jimmarchi1's forum posts 8022

I'm not suggesting that he'd run that many pedaLS

I was just being a sarcastic pill. total joke man, sorry

Wah Booster Fuzz Delay Tremolo Overdrive Tuner Chorus

into a solid state amp? is it a big muff type of fuzz or more of a fuzz face? is the tuner true bypass?

if its a muff and true bypass tuner into a solid state amp and without knowing what kinda sound you aspire to I suggest you try: tuner--fuzz--wah--chorus--delay--OD--trem--verb--boost to start with and screw around from there keeping in mind that there are no rules and a good tone is rooted in your technique, not your signal chain (though a really nice amp helps and quality pickups and speakers are even more important, though most people don't seem to think so).

I didn't realise that their was a vexter mastotron, and 2nd hand editions, are still £35 more than standard muff pis

who buys a plain old EHX muff these days? I mean, I've bought plenty of them off the shelf, but all of the ones I ahd are collectible by now

he could probably just get a handful of parts and make a mastodon with his soldering iron.... unless its vintage and collectible and you are speculating there's no reason not to just build most fuzzes, they are primitive!

the vexter mastotron isn't very expensive on the used market, a decent muff is similar in price

I would go...

Volume Pedal>Wah>Compressor>EQ>Dynamic Filter>Acoustic Simulator>Envelope Filter>Step Filter>Vocal Filter>Auto Wah>Gnarly Fuzz>Octave Fuzz>Heavy Fuzz>Vintage Fuzz>Bit Reducer>Metal Distortion>Distortion>Heavy ODs>Synth Sims>Lighter ODs>Transparent ODs>Gain Boost>Volume Boost>Frequency Boost>Digital Delay>Analog Delay>Harmoniser>Pitch Shifter>Octaver>SIMULATION>Ring Mod>Flange>Vibrato>Phaser>Tremolo>Chorus>Reverb

I am not sure you need a dedicated pedal like a bit-reducer to degrade your signal with all that cabling doing it for you even when everything is bypssed

I know this is necroing in universal forum rules but I feel the need to reply. Just as a suggestion that I'm utilising, anybody that finds a duplicate should put the word "(Duplicate)" after the item name. Next, you go here and report the duplicate. This way, anybody who happens to find a duplicate knows that it is wrong and may find the original.

that smacks of effort

try putting them in size order from small to large on your pedal shelf or organizing them by brand, then plug DIRECTLY into your amp, set it wide open and change sounds with your hands, the pickup selector, volume and tone controls, then add the effects back in 1 at a time after you can work your tone that way... try adding the effects back in an arbitrary and random order to see if they surprise you being used in fresh ways

in most practical applications there are tried and true guidelines for pedal order based on effects type, but its all just BS unless you are in a cover band seeking classic sounds, you don't develop fresh sounds by following guidelines, so please experiment and trust your ears over prevailing wisdom... I will say this, I see you have a solid state practice amp and most guidelines you will see on guitar sites assume you have a tube amp when it comes to light overdrive and boost pedals (there is not point in slamming the preamp of an SS amp with a hot signal, nothing good will come of it)

some hard and fast rules that you should try to adhere to and the electronic reasons why as well as some tricks no one will tell you unless you can afford a guitar tech to play with your rig:

1) vintage style fuzz (fuzzface, maestro, tonebender, etc but not big muff because a big muff is really a hard clipping distortion that sounds like a fuzz) or discreet transistor 'colored' boost (rangemaster etc) MUST be the first thing your guitar pickup sees in order to get them to respond correctly due to the impedance loading they have on the pickup as well as the fact that they expect to see a high impedance signal, that means no pedal tuner out front unless it has true bypass

2) any overdrive that claims to closely simulate an overdriven tube amp should be the LAST dirt box before your guitar input if you want it to produce the amp-in-a-box sound it was designed to make, this is particularly true with a solid state amp as the last part of the signal chain since your use of the amp-in-a-box effect is to 'tube' your final tone up

