Pedals You DON’T NEED For Ambient Guitar (your wallet will thank you)
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- Опубликовано: 3 авг 2024
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We often see ambient guitar players with big pedalboards, so it's logical to jump to the conclusion that we need every effects pedal imaginable to be able to play ambient guitar.
But this is far from the truth!
In this video, I'm going to show you all the effects you DON'T NEED to play ambient guitar (there are probably more than you think!).
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This is the Ambient Guitar youtube channel of Canadian multi-instrumentist Antoine Michaud. Through original ambient music, chordal guitar lessons and tips on guitar pedals, Antoine is looking to educate and inspire aspiring ambient musicians to learn everything about the world of ambient guitar and chordal voicings on guitar. 
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It's weird because I could probably make a case for almost all of the "don't need' pedals as being useful, but I don't consider "ambient guitar" as a genre on to its own, but just one aspect of a well rounded sonic palette.
I like a little chorus on my chords.
Well, Chorus + Echo + Reverb sounds very ambient to me. I may be wrong but for me that is the sound of Cocteau Twins which sound kind of ambient to me.
That's the epitome of ambient guitar to me.
For your ambient style I can certainly see why you chose the pedals you use. There is no right or wrong (I've heard you say that too) method to use to get the particular ambient sound that fits your style. As for me, I have volume pedal, reverb pedal, sustain pedal, El Cap delay, Big Sky reverb, a very small compressor, POG octave generator, volume boost pedal, and finally, my Rang III looper.
Robert Fripp is on record as loving fuzz pedals, all of them.
Antoine thank you so much for everything you have done for me. You have launched me into ambient. Je vous remercie !
I am using a Strymon El Capistan, Boss RC3 Loop, and a Dunlop Expression pedal.
Great video. I will however stand for OD pedals. You don't need them, okay, but they can enrich your sound a lot and create new textures. I have one after my reverb and delay and man, those trails are super nice. :)
Thanks for sharing this video Antoine. Personally, I use overdrive, fuzz, modulation effects, synthesizer and bass simulators, Melotron simulator, in addition to delay and reverb, for different moods. I agree that it's not essential, but it's my sound, and it ranges from high ambient to post-rock.😊
Definitely agree, reverb and delay are all you really need for ambient. Have a Strymon Timeline delay pedal and Neunaber Illumine reverb pedal, and I enjoy using them. However, 90% of the time I end up using my Line 6 HX Stomp and using the handful of personalized ambient guitar presets I created as jumping off points for tweaking sounds and creating sonic moods for my ambient guitar music. Since I toggle between jazz, funk/R&B/neo-soul, and ambient guitar music, as well as bass guitar, the HX Stomp is my go-to pedal for all of these use cases and keeps my pedal board clutter-free. I pretty much only use my HX Stomp, a looper (Aeros Loop Studio), a volume pedal (or wah pedal for funk), and a drum pedal (Beat Buddy).
Always magnifique ! 🙏🏻
Thank you Antoine. This was very helpful. I play in the worship band at church. Since I'm the 2nd rhythm guitar I do use some overdrive but I'm also adding some ambient textures for a fuller sound. I'm using a Line 6 HD-500 which sounds pretty good.
Definitely need fuzz and OD for my kind of "ambient" though.
agree you don't 'need' any of those pedals for ambient guitar, but they can all add something, and just delay and reverb will just sound very vanilla. Gain turns into mush before reverb, but after reverb can open up different textures, a compressor pedal can really help with volume swells, a harmoniser pedal creates a very different effect than real harmonising, emulation pedals work great as parallel layers, different types of modulation add different colours and movement, all of these add to the palette. I think better advice would be for people to get a decent multifx like the HXFX, more is more.
Even the Miku, which has been made fun of endlessly, can sound really cool in the effects loop of a reverb or delay, with a modulation running with it, so only the Miku is modulated.
This video seems like something one would say to a beginner, who has never played ambient music. Also, ambient music, isn’t just reverb washes and delays, swells, etc. That’s just one style within the genre.
In fact, certain electronic music, regardless of reverb and delay being involved, is what was once called “ambient.” It’s just about creating atmosphere without needing a set beat, or pattern.
