Grateful Dead Music Forum

Just getting into the Jerry tone...can anyone recommend the essential pedals I should get? I am not necessarily looking to try the vintage route for the expense, but what reissues or current models work well? Thanks...

In my opinion,

For distortion: Whirlwind Gold Box works about like the vintage MXR. Better than the modern issue, for not much more $.

For the Mutron: the Q-Tron will work fine. You can even find the sweet spot with the Micro Q-Tron for little expense.

The phaser I found to be a bit more difficult. After trying the modern issue, and some boutique pedals, the original 70's MXR 100 is the only one that really worked for me. But, then again, it is an infrequently used effect.

Okay cool, I will check those out...I appreciate it...!

Octave can come in handy, too. Basic used Boss OC-2 is the ticket, and not expensive.

In addition to the Q-Tron, you could check out the Line 6 Otto Filter - given how cheap it is I have been happy with it.

And for delay the MXR Carbon Copy is really close to Jerry's tone.

My favorite pedal is the Boss Turbo Overdrive OD-2. Of all my pedals, that was the one that had the wow factor in terms of delivering a Jerry tone to my ears. I even preferred it over the SMS earth drive, which is an awesome pedal, for subtle overdrive because to me it just sounded more true to Jerry's tone. Just my 2 cents. Others may disagree.

Other pedals I have are a Boss Heavy Metal HM-2, Boss Octave OC-2, a modded Vox Wah, a 3 Leaf Proton envelope filter, and a newer MXR phase script 90. I've had issues with all of these pedals and have not been able to dial them in to my complete satisfaction. I have a cheap Berhinger Delay pedal which seems to work fine.

Thanks everyone...this gives me a solid starting point.

IMO, the essential Jerry is 25.5" scale + Dimarzio Dual sound/Super 2 tapped to single in the middle position + buffered signal + Fender preamp + SS poweramp + JBL 120

Everything pivots from there... I don't think any pedals will sound right without that setup.

All good advice.

I just got an SG Standard with Throbak pickups. I am running it through 2 tweed Deluxes with a Boss Fender Reverb pedal to use it for Live Dead tunes only.

I refer to my Strats or PRS SE with 3 Dimarzio SD Humbuckers, push/pull volume/tone pots for coil tapping, OBEL, and on board preamp into a Bluesmaster and one "12 with the Reverb, QTron, Small Stone Phasor, and Boss DD7 Delay. For distortion I use a Chandler Tube overdrive and/or Hermida Zen Drive for later period tunes.

I think strumminsix is right on the money there. Those things are essential for true jerry tone and will get u wayyyy farther than any pedals will. All those effects listed r great & they all can sound right but without that base setup they'll never sound the way u want them to sound. I made that mistake back in the day when I first started really jamming. I spent thousands on pedals and never got the tones I wanted cuz I was using a hot rod deluxe. Remember Garcia was mostly a clean player. He was an effects master but really he was the clean tone master first and foremost.

That's great advice...!

strumminsix wrote:IMO, the essential Jerry is 25.5" scale + Dimarzio Dual sound/Super 2 tapped to single in the middle position + buffered signal + Fender preamp + SS poweramp + JBL 120

Everything pivots from there... I don't think any pedals will sound right without that setup.

Or a Super Distortion split. Love that 79'-82'ish tone! Also, it helps beef things up at lower volumes.

My Phiga Bolt is short of 25.5", but sounds beautiful. I would prefer it to be the correct scale length, but again, it has the tone.

Regarding split Humbuckers in a 25" (PRS-like) scale:
Make sure to split the middle pickup toward the bridge side. That way the active coil will be closer to the Jerry sweet spot found by splitting toward the neck (like Jerry) on a 25.5" scale.
I wrestled with this a while back.