3) wah is traditionally placed BEFORE a vintage fuzz for the 60s sound, but it can be finicky, so be careful and also be preapared to annoy people during soundcheck with awful howling and such if the electrical engineering gods do not favor you that day... if you place a stock, mass market wah directly after a vintage fuzz you will want a buffer between them so that the fuzz sees the impedance load its expecting from the tube amp.... most other effects should make no difference directly after a fuzz pedal as they present the correct load, but wah does not and this can cause weird tone (you may like it, I have done this on purpose in the studio with interesting results) or even crazy howling and squealing with certain fuzz/wah combinations

4) effects loops are usually lame, but sometimes you just have to break down and use them because many amps that bother to include them have a lot of gain and generate all their tone in the preamp so they benefit from time-based effects (trem, chorus, flange, phase, delay, reverb) in the loop if you are into that sort of thing, though distorting modulating time effects is a distinct sound and even distorted digital reverb and delay is a viable sound too, let your ears decide... trem you will want in the loop in this scenario as the volume drop part of the trem waveform will have less (or no) distortion if its out front of the amp and that usually sounds weird, particularly in a band situation (I prefer tube driven trem built right into amps anyway, particularly the fender bias-vary trem and the 50s Gibson amp trem designed by seth lover and of course the mighty AC30 trem circuit, wow.... supros have nice tube trem too, oh god do I miss the trem on my old dual tone, but I digress)

5) If you get your drive from the amp and really get the power tubes working in the traditional 50s thru 70s way then echo and verb are really great effects AFTER your tube amp.... how does one accomplish this, you ask? take a whirlwind DI box and put it between the amp and the speaker, then send the DI out to your effects unit and then re-amp the effected signal through apower amp (it can be solid state) and additional cab ( a fender solid state combo with an effects loop can work well for this, just plug into the effects return to use the power amp and speaker only, thus bypassing the crappy preamp and effectively widening your amp tone)

6) when it comes to overdrive and distortion, less distortion sounds more powerful in most applications, particularly when recording... by the time your sound reaches the audience it will sound quite a bit more distorted thanks to everything between the speaker and their ears...

and did I mention to spend more time perfecting your tone arsenal using only a guitar and cable into your amp?

anyway, there is no wrong way to do any of it as long as its creating a sound that inspires you, as a kid in the 90s I used to fuck around with my pedal order in crazy ways every time I bought a new effect or traded something in or out... any change was a reason to experiment with effect order to get some new (at least to me) sounds... I also would fuck with my guitar controls all the time to try tog et more variety out of the effects I had without needing to bend down

Well... if it turns out to be true and it IS part 5, they claim we would see Ben Aflec AND Christian Bale at the end, both as Batman.

not that I am a huge fan or Bale's, but I hope his Batman kicks aflek's ass if they appear in costume in the same film in the future.... it would cheer me greatly to see aflek get his ass whooped more often on screen or in real life... maybe his brother Casey should beat him with a crowbar infront of the paparazzi for us all some time, as in some time soon, maybe Ben could be wearing the bat suit or maybe a clown costume, but this needs to happen... I'm not usually a big advocate of violence, but Ben Aflek really needs some cast-iron correction (plus we could be certain he would be unable to fuck up any more movies while he was hospitalized)

additionally, Ben should be required to buy everyone on equipboard a new guitar, amp, synth or whatever floats their boat by way of apology for existing, that's what I would call the dawn of justice!

looks like one of their sapphire range all-in-one mic pre and converter racks, someone fucked their submission up hardcore

I am just sad that Jackson's low end has sunk so low, now the only Jacksons worth a damn are bespoke 'custom shop' models. I briefly had a really nice Jackson V, made in the USA. Not my cup of tea but a fabulous shred guitar for under a grand. When I encounter a used, modern Jackson custom from the USA shop I play it to see if its any better than that off the shelf V it is and its just not any better. Jackson really went the path of Hamer but to an even greater extent.