I love this channel. Anybody on a budget can pick up a delay and a reverb pedal for under 100 bucks. There are a ton of choices out there . One I recommend Is Rowin. sturdy and versatile pedals that can do ambient soundscapes quite well.
cheers!
good ambient reverbs you tend to have to spend at least a hundred bucks on. a Zoom CDR might get you most of the way. but i've found most cheaper reverbs for whatever reason don't work as well for full on ambient textures, despite some early digital reverbs kinda working for it back in the day. It's annoying, I'm assuming it's an artifact of the companies that make cheaper pedals not really having any digital R&D budget since they mostly just clone stuff, which you can't really do so easily with digital pedals. Plus it's easy to use the stock verbs that come with DSP chips
@@SisterRose Yip agreed. Maybe just a tad less, with the Flamma FS-02 sounding damn decent for about $80. Above that, the NUX Atlantic sounds good too, with delay too, for around $140, then the Boss RV-6/EHX Oceans 12 both sound very good. But, it's not until well above $200 with the new single algo UA pedals, and then the GFI Skylar that things really start sounding special in limited use cases. After that, lots of generally great options, second-hand UA Golden Reverberator/Del-Verb, Strymon Blue Sky, Meris Mercury,
I can't agree with you about overdrive and octave.
The overdrive combined with the reverb gives a very nice texture.
And if you're playing without a bass player (have you ever seen an ambient artist with a separate bass player?), it's the octaver that helps to fill the spectrum of the sound from the lower frequencies. A shimmer with the octave down will give you the lower frequencies, but they will be very blurry. That's why I almost always use the Boss OC-3. It allows you to handle only the lower notes. That way I get a clean tone in the upper frequencies and a juicy bottom.
I take it Robert Fripp hasn't seen this. Break it to him gently 😁
🖖
It really does come down to delay, looper and verb as the bones though and that's what's nice about this video. True that I don't NEED all the stuff you fingered as unnecessary but I use all of them anyway. My board is Othling monstrous and already sometimes confusing. I have lots of gadgets I wanna implement but it's coming down to building a second board to insert into a mixer path on the main one. There is always a routing option I want to have. Still want (and don't have) a volume envelope pedal to take out the attack. I prefer Gibson style guitars so that puts the volume pot out of easy reach and my volume pedal is noisey AF. I kinda rely on Dark Star or a Superego near the front to do that for me but sometimes I don't want those sounds running through the rest of the miles of cables and routings...blah blah. Love your videos and music.
Great video! I watch certain ambient guitarists now and it’s honestly more like seeing someone trying to land a spaceship. Howl me down, but e.g. Andy Othling’s work was far more engaging to listen to a few years ago IMO. I feel like there’s a real cult of constant upgrading and buying more expensive pedals that’s kind of unhealthy, and doesn’t really foster creativity.
Alternatively, use a Zoom Multistomp to cover virtually all of the “unnecessary” pedals that you only use occasionally, or rarely. My MS-50g mainly does Lofi sounds, because I couldn’t bring myself to spend more than Au $400 on something like a Fairfield Shallow Water. The Zoom is also my tuner, a subtle “always on” reverb, and can do some pretty great delays if I need them - all in a single pedal.
there seems like a real distinction between ambient guitar and ambient music, whereas ambient guitar can fit into almost any genre at times, ambient music is a different case altogether sometimes
Finally a video that my finances approve of.
Antoine..great clip as usual..I have many pedals and play many styles and include a synth as well,I have told my wife there is no such thing as an unnecessary pedal..lol..but yes you are right and especially if one is starting out there are pedals that you will need to achieve ambient sounds.
The Zoom cdr 70 multifx. It's crammed full of reverbs delays modulation and gain pedals. You can stack these and save the patch. They're stereo and have a tuner. You can pick up a used one for less than a £100 used.
That's the real point. I decide to leave only 3 pedals on my board: Eventide TimeFactor, Meris Mercury7 and BOSS RC-5. Also if your budget is tight the real deal is Zoom MS-70CDR. Of course it will not sound like Strymons but for it's price (about 100$) it's a real swiss knife.
Currently I use Earthquaker DEvices AVALANCHE RUN and TRANSMISSER pedals, along with the HARMONIZER in my vintage YAMAHA REX50. 🙂
I love Ambient music, but coming from playing grunge and listening to shoegaze.. i find it hard to eliminate my gain pedal lol
Antoine, sometimes using an EQ pedal helps me blend different parts in looping situations. I can blend nicely in different melodic registers and textures, yes, but also, having different frequencies pop when looping multiple voices helps with the clarity.
for this case I use the pickup switch and the tone knob. In my main guitar I have humbuckers and a Single coil so I can achieve about 4 kinds of sounds.
@@nikolauselsner2564 that’s a good use!
