Various Pedalboards before Disassembly

Due to space constraints and simple boredom I think I'm going to pull those setups apart, so here are some collected pics to remind me, should I want to put them back together...

Blonde Pedal Board

Strangely one of the most difficult boards to build for me...

Now I am quite aware of my colour compulsion but let's take a look anyway...

Visual Sound "Route 66"  Compressor and Overdrive (V2).

Korg tuner off to the left corner.

There is a nice home made fuzz as well, a version of the Sodameiser Fuzz with Boost and Chaos switch - my basic needs are covered: Compressor, Overdrive and Fuzz...

The Vox Delay Lab is great, adding more options my tiny mind can't comprehend.

Green Pedal Board

I was working on this board for quite a while, I think I'm happy with it now.

In order to keep it light and compact, I just chose the basics I use the most:
A compressor, two tube screamer - like pedals, a fuzz, a wah and a delay - oh yeah and a tuner of course.

First in the chain there is the compressor pedal. It is on almost all the time but I turn it off when using the fuzz.

Next is the Big Muff Fuzz - using the bass version works great with guitar for me.
It also has two separate outputs which I use to split the signal for the overdrives and the wah pedal.

One line of the split signal out of the Muff Fuzz goes to the Morley Kiko Loureiro Wah - yes it's wah after fuzz for me in this case.
The pedal has a built in distortion option and also functions as a volume pedal by which I am able to silence one amp completely if so desired.

From the wah the signal goes out to amp 1.

By way of the direct output of the Big Muff the second line of the signal goes straight into the Nobels Overdrive - my first mild gain stage.

The Bad Monkey is used as second gain stage, both overdrives work on their own or stacked and can also be combined with the compressor pedal.

The Bad Monkey also has a second output which I use to connect the Korg Pitchblack tuner.

After the overdrives there's TC Electronic "The Prophet" delay just to enhance the sound slightly.
From here the signal goes out to amp 2.



So to recap:
I use two quite basic and yet very different sounding signal paths for my two amps -
one gets just (the compressor), fuzz and wah.
The other one gets the classic combination of compressor, overdrive(s) and delay.

Red Pedal Board

Another one finished - horses for courses of course...

Nothing super exotic here - wah, fuzz, overdrive + distortion, delay and a tuner.


Here's one of the best Morley pedals with beautiful otions:

And one of the best fuzz boxes from one of the most creative companies out there:

Overdrive and distortion in one neat box:

And finally a double delay that never got much appreciation:

A Korg tuner for sure...

Electro Harmonix Cock Fight Fuzz

I plan to use this one as a Wah - variant with an expression pedal.
While trying it out for the first time I actually found a great fuzz setting sans wah, so to remember before further tweaking, I post a pic.

The mini switches are set to "pre" and "cry".

Guitar and Gear update

I think I will have to do individual posts for all the stuff to remember settings and combinations but at the moment I'm just happy about finishing another pedal board and of course the final conclusion of the neverending "Pelham Blue SG project".

Electro Harmonix Flanger Hoax

After concentrating on basic tones for a while, I felt the need for something more "out there".
So I dug up this beast.

Those pedals are notorious for being quite noisy, so when I found a setting that gives a nice flange without too much hiss, I had to take a snapshot of the settings.

And now back to switching and dialing at crandom - fun times!

Visual Sound Jekyll & Hyde V1

Now here's a trusty companion that keeps coming back to my pedal boards.

I managed to dial in some satisfying settings for both sides of the effect, so I better take some pictures to fight forgetfulness.

Since I acquired the pedal Visual Sound managed to release two more versions of the pedal and even change the company's name to Truetone.

Although I haven't used the newer versions, I can say that at least version V3 has one improvement I would like to have on my pedal too, namely the ability to change the order of the two effect sides.

As its name implies the "Jekyll & Hyde" combines an distortion and an overdrive, both can be used independently or together.

The signal hits the distortion side first, then going through the overdrive.

Now I would personally prefer it the other way round. As I said V3 offers this by giving each side its own outputs.

Most sources on the www consider the Jekyll section a "Tube Screamer - ish" overdrive with an added bass switch while the Hyde part of the pedal is described as "Marshall Shredmaster - ish" with a Sharp/Blunt option.

I won't comment on that but I will say that I like the sound of both sides and I use them separately as well as stacked on top of each other.

Making my pedalboard even smaller

The world seems to get smaller in so many ways, even oldfashioned guitar gear is shrinking.

Nice and square - fitting a fuzz, delay and echo in one row and still having enough space for a tuner and the power supply. Neat.