Ah, yes, the Jackson DINKY. Reminds me a bit of those cheap RG guitars along with the MikRo.

except those Ibanez guitars are knocked off of the Dinky.... the Dinky goes way back and was a really high end guitar when I was a kid

On the subject of films, I can't work out whether I am scared, or excited for the new Star Wars; I really want them to be good, but I have a horrible feeling about them. But I guess it'll be hard for them to be top "the phantom menace", or "The clone Wars", so I don't want to raise my expectations

in the words of Han Solo "I've got a bad feeling about this."

actually I think they look like a return to form visually, more than anything else that bugged me about the 3 prequels (and there are a lot of things that went wrong there) I missed the gritiness of the original, pre-CGI trilogy I grew up with

as far as Disney being involved, they can't do any worse than Lucas may have done had he stayed on board... he just butchered the clone wars even though the story arc could have been pretty cool had it been handled by grownups... I am encouraged by the involvement of the guy who directed and wrote the screenplay for Empire Strikes Back, arguably the finest entry in the franchise

if it were me I would scrape up 1 oe 2 hundred more bucks 'n buy a late 60s or early 70s traynor bassmaster head... a plexi by any other name is, well, you get it... loud, toneful, handwired, built like a goddamn tank, versatile in a vintage sense of the word AND still affordable though prices have gone up and keep rising since I was a kid (you will likely turn a profit when you flip an old traynor, they are popular with players who know)

https://reverb.com/item/1322371-vintage-traynor-yba-1-all-tube-bass-guitar-amp-head

https://reverb.com/item/1349647-traynor-yba-1-bass-master-mark-ii

y'know, for around $400USD I would look at those blackstar stage 40 or 50 combo amps, I tried one for shits and giggles and while it didn't excel at any 1 thing it was pretty passable at a lotof different sounds thanks to all the gain on tap and that ISF control

I don't own one but I've used one live a lot, I mean it's not gonna take a beating like an ac30 can but as long as you keep it safe and dry it should last for a while but I'd recommend swapping tubes after a while

I would take a current production hot rod over an ac30 custom classic any day for reliability

there's a running 'how to get that tone' thread for this already

and don't rely on others opinions, you'll know when you fall in love with an amp

unless they are opinions about reliability because nothing sucks more than falling in love with the sound of an amp that's always in the shop

something like a hot rod deluxe would work great

that's a popular amp, I've heard guys gig them and sound good, but I can never get my sound out of 'em... they take pedals pretty well though... one heads up, try to find a 90s one used, they were bult better with off-board tube sockets back then, made in the USA.... I know guys who have had reliability issues with the new ones... also, take a new one to a tech and have it rebiased immediately to improve the clean tone (unless you dig the sound wholeheartedly), Fender biases them cold from the factory to prevent in-store tube failures and hey sound a bit anemic...

if you intend to use pedals for your OD/distortion and ignore the amp's drive feature consider going with a simpler circuit, less to go wrong, less unused amp circuitry bogging down your signal... in my opinion the best amp for the pedalboard guy playing small venues and covering a wide range of styles is a deluxe reverb with a really efficient speaker or driving a larger cab, the DRRI is rated at about 22 watts and that's bone clean tone there, give it a 100dB efficiency celestion like a G12H or V30 and it will hold its own with a 40 watt 1x12 combo and you will get a nice full clean because you will be driving everything a little harder to get the stage volume you would from a dual 6L6 circuit because the larger amp will be a bit too loud at its sweet spot (the range on the volume or gain dial where the amp is just about to break up if you dig in, which provides the fullest, most touch sensitive and most pedal-flattering clean tone in fender type class AB amplifiers) for most sound guys/managers in bars to tolerate... hey, Rick Nielsen of cheap trick has ALWAYS used silverface deluxe reverbs chopped into heads, pushed into light OD driving marshall or marshall-style cabs and no one has ever said cheap trick had bad tone...

in the same wattage and feature range as the hot rod I really prefer fender's supersonic amps, both the dual 6v6 and original dual 6L6 models sound tasty and the 'supergain' or whatever they call that channel? not bad at all... its based on the discontinued custom shop prosonic head which is a really good sounding piece too, but hard to find... if you think you might get your drive from the amp there are lots of amps with footswitchable drive in that price range (particularly if you are open to used kit and you should be, amps made before Chinese manufacturing are better laid out and constructed, if a used 90s amp was well serviced by previous owners and you keep up with changing output tubes and checking out any weird intermittent noises and such then it should go strong for decades) that I think sound a lot better (including the aforementioned supersonics), but try a bunch without any preconceived notions...

