Thursday Lunch Report -- From the Road

[RickT]

I'm in West Virginia today on my way to Cleveland for the R&R Hall of Fame induction ceremonies this weekend. I'm picking up my brother in WV and we'll scoot on up to Cleveland tomorrow morning.

Lots of interesting dialog yesterday regarding audio equipment. While McIntosh used to be the standard years ago, ther are lots of boutique builders that have surpassed that standard and set their own. While it is possible build a very nice system like mine at a reasonable price, it is by no means what most people would consider "audiophile". Those systems can easily run tens of thousands of dollars. A turntable can cost $20,000!

Today's topic is pedalboards. I'm on my third one and I am now convinced that one should buy a board bigger than what they think they will need.


i posted my pedalboard earlier last year and have made a few changes since then. I went back to the Super Hard On for the clean boost and added a Sweet Honey Harmonic Overdrive (the orange pedal) and a Wren and Cuff Fuzz (the white pedal). All of these sound great with my Legacy HD and ASAT. Adding the two new pedals was like adding two more channels to my Swart AST. I highly recommend either of those pedals. In fact, I highly recommend every pedal on my board.

I am in the process of building up another pedal board to use with my Mesa. Since The Mesa provides extra gain channels, I don't forsee putting any overdrive or fuzz pedals on that board. Right now, I have a delay and a tremolo as well as a BBE compressor. I'm thinking that a chorus pught to round thins off nicely.

What are your pedal preferences?

RickT

[Sprinter 92]

I have a few pedals that I play with from time to time. Most of the time I don't use them. The current line up is:

BBE, Sonic Stomp
Keeley, Compressor (2 knob version)
Ibanez, FL9 Flanger from the early 80's
MXR, M-66 Overdrive
Radial, PB1 Big Shot Booster

I don't have a pedal board. I store them in their boxes and keep them in a storage bin. I'd probably use them more if they were mounted on a pedal board.


Sprinter 92

[darwinohm]

Rick, I am primarily a bass player and I do have a few pedals but only use one, the BBE Sonic Stomp. Two years ago I bought a large used SKB pedal board and realized it was another thing to haul for the amount I would use it. Instead, if I am doing guitar work I set about 6 to 8 settings in my Cyber Twin amp and only use a couple of those. Our lead player, a good one by the way, is using his Roland Guitar Synth quite a bit and it really adds some good sounds to our band. You do have a cool pedal board and they are great for those who use them. I have a Digitech Harmony Manthat I have owned for almost 2 years that I have never used. I should try it and see what it can do. I do use a Vox Tone Lab when recording and it does what I need very well.

I forgot to mention yesterday that I still use a Garrard Lab 80 turntable to spin vinyl and I have a more that 35 year old Garrard that is still new in the box that has never been used. I wonder if it will still work?

Rick, It appears that you are a "Travelin' Man" this week. That is a must at our gigs.-- Darwin

[KenC]

I used to grab up old pedals (the really cheap ones!) in hopes of finding some magic inspiration. I still have the stash and mess with them sometimes, but lately I've been focusing on maximum flexibility and have gravitated toward Moogerfoogers. The current line-up of things that actually get used is:

Carl Martin Compressor (if I use my Jazz Chorus)
MF-101 Low Pass Filter
MF-103 12-Stage Phaser
MF-104Z Analog Delay
MF-108M Cluster Flux

The next Moogerfooger will be a ring modulator. I don't anticipate using it as a ring mod very much, but rather using its low frequency oscillator as a square-wave tremolo. I think that will sound good on bass as well as guitar.

I don't use a pedal board, but have thought about rack mounting the Moogerfoogers along with a patchbay.

I've also been very impressed with a Copilot FX "Antenna" that I found second-hand a while back. It's impossible to classify the sound - think somewhere between a really thin fuzz, a ring mod and something that just turns the signal to a hissing sound - but when I dial it in right it's beautiful. I look forward to trying other CoPilot pedals in the future.

The one pedal I've been disappointed with recently is an MXR Blue Box. I just can't get any pleasing sounds out of it, and as you can guess from the above I like appreciate sonic weirdness. Maybe I would like it more if I was a "lead" guitarist and played more single-note lines. I still need to try it on bass, though.

I am looking forward to my LR selection of a G&L Double Barrel. I've thought about getting a clean boost for my SC-2 and Skyhawk for a while, but kept putting it off. I'm hopeful that the Double Barrel will let me push the pre-amp tubes a bit harder.

Ken

[blargfromouterspace]

Sounds like a fun weekend you have planned Rick. Do you know who's being inducted? I'm doing some traveling myself - we're driving from Melbourne to Sydney for a gig. We're hoping to break into the Sydney market and hopefully this will do it.

I use a pedal board. I'm too lazy to set up all my stuff every time I want to use it, and it makes setting up at gigs a lot smoother. I use a pretty minimal setup, but I still notice a difference going straight into the amp I tend to play clean and without any effects about 90% of the time. I'm currently using:
Boss tuner
Way Huge Swollen Pickle fuzz, for when I need thick ZZ Top style distortion or any other fuzz sounds.
Way Huge Pork Loin, for general dirty sounds
Bab Bob clean boost, for solos.
BBE Tremor tremolo
Dedalo Maquina de Tiempo delay, for slapback.

I too highly recommend every pedal on my board!

[gitman001]

Hey Rick,

Here is my current setup..... I have mentioned it a zillion times before, but i love the Xotic stuff



Sorry for the crappy pic, i had to use my iPhone - my camera batteries were dead.

Scott