Well [[url=http://[/URL]="http://guitars.musi…"]this [/]="http://guitars.musi…"]this [/]is pretty much the standard. Release your inner Dick Dale.

Angry gerbil, speed punk, Surf YEAH!!!!! quite the combo.

I know you said no to eq, but rather than a level boost that will make the guitar sound louder than everything else, or putting on excessive reverb that will make it lose its punch and clarity, eq is the best option.

I find that a tight bass cut can be all you need. Depending on the range of the solo, you can cut it at 250Hzish for mid-range solos or 500Hzish for higher solos, or just play around with it until it sounds right. This will differentiate the solo tone from the rhythm tone and make it pop from the mix naturally.

So, I went over to the evil empire today to try reverb pedals. They had two Boss ones, a Digitech one, and a Electro Harmonix holy stain. As you'd probably guess the Boss and Digitech pedals weren't that great (the Digitech pedal even had a delay before it engaged), but the holy stain was actually very impressive. And at just under $100, I was even more impressed. I can't imagine making much use of the tremolo and pitch shifting effects, but the reverb itself was very good, and there were quite a few tonal shaping options available on the thing. Does anyone own this thing or have experience with it?

OK, I bought the Electro Harmonix holy stain. Just when I'm about to lose faith in big brands, thinking they overcharge for lackluster products, my faith is renewed... a little bit. :roll: :D

I've bought a lot of pedals that catch the dust that falls into corners, but those EH pedals are legit. Still using them to this day.

I just finished a project w/ a guitarist/frontman who used a Holy Grail reverb pedal. Note sure of the brand.
BIG reverb sound. I love it.

Here's a sample of what that thing can do (no added verb or comp, just EQ):
http://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/8gkzlz
The pedal gets cranked right before the solo (~2:23)

Hopefully your Stain is from the same family.

If you want a guitar to stand out, reverb is probably what you don't want, as it will appear even further back in the mix. Check out either a boost pedal or a good eq (boosting the mids).

Second the EQ pedal. My old guitarist stole, well, not stole, forced me to sell him my DOD Bass EQ pedal. He loved to boost his sound with that.

Sure there's EQ, but I like my tone just the way it is, and I don't want my solos to sound thick and beefy and the rhythm to sound wimpy in comparison.

I already have an EQ pedal, and I said I didn't want to change the EQ too drastically on the lead channel. And I already bought the reverb pedal on March 6th as I posted. But yes, changing up the EQ a bit is always a good idea.

If you're talking about making the solo stand out in the mix, some subtle EQ and panning are your best bet.
Having more HPF on the solo than rhythm, a slight boost at 4-5kHz, and also a boost in the 16k+ (air) range can help.
Pan the rhythm parts wide, and set the solo slightly off-center (5-10%) to separate from the centered snare, kick and bass.

I too am loathe to change the tone of an element if it sounds great. Like it or not, sometimes it's necessary to make it sit right in the mix. Start w/ the pan and then EQ as needed.

Just a few ideas. Unless you're not talking about mixing, then I just wasted everyone's time.

If you're talking about making the solo stand out in the mix, some subtle EQ and panning are your best bet.
Having more HPF on the solo than rhythm, a slight boost at 4-5kHz, and also a boost in the 16k+ (air) range can help.
Pan the rhythm parts wide, and set the solo slightly off-center (5-10%) to separate from the centered snare, kick and bass.

I too am loathe to change the tone of an element if it sounds great. Like it or not, sometimes it's necessary to make it sit right in the mix. Start w/ the pan and then EQ as needed.

Yup.

For mixing, I agree with stratman312 that you don't want a lot of reverb on guitar solos. You might want to consider adding reverb to whatever other tracks seem to be 'in front of' the guitar. It can work nicely to add that additional reverb in whatever parts where you want to have another instrument 'back up from' the guitar solo. Then cut down on the reverb when the solo is over. If you can't program reverb changes to a track, you can bounce an original track and apply 100% wet to the copy. Then do cross fades between dry and wet tracks.

Dito to what soapfloats said on pan and EQ. To make the guitar sound 'bigger' I'm real partial to a little stereo chorus. I'm really into a stereo image for guitar parts. Another option (besides chorus) to get an interesting stereo effect on guitar is to do the pseudo-stereo thing with a hardware or software graphic EQ. If you're not familiar with this, this is where you boost and cut alternate bands on one channel, and do the exact mirror image on the other channel.