play them loud, bring your drummer to a store during a time when the store is not busy and ask if you can take some amps in the drum room and test them at gig volumes with your drummer banging away and see how you sound against his playing... in cheapies I am pretty impressed with the egnater and jet city stuff for tone, but I can't speak to reliability

Hey all, I am hoping to buy my first tubey style amp soon (A laney vc15 combo), however I am not well versed in the whole tube/valve business. What's considered a good tube, or a bad tube, how often should I change them

For durability in current production output tubes buy JJ. Especially for el84 and 34 types like laney uses. EL84s don't last long in vox style cathode biased circuits because they run full tilt all the time. In fixed bias amp an 84 will get some more life, but british amps are el84 torture chambers. Expect 6mos liffe if you gig and rehearse regularly. When your amp sounds dull its time to replace the output tubes before one blows.

The best sounding current production 12ax7 for rock music is definitely the russian made tung sol ri. They have a high failure rate so only buy from a reputable dealer that tests and sorts. For a more all around good tone try jj's 12ax7es. They are very well made. They have a few variants with different plate assemblies. One is a bit dark to my ear in most guitar amps though its nice if you need to tame a twin or plexi. I forget which is which though as i have a stash of old stuff and mix it with current tungsols until my amps make sweet live to my ear.

I'll talk about vintage tubes if you want, but good NOS is pricey and the tone differences can yield diminishing returns in the preamp beyond the V1 slot. Believe it or jot my ac30hw1 has stock tubes still and sounds great. No reason to mess with success. So ymmv

I like REM. Especially 'automatic for the people'. I'll check them out then...

I enjoyed j world in spite of its myriad flaws.

Is that real or is it a joke? I'm leaningmore towards it being real, but I hope it's a joke!

haha I think this is a joke!

I told you, they fucked up the amp etails, but this happened to me

http://equipboard.com/dukeuke/photos

this would be my amp setup

the ac30 doesn't have enough clean headroom to keep up with your other amps, a vintage ac50 or 100 would be better for the top boost clean you are envisioning thanks to the lower gain 12au7 in V1 and higher headroom power amp... or 3 ac30s with extension cabs?

and the triple rec and 5150 are almost the same amp in a lot of respects, both variations on the Soldano SLO100 circuit, both offering more features than the mighty SLO but way less overall tone... kinda redundant either way, particularly if you are only using them for channel3 and have 3 other crunch amps... also, the 2 orange heads in your crunch section will drown a 5f4 out completely, the bassman gets pretty mushy like the ac30 only moreso, its just not that loud, a low watt tweed twing will get the same sounds with more headroom and punch thanks to the dual 5U4 rectifiers vs the bassman's single GZ34... unless the master volume heads are going to be run very conservatively, then maybe, but dude, they don't cut the mic well until the output section gets cookin', class AB fixed bias ampssound anemic set low, even with tons of gain from the pre...

if I were doing your dream rig I would give you a stock 70s mv or 80 JCM800 50 watt marshall coupled with an older orange OD80 for crunch and the heavy side would be the engl coupled with a SLO100 all 4 amps through oversized mesa 4x12 cabs loaded with a mix of V30s or better yet WGS retros or veterans and H30s with bass cones, maybe the scumback version or the WGS reaper55hz for midrange cut and solid 'chug from the wound strings'... clean would be a hiwatt dr103 thru a hiwatt 4x12 loaded with the higher wattage fane cast frames OR crescendos plus a stock ac30HW2x or matchless dc30 and a fender high powered tweed twin for a well balanced rock n roll clean

also, that's a lot of stage volume for anywhere but an arena... I've played some big ass venues and a single 100 watt superlead can be loud enough notto need monitors.

more gear porn gallery slots?

http://concertconfessions.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/P1090090.jpg

I am more interested in the massive amount of power from those hiwatts, even attenuated 2 to 4dB, holy fuck hiwatts are LOUD

If my band ever were to tour I would get my hands on probably a Mobius/Modfactor, and program in all the presets I'd need to use in stead of dancing all over, two choruses, two phasers, two flanger buttons, fiddling with presets on a super pulsar, vibe with exp. control, ring mod, etc. (And all of those pedals would work out much more expensive than an upmarket modulation multi-effect

If i ever gig heavily or tour again i am going with a good multieffects for modulation and echo like an h9 or g system. I use them all sparingly but because i prefer to mix the effects together when i go for effects i really need one tap preset ability AND master tap tempo not to mention needing the ability to still get my drive tones from an actual amp. Some modulation likes to be out front, some is good in an effects loop if you have it and some modulation and most ambience is best all the way after distortion. Very tricky, but definitely a job for a high end multi effector.

