To a degree, yes. But to fully deal with it you need to use the EQ effect, which then means you can’t use a modulation effect at the same time.
Cheers,
Keith
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You’ll get lots of different opinions when asking about gear around here.
One school of thought is - keep it cheap, get as little as possible, focus on the playing. And to a certain extent these guys are right. Playing comes first…
Another way of thinking (I’ll admit to belonging to this group) is - gear is fun. I like to explore what different gear can do. I like buying it, it’s kind of like collecting things. I enjoy the slight variations in tone I get with different pedals and amps. In this case, as long as you got the money and can responsibly spend it, I don’t see any problem at all. Knock yourself out, buy pedals and experiment. It’s fun!
Last piece of advice I’ll give - forget the idea that you can get the best tones, or the tones you hear on recorded albums, for cheap. It’s not going to happen! If you’re the kind of person who is very critical about tone… then you’ll have to spend serious money on some serious gear. Forget the idea that a Katana with a $20 pedal and playing a Harley Benton strat copy will ever sound exactly as sweet as David Gilmour on your favorite album. You can get a long way with budget gear, but after a certain point you get what you pay for. You’ll probably also have a hard time winning a Grand Prix race with a Fiat Punto…
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I agree. I see a lot of guitar that appeal to me (not so interested in pedals) and if one spends any time on the AGF, you start thinking you have to have something new and expensive.
Every day I talk myself out of buying a new guitar. First my steel and nylon guitars are more than nice enough, second I like the ideas of these new guitars but don’t really know what I would get out of them that I need (not want) and don’t already have, and third, I really want to learn how to play them figure out what kind of upgrade to my guitar I need/want.
You could substitute pedals into my above statement. If I was pushing the electric idea, I could buy a lot of pedals and then figure out how to use them, or I could learn to play, emulate some pedals and figure out eventually what pedals I would like and why.
Do you want to buy a bunch of appealing pedals and adapt who you are as a player around them, or would you prefer to learn who you are as a player and purchase pedals that compliment you?
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You present me with a dilemma, Kaspar:
On the one hand, I want to draw your attention to the fact that we’re on a guitar learning site here and not many driving schools recommend investing in a racing car until they are experienced drivers 
On the other hand, I’m tempted to upgrade my Harley Benton in order to “sound exactly as sweet as David Gilmour” 
…all in jest of course. We are lucky to have racing drivers in our midst, willing to share their experiences. I enjoyed your fat Marshall DP guitar sound on the other thread 
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It’s actually why I, normally, stay out of all gear related discussions on this site. I feel I do not have the right frame of reference to what most people are asking about
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To be honest - I just ordered a Line6 Pod Go for use as a backup live rig… and I feel that this is one of the best and most cost effective ways of getting proper great tones at a reasonable price… if you don’t want to go all the way with tube heads, load boxes, IRs and so on…
It’s $500, so you have to be the judge whether that’s cheap or not, but I think this is the cheapest possible way for beginners to get proper great tones atm. Alternatively something like a Boss 1000, or perhaps a Valeton GP-200… all similar products, but the Helix (POD) get’s my vote…
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Haha, no, it’s enriching to have a wide variety of opinions with different levels of experience.
We could put the gear section to bed if everyone just bought a Yamaha acoustic & Pacifica, a Boss Katana and maybe a Trio+ looper
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But, frankly, none of us would win an F1 race even if we were driving the best car on the grid.
Cheers,
Keith
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Ah, that’s unfortunate. I’m more used to the Boss Katana, where you can set up an EQ for any preset separate from any effects you might be using.
Regardless, @tmccrimm can still use the Spark to try out all the different effects. For example, I sometimes play a song that requires a Flanger, and so I turn on the Flanger effect on my Katana. While note as convenient as just stepping on a pedal, I didn’t feel like my once in a while use justified buying a pedal.
I feel like between the Micro Terror and the Spark, Tim already has enough to keep him busy. He’s already admitted that he’s starting to gaze down into the pedal buying abyss, and I’m just recommending that he take a step back and enjoy what he already has before jumping in. 
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Exactly what I’ve got Kasper and just sound so good and relatively easy to dial in nice tones. It’s not cheap BUT cheaper than it’s bigger Helix brothers and does 80-90% of what they do.