Ive just bought the ernie ball vp jr volume pedal today, im gonna buy the strymon bigsky and strymon timeline. Heres what i do have now and this is my 1st and only ive ever bought! Ok,My amp is a fender 65 reissue twin reverb. Ive got a fender mirror image delay, a fender marine layer reverb, a fender full moon distortion, a mxr analog chorus, a mxr phase 90. These pedals are fun, there good but for ambient playing.. which ive just discovered a year ago in 2021 i think to play this type of music a bigsky and a timeline with a volume pedal will be plenty for me to really get started off on the right foot with these 3 pedals. My guitar is a fender telecaster American professional ll. 100% bone stock n souds absolutely great through the fender twin reverb 65 reissue obviously.. and i can kind of play decent sounding ambient guitar with the 2 fender pedals but its my personal opinion the strymon bigsky and strymon timeline are just light years above the fender pedals for playing ambient guitar! Dont get me wrong, i love the fender pedals, its just i didn't know about ambient playing when i 1st got them or i would have spent the money on the 2 strymon pedals instead. So.. is my choice to buy the 2 strymon pedals a great starting point for ambient playing? I think so.. there not cheap pedals so ive done a lot of investigating and i feel very confident in doing so... im sure there's others i could add but i believe the strymon bigsky and strymon timeline are the meat and potatoes of the perfect ambient sound.. any suggestions befor i go and buy these 2 expensive pedals?
Thanks Antoine for your video ! I never react here, but i like your approach to minimise the needs ;) You said Time-based effects are good for ambient ! In fact, i would say that Chorus & Flanger are also time based effects just the timing is very short :D I like everything that can make your sound unique, but apart the very needed Delays and Reverbs, i love especially the Tremolo + the Secret Weapons (modulation into a delay, Comb Filter or Vibrato), and obviously a combination of one of that at a time (((:))) Keep the good work
The POG2 is a really good ambient pedal, though, having both the ability to add octaving and volume swells, as well as detuning.
I actually like using compressors. The rest, I only care about some because I play blues rock too.
Wow, very interesting topic. I just sold my mini-sized pedal this afternoon and bought a bigger one, since the smaller one cannot accommodate 8 pedals. At present I have a wah, transparent OD, Crunch, EQ, Chorus and Delay... and now planning to add a reverb, looper and acoustic simulator. After watching your vids. I might drop the acoustic simulator pedal. You save me an amount of cash, as the acoustic sim is the most expensive among the 3 I want to get. You are right, we don't need to emulate other instruments like an electric to an acoustic guitar. I already have 2 acoustic guitars. As for the OD, Crunch and EQ, maybe I'll check which 1 among the 3 I will retain.
Thanks Antoine for your content, very informative. More power to your channel 👍
Great decision! Acoustic simulators should only be used if you have to play electric and acoustic LIVE and don't have the resources to be able to play both one after another in the same song. If not, a real acoustic guitar is always going to sound better at home or in the studio!
I've never found acoustic pedals to be very acoustic sounding.
As a concept ... where does Hologram Microcosm fit in.???... added to Strymons night sky or big sky or Chase Bliss Habit. or Mood .. or..or..Alexander Superball .depends on what type of Ambient you are doing...
speaking about simulators how can add beats to my layers ? I love ambient music but everyones in a while i like to have a beat in the background hopefully this makes any sense I dont want to depend on a minipad conected to a computer
I think what You say it's not applyable to every ambient guitar pedalboard cause ambient itself have different styles. I'm mostly into 80' and 90' synth electronic ambient (like Klause Schulze, JMJ, Vangelis, Constance Demby) so on my pedalboard I have Enzo (guitar Synth, Pitchshifter, Delay and envlope filter in one), KMA Horizont (Phaser with a lot of other modulation possibilities) which I use as a sweep filter and MOOD which is crazy droning device with additonal options at the same time to do reverse delay with changed pitch and lo-fi grain repeats (crazy!)
While the boutique reverb and delay pedals are powerful, I find some sounds from me “instrument imitation devices are more interesting, I just recently stumbled upon ambient music and there are many approaches that I expect to adopt, maybe what I will come out with is not strictly “ambient “
This is the first time I’m going to disagree with you mate. I play in a post metal band and I need an ambient rig but I also need different gain structures…going from clean all the way up to the highest of gain. Completely love your channel though man
No problem. Seeing the reaction of most in the comments, I should've been clearer with what I intended to do with this video. The point of this video was: you don't need to have ALL of these pedals to get started, or at all (but you can definitely get them down the road - they're just not totally essential to make ambient guitar music). I do have some of the ''don't need'' effects on my board myself, but I could easily still make music if I did not have them. Cheers!
WOOP WOOP
So, should Sarah Lipstate get rid of her pedalboard too? I mean, she sounds unique, because of how she integrates all of the type of pedals you just said aren’t “needed.”
I have to wonder if this video is directed at beginners. Is that the intention?
I mean why not go all the way, and say all one needs is a volume pedal and a looper.
Just loop the swells, then use the vibrato bar on the guitar, or any number of approaches, to add movement.
You know what else isn’t needed to make ambient guitar music? The ability to know how to play a guitar.