There are a lot of stereotypical sounds from these effects that folks rebel against periodically. EVH'smxr phase and flange sounds? The police synchonicity chorus sound? The cure's flange? Kurt's nevermind chorus? Smashing pumpkins clean tone phasing? Soundgarden's flanding and chorusing? Great sounds but very unoriginal in a lot of contexts? I got talked out of using much smallstone and mutron flange on my only big rock guitar record because my settings were too cheesey and dated. I thought they were more classic and had been tastefully sneaking them into the live set for years, but our engineers and some band members cut me down to modulation in 1 section of 1 tune. I miss it in places when i listen to that record, but the album isn't cheesey sounding at all.

I think effects should be a way to expand your sound, n2ot to mask your playing deficiencies.

Yeah, lack of technique with a muddy buzzsaw type tone became a virtue when i was a teen, probably as a reaction to all the vh1 inspired typewriter-shred player sin the pre gnr pop metal acts. Their style was too idiosyncratic for most people to master and their gear was totally unattainable for kids with rigs so complexvyou couldn't use them w/o bob bradshaw designing the interface and a tech to handle setup and breakdown... to sat nothing of floyd equipped poodle metal guitars. But i am losing my point here... No i lost it. What was I on about?

Do you have really wide fingertips? Because you can barely feel a difference in 24.75"and25.5" apart from tension, which can be remedied by gauging up strings a notch and top wrapping your tuneomatic's stop bar to lessen the break angle across the saddles so bending isn't a chore. Personally i can't usually be bothered unless the guitar has such a steep neck angle that i have to float the stop bar really high in order to keep the strings from contacting the back of the toneomatic. My 335 is fine, it has a shallow 50s neck set and the stop bar sits flush with the body teamsmitting tons of string vibration into the centerblock eben with the actionon the high side of medium. My sg and lp are not so fortunate and the lp is already floating too high withthe action lower than i like. Maybe 11s and a top wrap will help her. So if tension's your complaint on gibbies remember that top wrapped 11s will feel a lot like 10s on a fender! If you object to the fret spacibg youare stuck. And i agree, PRSes lack soul,though they play great as long asyou don't mind the giant 'heel of doom.' that heel has kept me from buying a reallynice mccarty model as well as an original mira and a current s2 Mira. I don't go way up the neck all the time but i want to know i can, goddamit!

Also, my sg has a big neck thats just shy of a 50s lpjr baseball bat or fender U in depth but has nice roundness to the shoulders and the pre65 big nut width. SGs vary a ton in that regard even in the same year.

My best tour setups were very amp based. For straight ahead power trio rockin' i used the following as the finest incarnation of my fender/marshall rig:

Gibson lp standard, special and occasionally my strat

Radial tonebone aby w/tu2 on tuner out w/3rd switch set as a mute

Channel A to script logo mxr bluebox or vintage univox superfuzz set for gnarly octave fuzz w/low output for accent parts (rarely engaged), modified 2nd issue small stone, occassionly a mutron flanger annd sometimes a dm2, dm3 or carbon copy for slap into 63 fender showman normal channel input1 with 1st coupling cap value lowered to plexi bright input spec for less thump, trem channel disabled... settings vol 4, bright engaged, bass 3, treb 7 into whirlwind passive di feeding yamaha spx 90 for doubling effect with the speaker thru into a 1960tv cab with stock 90s uk greenbacks or 1960ax or bx

B channel to tonebender (vox, mk 2 or 3 or clone) or a silicon fuzzface set for lots of solo boost and low fuzz into a 100 watt marshall superlead cranked for good rhythm crunch (volume settings and channel used depends on the amp, i used a couple, all different but my main one had normal channel voicing tweaks and a bright cap mod), hot plate at -4dB attenuation (usually), lineout from hotplate feeding yamaha spx90 for doubling pitchshift effect, hot plate speaker out to marshall 1960tv with 60s greenback and marshall branded 80s v30 speakers in x pattern, spx90 to asr 100 watt power amp driving srock 1960tv or 1960ax