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My personal experience has showed that this is not true at all. You could give me David Gilmour’s actual gear (or Randy Rhoads’, or Eric Clapton’s, etc) and I still won’t ever sound exactly like them. Not even close. I will always sound like me. My guitar and Katana in Clapton’s hands will sound more like Clapton than I will with his actual gear. I saw it first hand with my guitar teacher when I was taking in-person lessons - my guitar came alive in his hands in a way that it never did in mine, regardless that we were both using his Marshall amp.
There’s nothing wrong with buying gear if you’ve got the finances to support it. But I think what you described is the fallacy of tone chasing - the belief that if you just buy better guitars, better pickups, better amps, better pedals, better cables, better cabs, better speakers, better mics, better picks, better amp sims, better IRs, better monitors, better caps, better pots, better straps, etc, then you’ll be able to get the sound you gear on the album or in your head. And you may get a better sound than what you had, but you may never get the sound you’re after regardless of how much you spend. You can’t buy your way to sounding great.
Particularly if you’re chasing an album sound, where what you’re hearing is often 2-4 guitar tracks that have been EQed and Mixed and Mastered and only sound the way they do because they’re accompanied by the bass and drums and vocals. Having my guitar teacher mix my song produced a night and day difference compared to me doing it.
Tom Morello is one of my favorite guitarists, and I love his advocating the “Play with what you’ve got” mindset. He talks about how he could never find the tone he was seeking in his head, and it was only after he gave up trying to find that tone and just tried to make the best music he could with what he had that he became successful. His band won a Grammy for a song recorded on a 20 W solid state amp using a no-name guitar he found in a pawn shop. He recently recorded a song on a cell phone his son held close to his amp. The quality of the gear isn’t as important as what you do with the gear, and the music you play will make the impact. Write a song catchy enough, make it big, and your tone won’t matter because people will be trying to copy you.
Sorry, I’ll stop now and see myself out.
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Good stuff.
You missed Kaspers point. He’s basically saying that if you are trying to replicate a particular song and get the same sort of tone then you ultimately need similar gear. Nothing to do with gear per se making you better.
The above applies really only in situations where you are a semi competent guitarist already. As you have experienced yourself a good guitar player will make any gear sound a lot better than a beginner.
Also nothing to do with people who just want to pursue their own thing with their own gear
The guy recording his dime store guitar into a phone may get a hit but he’s not going to sound like Clapton… and of course he’s not trying to.
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Sorry guys, I think you’re all missing the point here with all this talk of pedals, amps, fx boxes etc,etc.
Surely if you’re struggling to stay on track and learn to play guitar as @tmccrimm admits, then messing about with loads of gizmos won’t help. Knuckle down and learn to play the thing and then look around at all the ‘extras’!!
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I just got the unit today, got it updated to latest firmware etc… and then programmed a modelling version of one of my tones from the big rig. I have to say, I’m pretty damned impressed with what you can get out of such a small and light unit. It does not do ALL the things I’m using from the big Helix, and also I cannot use it with my tube head because it does not support amp channel switching, but it gets damn close. I feel confident I could play a show with this backup rig, and still have a good time!
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Yes you need a kemper profiler and one of each pedal in the store.
Does that help?
Kasper
Now you’ve had it, what 3 months, what do you think now ?
I ask because Multi Fx were touched on in another subject and was getting drawn towards a BOSS GT100 (same price bracket) until Jason @Rossco01 pointed out its age and dated technology in respect that the pre-set world has moved on. My pre-historic Zoom GFX707 was adequate 22 yrs ago but never lit any fires. The Mustang III’s modelling has been an education in learning what the pedal functions are and how to use them but so frustrating that each pre-set can only have one type of pedal ie Stomp (dirt) Modulation, Delay and Reverb. So if I want OD and Wah I need to set up 2 pre-sets identical apart from the stomp and bounce between the two, not exactly practical. I know Jason rates it highly and I just looked at the Anderton’s review. So I am coming round to the idea of a POD GO, seeing your comments here, I thought I’d see what you think now ?
TIA
Cheers
Toby
Hi Toby,
I’m currently on vacation (Crete) and only have my phone, so I’ll give a more thorough reply in s few days when I’m back at a computer.
Short version - I still think it’s great, and it can deliver some absolutely stellar tones. It also has a few limitations, which I’ll try to cover later.
For most people it’s more than enough though…
Thanks Kasper. I am in no rush for an immediate answer as just been exploring options. Look forward to hear what you have discovered. 
Enjoy your holiday in the meantime. 