I’ve known a few people in the past 15 years who did ambient music, much like what you do, and they had no idea how to play a guitar. They tuned to a key that someone told them was easy for ambient music, then just randomly strum, using the pedals to make the music.
I’ve subscribed to you for quite awhile now, and I like most of your videos, but I don’t really understand what you’re trying to say here. The statement you’re making is an obvious one, unless you meant this to be speaking towards beginners.
So, while I agree that one doesn’t _need_ those other pedals, I would argue that they are what can help someone make music that is unique and distinctive.
My last question is; Why do you feel that Reverb and Delay _are_ needed for ambient music? Ambient isn’t just layered washes of reverb and/or delay.
You just come off sounding like the blues guy, who says, “it’s all in the hands, you don’t need any pedals. Just an amp and guitar.” Yeah, that’s self evident, but it’s also not true, and the majority of the greatest guitar players, all use/used pedals or effects of some type.
He said "if you're on a tight budget" and "if you don't need most of those pedals it doesn't mean that you shouldn't get any of those".
Yes, this video is directed partly towards beginners, but mostly towards procrastinaters. I made it because, over the years, I have seen so many people delay starting their ambient guitar project because their board is not complete, or they don't have all the pedals and all the effects yet. They see that I have an octaver on my board, for example, so they don't start making music before they also have an octaver... etc. I want to encourage people and tell them they don't need much to get started. The point was definitely not that all those effects you don't "need" are "bad". Far from it! Just don't use them as an excuse for not starting. Thanks for watching :-)
is it possible to play ambient guitar on multi effect? because i am low budget and play multi genre 😔
Wait you mean sending your guitar through 20 pedals till it's unrecognizable mush isn't the only way to make ambient?
Harmonizer sounds great with an octave up and down along with tremolo. Not needed, though. 😁
This is an interesting discussion topic. I'm learning ambient guitar and I follow a few people.
In my endless research, listening to pedal demos, and generally going down the ambient rabbit hole, a few things stand out to me.
First, the methods used to create ambient vary widely, as does the genre.
Different people have different tastes and different techniques. I've learned something from all the people I follow.
When I become proficient enough to create my own ambient music, I will sound like...me. But my influences will be a part of my sound.
I think Antoine's message is valid. Maybe certain pedals are not "essential" to make ambient music. This can be helpful to us still learning.
So, will I take my overdrive pedal off my board? No. I can get great cello tones using overdrive and volume swells.
Sorry. I gotta use my T-60 Analogue Modulator
Hi Antoine! do you think you need a preamp? eq? i saw a video from mark johnston making his dry tone with EUNA, and chase bliss preamp MKII. What do you think, overkill?
Muy buenas recomendaciones. Puede, no obstante, puede obtener 4 modulaciones en un sólo pedal de alta calidad: el digitech hardwire TR7, tremolo, rotary, univibe y vibrato. Está descatalogado pero lo puede encontrar de segunda mano. Insisto, muy bueno y ocupa el espacio de un sólo pedal.
What about multi-effects pedals to have just one pedal with multiple effects, to begin with? Would that be something you would recommend or are they too limited?
Hey
Antoine at least some simple overdrive is possible? I love harmonics and overtones how they sound
Hi Antoine you had to know that you were going out on a ledge with this one - while I do agree with 90% of what you've listed but ...no overdrive? That' comments kind of sacrilegious to old school electric players (like me) LOL!
I like making ambient music without a guitar 😆
Antoine? Puedo ir a limpiar tu departamento y llevarme todos los pedales que no necesitas?? Ehehehe
Sounds pretty limited dude. No Chorus, Flange, Wah, , or Drive? Sounds more like Boring guitar than Ambient. Not that you can't get interesting sounds with the pedals you listed, but why limit yourself to such a small selection?
Wrong. Maybe you can make Ambient without Overdrives, Compressors or Filters... But you canalso play ambient guitars without reverbs and loopers (I do so) or without delays (I did so). So we do not need them too? The only pedal that you need in any working ambient pedalboard is a volume pedal.
Try a compressor behind an analog delay (chose one with long delay time) and an mellow overdrive in front of it. This gives you very cinematik ambient sounds an no Reverb is needed because the compressor flattens the repeats of the delay an the drive cuts the transients.
To crown it all…. You need no pedals to play ambient, m'kay! (just kidding)
DON'T LISTEN TO THESE LIES!!! YOU NEED MORE PEDALS THAN FINGERS AND TOES!!! EVERYONE KNOWS THIS!!! No but seriously, to each their own. There are many pedals like Flamma, JHS 3 series, and the new Fender pedals that are cheap and good to try. Get what you want, but most importantly, MAKE MUSIC!!!