Yamaha spx90 fed an asr ss power amp and a marshall 1960 cab of any variety i had handy ny given year on the bassist's side of the stage... Big sound

Hey all, Is there a way I could get into making a digital pedals, and learn how to program them/build them.

there's a certain digital delay chip that's really popular with boutique and DIY guys rght now because it comes with a spec sheet that contains music-centric circuit examples that can be tweaked ad nauseum... I forget the name of the chip, sorry... try the music electronics forum, DIYstompboxes.org etc

Also do you think we've found all the effects there is to find now, and every effect will pretty much be a variation on a previously discovered model?

of course we haven't, but we've been at the end of the line for new ideas that gain mainstream acceptance for a long time

that's not precisely how it went down, it was my plexi nd TV4x12 I loaned out and hid behind and it wasn't a dimming, it looked like one of the tubes was redplating.... turned out one wasn't properly matched to the rest of the quad, easy fix

I find that young people are cheap about gear even though they claim they are serious about guitar... hey are also impatient with a need it now attitude and they spend years and thousands chasing what they want when all along they had an idea what they wanted and just didn't want to outlay the scratch up front to get it, they buy junk stuff with bad resale and trade in and throw lots of money down the toilet rather than working hard , saving and buying good gear 1st time out. When I was a teenger I didn't bother buying a car until I was 18, the expense lowered my gear budget. As a young adult I was very careful about putting music spending 1st and being extra frugal, living with my folks if I couldn't get a roommate to share out expenses, living in the city and taking the subway instead of insuring a car all the time... also, wrking my ass off at 2 jobs when I wasn't in any bands, doing the day gig as well as recording bands and working at studios at night... I never slept, but I came out with awesome gear and lots of it because I was serious about music

I recently test drove a bogner ecstacy blue pedal and damn if I wasn't impressed with its voicing into just about every amp in the store. I wsa not personally into te high gain mode, but the sounds were solid, just not my bag.... the plexi mode was very convincing at copping those transitional plexi to JMP sounds of the 70s, sounded very close to one of my friend's superlead RIs crossed with the 1st year 50 watt 800 I used to own only at volumes that don't rearrange your chromosomes... definitely less creamy than the superlead I used to tour with though, but that one was a bit off from stock in the pre and had different plate voltages than the mid 90s RIs

anyway, this ecstacy blue will cover those Clapton midboost tones as it has a built in boost, a real soldano voicing in high gain mode AND some bass vicing switches to frther midrange it up, really cool pedal

How does the TC Electronic mini flanger compare to the full size flanger that is £20 more?

its got the same sonic capabilities as the big one, just less tweakability, those little TC pedals are all about downloading toneprints since they lack controls... but TC's flanger algorhythms don't stack up well against analog BBD and FET designs from the 70s and 80s, or Strymon's Deco in tape flange mode.. or against that eventide mod factor, ooh that's sweet sounding

my favorite flangers are (in no particular order) the FoxxRoxx Thru-Zero Flanger, the old mu-tron foot flanger (god I miss that one, what a shame the actual owner asked me to return it because they are even rarer than the mu-tron biphase), the boss purple BF2, Ibanez FL9, 70s MXR and the 70s ADA unit.... BF2s are cheap and readily available as are FL9s, they sound very different but both flange with aplomb... old MXRs are rarer and the RI isn't as good.... ADA recently reissued the old flanger from Heart's Baracuda and its glorious if you are into that sort of thing, but almost as pricey as an old one... oh, the Ibanez jet flange is cool, its totally the opposite of the FL9s subtle 80s flanging, the reissue of the jet flanger sounds awesome.... pick your flange flavor and get an analog unit since you can't change toneprints or tweak settings easily on the TC.... the real analog stuff can be affordable, provides better tone and, and.... well, you get the idea... unless you wanna simulate thru-zero tape flanging, analog is best

^{^} this is massively helpful. jim you are a gentleman and a scholar. THANK YOU!

