Scott Henderson Discussion

[AlexThanos]

Hi Scott , Alex from Indonesia here hope you've been well. Haven't been on forums that often, trying to get more playing done lol.

A couple questions...

My setup is pretty much yours except w an additional SP compressor, JHS Morning Glory and Joe Bonamassa OD...the effects loop uses the Fractal FX8. I remember you said true bypass sounds weird after a certain number of pedals. How does the weirdness sound? Seeing as I have a few more pedals than you would you say I need a buffer? Pre or Post?
Technically I always have an always on pedal say The SH RC Booster or SD9 or even the Morning Glory...I never play w everything off so technically does the always on pedal function as a buffer? I use 4 foot Mogami cable and I cut the treble bleed off my SH Suhr as well.

Another one would be the Chase Tone Script Wah...I heard a little bit of it when you used it on Stratus on YouTube w Billy Cobham and I liked the tone. I have mine ordered w the same spec as yours w no buffers. I notice it does the Hendrix quack well but not so much for those emotive Long sustain solo notes....it sucks when I try to use it on Sweet Child Of Mine (oh yes some of us unfortunately still hv to play that to put food on the table lol)... Any tips on how to make that Wah work w your guitar and OD pedal? The way you use it sounds musical I'm still trying cos I notice it goes from a subtle Low quack to a sudden shrill high quack if I try to play sustained notes w it.


Sorry for the long ass post guess I'm making up for being absent 😁

[Scott Henderson]

Hi Alex, sorry but I've never used more pedals on my board than I have. I was just quoting Mike Landau when I said over 5 or 6 pedals starts to sound weird. I imagine there would be some treble loss. Just do an A/B test - I always put the pedal I use the most first in the chain, which for me is the RC Booster. Use your first pedal by itself and then listen to what adding pedals in the off position does to the tone. I'd guess that the fewer pedals you add, the better it sounds. I hate buffers, so if I had the choice of more pedals and having to use a buffer, I'd use less pedals.

The Script wah is awesome, but like any other wah, if you're using it after a distortion pedal with your guitar all the way up, it can affect the sweep, making it sound like it's going from full on to full off with very little sweep. I turn my guitar down a couple numbers and then it seems to sweep like it should.

[peter_heijnen]

Hi Scott, Peter from Amsterdam, friend of Udo Pannekeet, and a big fan of yours for more than 20 years.

Thanks so much for getting me out of gear porn mass hypnosis! I too was convinced i needed more pedals and thus searched extensively for the right chain and order of pedals with and without buffers that -as i convinced myself- sounded great.

After reading your latest comments on buffers i unhooked my board and started listening again from scratch. Damn, what a huge difference the buffers make and what a stupid dork i've been. One get's totally biased during the proces of searching and persuading oneselve to like buffers just to be able to hook up 'one more'. So someone really needed to snap his fingers right in my face, thank you!

For me it's quite clear now, i don't want a buffer before the preamp. I think buffers behind the preamp or in the amps fx-loop cause a lot less harm, so i still grant myself a H9 in TB mode and a TC scf, both in the loop.

Thx a lot for all these great pages filled with great reading stuff, i'm a newcomer here and glad i have some catching up to do.

[Scott Henderson]

Thanks Peter - guitarists who play with a clean or mild crunch tone can get away with using a buffer, but as soon as you add gain, the high end gets nasty and fizzy, and those frequencies are too high to dial out with the amp EQ. I'd like to have more pedals too, but I'd rather be limited to what I have than use a buffer.

[peter_heijnen]

Hi Scott, awesome to get an answer from you, thx.

Meanwhile i skipped the non TB chorus that i tolerated before... I decided to use the H9 for all modulation and filter stuff, volume pedal, and even wah. H9's new switchable pre/post gain routing option that came with the latest update comes very handy. It enables me to use the H9 for several different fx sounds, before as well as behind the preamp, but i don't have to connect that number of different pedals to get the sounds, the H9 does them all. Now i'm looking for a decent TB delay to fit in there nicely, i hope the EHX Deluxe MM will do so.

About what you said considering the maximum number of TB pedals before it starts 'sounding strange'. I once had made a tech rehouse me a BB Preamp+, a TB delay, and a switchable TB fx-loop between the BB+ and delay in one enclosure, so the signal would go directly from input to output if none of the 4 switches where engaged, just as it would with only 1 TB pedal between guitar and amp. But this way the signal still had to pass all 4 non engaged switches. Unfortunately you still could clearly hear the loss of fidelity, so i think the switches are a significant part of the problem. This made me try taking the buffer road again: if the switches steal your high impedance signal, make the signal lower impedance.

Yeah right!