there is an old joke i read in the liner notes of stark reality’s “now” record. i don’t have it in my hands, but the gist of the joke is this:

their guitarist had just bought a new fuzz pedal, and upon playing a few notes, the saxophonist looked at him and said “hey! I’M the sax player!”

he had bought a fuzz face, but i have a feeling the tone wicker big muff will set you in the right direction. if you are looking for more of a rhythm sound, the hog can get you something similar to a horn section (but it will require some careful tweaking and will not sound very horn-like unless the rest of the band is playing. the micro synth is also worth checking out).

EDIT: just feel like clarifying, the big muff gives you a rich, reedy tone that can sound like a horn if you phrase your lead lines properly. there is a queens of the stone age cover that uses an octave fuzz in lieu of the original’s saxophone, and it sounds pretty good. the big muff will be much smoother, and in my opinion, fairly convincing.

if you get the voices and the filter just right, the hog can sound similar to a big band horn section in a mix – but on its own, it really just sounds like a strange organ.

i just don’t want to make it sound like they are similar effects.

queens of the stone age
romeo void
(the part i speak of comes right after the singer says “never… say… NEVER”)

ah the classic conundrum… the 16 second digital delays should have come down in price a little, they are a BIT smaller and simpler than the 2880, plus the foot controller gives you all the footswitches you were after. also, the sliders should be easier to adjust with shoes on. it’s not ideal obviously, but i would say it is far better suited for what you are after than the 2880 or hazarai delay would be.

you have to turn the input gain ALL the way up and the resonance most of the way up (all the way, if you want), then fiddle with the sensitivity and frequency knobs until you get it to go. i find it works best between 7 and 11 o’clock on the frequency knob, sensitivity plays a larger role in TRILL mode. also, play with your tone/volume controls on your guitar.

mine doesn’t oscillate NEARLY as hard as peter stroud’s does – i would go so far as to call mine reluctant – but i also bought it used and have never tried replacing the tubes on it.

FWIW he is using high-output, stacked-coil pickups in the video (fender hot noiseless) – i am not sure how much your guitar’s output level affects the zipper’s oscillations, but i know it makes a noticeable difference with other feedback-based pedals such as the zvex fuzz factory. something to consider.

if you haven’t made your decision yet, it is worth noting that i have been rather enamoured with the boss FRV-1, the ’63 fender reverb sim, lately.

much like the boss RE-20, it is a one-or-two trick pony but it does those tricks extremely well – if you don’t need all the awesome cool stuff the cathedral offers, i highly recommend saving your $100 and going for this. i used to own the real fender tank, this sim sounds probably 90% as good (maybe not quite 90%, because you can’t kick it, but close) and only costs 1/5th what the fender tank costs.

aside from the fact that the boss unit is not noisy like the real deal, i PROBABLY would not be able to tell the difference if someone set up a ‘reverb shootout.’ also, the boss unit is way way ‘springier’ than the grail spring sound (the holy grail sounds like a clean, short spring reverb – the FRV gets that nasty surf-slap). oh, and the boss unit runs off of batteries and doesn’t have a volume drop – i am not sure if the cathedral has any volume drop, but the holy grail got quieter the higher you turned the blend.

my two cents there. if you want anything fancier than a faithful spring reverb, go with the cathedral – no doubt.

unless you are a talented artist and know what you are doing i can’t recommend painting your own pedal. the whole ‘it looks so bad it’s good’ thing is always just a little bit disappointing in your heart. i got a super limited edition (#1 of 1) woolly mammoth a while back and fantasized about having cool art designs on all my pedals so i started on my DD-6 and my Graphic Fuzz – i’ve yet to be happy looking at either of them.

just saying.

PS have you seen the zvex custom store yet? everytime i go there i fantasize about selling all of my pedals and ordering a fuzz probe, a super duper and a jonny octave and never looking back.

the advantage of having a fuzz pedal plus an octave pedal is that you can pick which one you run first, whether you’re after something smooth or something gnarly – the downside is that it inevitably takes up more space than a single box with two switches would need.

basically the cathedral has all of the holier grail settings, except for the gate feature (and i can’t remember off the top of my head if it has flerb). the cathedral also gives you way more forms of reverb – the holier only has spring, room, hall and flerb.

another big difference is that with the holier grail, you get preset switches to select between short / long verb, whereas the cathedral gives you knobs to adjust every aspect of the sound – including predelay. and you cannot save presets with the holier grail.

and the cathedral is smaller, and roughly the same price.

the loop is really the best way, the other option being to run a subtle compressor (such as the black finger) after the hoax. if you keep the settings toned down, you get a nice dynamic smoothing effect without that funky strangulation compressors are traditionally known for. it may take a while to find ideal settings, but i used this method before deciding the flanger hoax is not a pedalboard pedal and it worked great.

the advantage is that you don’t have to drop a TB loop onto your board. however, this also compresses any white noise from the hoax when you stop playing, and it MAY sound a little strange with the big muff as well – compressed fuzz sometimes sounds weird, sometimes sounds awesome.

Lastly: not sure if you’ve noticed this, but the volume drop is most severe in LOG mode; LIN tends to stay a little more even, at the cost of some of the unit’s better sounds.