I try to spread the electrical info to my fellow guitarists.... read up for yourself! You can learn a lot without needing more than highschool math and physics. In the end you will find yourself able to narrow the field when it comes to choosing gear just based on circuit designs, once you are swimming in a smaller pool of options its much easier to objectively let your ears find YOUR sound!

I have less and less time to play and to try out new stuff as a father, so I am always trying to learn more about various guitar circuits and classic signal chains so that I can get the sounds I want immediately when I do have the luxury of rocking out (or jazzing out) with friends. I like to have all my guitars teched perfectly to do their thing and have the perfect plug and play rig to fit the volume and tone requirements of any given situation. For all the thought I put into it while I am doing more important things I don't want to have to think about my tone when its time to play, I just want compliments on my chops and signature sound. Last time I played with other humans at volume I brought 2 guitars, a tuner and my HC30. Everything fit in the trunk as there was a perfectly good 2x12 with decent modern jensens in it. I wound up having 'the sound' in about 1 minute of setup with zero knob twiddlng and I wound up playing my 335 all day causing one guy to ask me how I managed to sound so good without effects. For tone changes I worked the volume knobs and pickup selector. Done. No fuss, huge dynamic crunch, soaring leads, chimey clean

sweep: No idea... my best guess this is the physical distance the wah pedal can travel?

is the tonal range of the potentiometer/inductor that creates the bandpass from high to low, some have a wider sweep, some not so wide... this goes back to the 60s when the brit/Italian vox wahs had a narrower sweep than the USA made Thomas organ Vox wahs that became the crybaby.... its really about this: the wah is a sweepable bandpass filter and the footpedal moves a potentiometer that controls the center frequency of that filter.

width of Q: No clue.

width of the bandpass filter kinda like the Q on a parametric EQ nly a wah is a bandpass and EQ is shelf and peak/notch filters, think 'resonance' on a synth filter..

depth: Again, no idea.

steepness of the filter, generally a bandpass with higher "Q" will need more gain to that narrow frequency range to avoid a noticeable volume drop

"tone suck": People keep saying wah pedals "suck" your tone... why is that?

all pedals that do not have true mechanical bypass or anything but a very good quality unity gain buffered bypass will eat your tone due to the disengaged circuit loading down your signal with capacitance and resistance.... there are scholarly tomes written on these subjects (well, scholarly by guitarist standards, we all know how dumb musicians are, or are we too dumb to know how dumb we are?), you can read them, you can get all punk rock, stop worrying about any of it and just turn up to 11... or stick with acoustic guitars, they're simpler

just think of this, everything between your guitar pickup and amplifier, even your cable, is taking something away from what the input of your amp can see (hear?) to shape and amplify....

Oh you should check them out they're good

I'll see what I think next time I can work up the courage to listen to a current band.

I all gear I've seen, volume knobs are set to either noon or somewhere below to where volume exceeds the original signal. It would make somewhat sense if I were right, but even if I were wrong, then you would be wrong in saying that the compressor is lowering volume.

there's no hard and fast rule, compressors are not like boosters and distortions, they are most definitely cutting signal by lowering the peaks, the output knob controls a separate make-up gain amplifier, who knows how the volume pot is calibrated, plus, the more compression you add the more makeup gain will be required to achieve unity.... I like to turn the compression way up on dynacomp pedals to drive 4 input marshalls for leads played ons tratocasters and I find I have to turn the output to 9 or 10 to get any worthwhile boost under the those conditions even though when they are setup moderately with a tele for country work they have more output than I need and unity is way lower.... depending on the year of the pedal with the compression maxed unity gain is WELL above 5... anyway, my point is that cmpressors are their own thing and both stages effect each other output-wise, YMMV

some close enough kurt amps:

https://reverb.com/item/1303009-fender-twin-1991-black

https://reverb.com/item/1283783-mesa-boogie-studio-preamp

https://reverb.com/item/243475-crest-audio-ca6dom-1996-black

a good billy joe/chris shifflet option:

http://usa.matrixamplification.com/guitar-amps.html (cheaper than a real 800 and way cheaper than a hot-rodded superlead or Friedman amp, I tried one and it sounds pretty good.... its hard to believe its part solid state!)