Five fuzzes for every occasion, easy to carry around.

Building a basic pedalboard with affordable effects

A little compressor first, then the nice Digitech Bad Monkey into the Nobels ODR-1 and finally a little bit of "Analog Delay". Oh, and a Korg tuner of course.

This serves my needs a a simple practice setup, nothing special but a few tonal options.
I sometimes add a volume pedal and a wah when I'm in the mood.

Trying to keep it as compact as possible.
These are all inexpensive tools to provide some options while jamming and I don't have to worry about breaking something boutique or unique.

Settings - TC Electronic Mojo Mojo and Dark Matter

Nice and very flexible overdrive (MojoMojo) and a great "amp in the box" pedal (Dark Matter).
They can be combined quite well but I use them individually at the moment - running into the clean channel of the amp.

The Dark Matter gives me instant Doom Metal tones from back in the days.
Just put the guitar on the bridge pickup and roll back the volume a little bit.

Settings - Joyo Vintage and Ultimate Drive

Trying some well known clones to get a classic setup - "Tube Screamer-ish" box as a volume boost going into an "OCD-ish" pedal, giving the "clean-ish" channel of the amp some distorted variations.

Playing the guitar on different pickup combinations, trying the volume knob to control the amount of distortion.
Bridge+ Middle pickup sounds very nice.

Sound Carpet with Delays - The Chain Gang #13

I use this setup for long - ringing, drawn - out chords or when I finger - pick and I want to blend the single notes into each other gradually.
The delays and the reverb provide a nice base behind the actual chords.

The goal is to hide the repeats of the delays so that they don't sound pronounced but rather give the effect of a continuous combination of notes in the background.
That's why I dial the mix back a bit on the delays.
The repeats are set quite high and the time setting is best matched to the individual song.

The reverb pedal is meant to make the repeated notes even more "smeared" and stuck together.
Also, I'm trying to avoid getting the repats too bright, when using analog delays or an eq to dampen the highs, the feedback gets duller and the individual repeats don't stick out so much.

Two pedals to drone - The Chain Gang #12

Infinite notes created by long reverb tails.

A reverb pedal set to 100% wet can achieve this on its own, the delay pedal just makes the wall of sound bigger.

Since I want to mask the transients of my notes, my guitar volume is all the way up but I make an effort to hit the strings very gently and keep my attack consistent.

A compressor pedal could also help with the guitar's attack and volume.

So, the "Time Core" delay is set to a quite high amount of time and repeats.

The mix knob can go all the way, depending of how pronounced you want to hear the notes that you add to your drone.

Turn up to blend new notes in, turn down to hear them more clearly.

The "Snake Bite" takes out the original guitar signal completely, leaving only the very long reverb tail to ring on and on and on...

Reverb's here to stay - The Chain Gang #11

A very nice effect on this particular pedal - I have to post it before I forget.

Tweaked like this the "Snake Bite" gives me reverb that never goes away - similar to a delay with high feedback / repeat settings.

The notes you play keep on sounding and you can play over them but unlike said delays or loopers, with the reverb pedal you get a more eerie, ambient sound.
It's less controllable but at the same time less predictable.

A warped wall of sound through reverb - full of lovely sonic surprises.

Organ Experiments - The Chain Gang #10

Well, there's the "Tube Rotosphere" out there and it is no longer in production.
Reading about it led me to a funny experiement:

Let's take a tube overdrive (Hughes & Kettner "Tube Factor") and two chorus pedals and try to set up a Leslie emulation.

So, from left to right:

• Volume pedal to conrtol the attack of my guitar, the amount of drive from the Tube Factor and to do some volume swells.
• Tube Factor with channel 2 engaged for a bit of overdrive.
• The EHX stereo pulsar to split the signal and to give some tremolo effect.
• The "Super Chorus" with an EQ pedal for the low frequencies.
• The "Ultra Chorus" and a EQ pedal for the high frequencies.
• The "Time Core" stereo delay for a bit of room adding to the parallel chorus effects.

From there you could go to a stereo preamp or a two channel recording interface or even two separate amps. Even one guitar amp and one bass amp would be worth a try, I think.

For me it was an idea to try out, let me know about your results, if you ever tried something similar.

There's also a more practical application for the two chorus pedals I came across during this experiment:

The overdrive pedal, combined with the chorus pedals, this time in series.

Switching on the "Ultra Chorus" adds a sweet harmonic overtone to my guitar signal.

Adding the "Super Chorus" creates some additional space and ambient room for single notes.

Just keep the depth knob dialed down almost all the way to "mask" the chorus worble.