We'll see...

That's why you get one of the newer, lower rated valve amps! There are a fair number of amps ranging between 5-20 watts, which shouldn't deafen people when you give them a bit of juice!

I am a huge fan of pedals as they allow me to change dynamically and tonally during a song, and then between songs.

I agree with what Mastervolume and Kris said but, if you find your pedals are sucking out your tone (especially if you are using older pedals) try using a true bypass strip. Even if the pedal itself is true bypass things like a long pedal chain or long cables can still degrade your tone. The bypass strip keeps unused pedals out of your signal path and really helps tone loss. They come in all shapes and sizes and there are many places to find them. Google helps too.

I run a Nashville Tele, Hot Rod Deluxe (on the lower gain inout to stop my ears bleeding) and then a couple of pedals... I've recently fallen in love with using my Boss DD-20 Delay pedal, with a volume pedal before it in my chain (after a compresor / sustainer). So it looks a little like this:

Guitar > Tuner > Compress/Sustain > Volume > Delay > Overdrive (pedal connected directly to amp's channel selector)

Turn the volume off, hit a chord or couple of strings, then gently up the volume pedal. Creates a 'swell' effect, similar to a pad on a keyboard, that is really nice for adding some texture to slower songs.

Like the old saying goes, your gear is only as the man playing it, though good quality kit is worth it's weight in gold.

That's a great idea to put the volume pedal before the delay, I'll have to try that.
-The Andyman Can

Worth mentioning as well Andy, I do have the sustainer set quite high when doing this... the sustain on my Tele is pretty poor. My other guitarist uses a Les Paul, and the humbuckers seem to have enough sustain naturally to pull this off!