Thursday Lunch Report: 18-Nov

[RickT]

Again, a shout out to the great gear out there. There's is quite the collection from funky to out right cool.

Lunch today is undecided. I am working from home and just haven't decided on what to eat. I might do the Grill '57 Hot Dogs with chili and cheese since I haven't been there in a while.

Today's somewhat G&L related topic is pedals. I went for years and years with my only effects pedal being a Vox Wah Pedal. However, several years ago I got into a power-trio type band and decided I needed to add some "color" to my sound to break up the monotony of a single tone the whole night. Once I started down that dark path, there was just no turning back. The pedals mated with lower wattage amps really make for a very versatile rig. I can get a "big" sound at lower volumes with just the right amount of distortion. Here's my current pedalboard:


The board is a Trailer Trash 30" board. The pedals are from:

Mad Professor: http://www.mpamp.com/pedal/index.html
Fulltone: http://www.fulltone.com/pedals
FX Engineering: http://www.fxeng.com/
Earthquaker Devices: http://www.earthquakerdevices.com/produ ... y/devices/
Analogman: http://www.analogman.com/
Hughes Kettner: http://www.hughes-and-kettner.com/products.php5?id=14
SIB: http://www.sibfx.com/products.html
Wren and Cuff: http://wrenandcuff.com/site/the-stompboxes/

I leave the delay on all the time as well as the FX Mirage compressor. The Mad Professor Sweet Honey Overdrive gets a lot of air time. It has a very organic, tube quality distortion to it which I really like. This one is the hand-wired version. There is also a printed circuit version available for a bit less money. The Robin Trower Pedal is also one of my favorites. It's like adding channel switching to your amp. Here's link to our version of Black Magic Woman. I'm using the Fulltone Robin Trower Overdrive pedal through my trusty Swart (volume at 9:00 position). I am playing my Grosh Retro Classic guitar.

I'm also building a second pedalboard with pedals from Wren and Cuff, Earthquaker Devices and BBE:
BBE: http://www.bbesound.com/products/stomp- ... fault.aspx

Black Magic Woman: http://www.reverbnation.com/open_graph/video/10511451

What effects are you using? Show us those stomp boxes.

RickT

[suave eddie]

Here's link to our version of Black Magic Woman.

Don't see a link??

[RickT]

Thanks for catching that. I added the link.

RickT

[blargfromouterspace]

Nice board Rick. I'd like to try out an Organizer one day.


Boss tuner - Keeley modified Rat clone (which I de-Keeley'd) - Way Huge Pork Loin - Bad Bob boost - Seymour Duncan Shape Shifter Tremolo - Dedalo "tape" delay. I have fuzzes that get switched in and out depending on my mood too. The board is a piece of wood covered in Hawaiian fabric and industrial strength velcro, fits perfect in an old sports bag.

With this bunch there's not many classic guitar sounds I can't get at least close to. The Rat is for a mild crunch rhythm, the PL for a lead tone, the Bad Bob for a volume boost, delay purely for slapback. The Rat/PL work really well together - the PL has a clean blend, and running the Rat into it results in some pretty complex dirty sounds. I recently butchered my BBE tremolo trying to repair a busted pot (I was too impatient and rough so the traces lifted off of the circuit board ) so thought I'd give the SD unit a go, thinking tap tempo and trem would be pretty handy. IMO it's not.

[Sprinter 92]

What effects are you using? Show us those stomp boxes.

I don't have a pedal board, but I do have a few pedals.

My pedals are:

Flanger: Ibanez FL9 from the early 80's
Compressor: Keeley two knob
Booster: Radial PB1
Overdrive: MXR M-66
BBE: Sonic Maximizer




I have a BBE, Two Timer delay pedal incoming for being last weeks Lunch Reporter!

[darwinohm]

Rick, I always use a BBE sonic stomp on my bass. I have some other BBE pedals that I really haven't used much but they are great. For recording I still like my Vox Tone Lab. I also have a Harmony Man which I have never used. I am going to experiment with the harmony man on the bass this winter. Steve, our lead player, uses a Vocalist live 4 and it does some cool things. He also uses a Roland GR20 and that is a great addition to a wire band. Nice looking pedal board, I would have to learn how to use all that!-- Darwin

[yowhatsshakin]

Wow, some amazing pedals! Here is a somewhat outdated pic of my pedalboard:

The Sonic Stomp has been swapped out with the BBE Two Timer I received for my stint at LR a couple of weeks ago. I never found the Sonic Stomp very effective with my Boogie; an opinion I have heard from others too. But I love the other pedals.

- Jos

[louis cyfer]

here are some of them.



that's a little while ago, my current setup i am running is
i have the seven sisters grace compressor, the xotic ep booster, the jetter gsr, the lovepedal cot red, the timmy, the hao rumble mod, the precision drive by xts and the jetter gsb plus the seven sisters lilly boost. all at the same time. plus 2 flashbacks an isp gstring and a bbe sonic stomp. plus a polytune mini and a line6 g30 wireless. and that is the small board.

here

[yowhatsshakin]

.... and that is the small board.

[KenC]

I'm pretty far off the beaten path with pedals. Here are my favorites:



Moogerfoogers are just about as addicting as G&Ls, but fortunately there aren't as many to choose from! Mine are (L-R):

- Lowpass Filter (which is really more of an ultra-controllable wah effect)
- Ring Modulator (my current favorite, and the most flexible tremolo I've ever played)
- 12-Stage Phaser
- Analog Delay (up to one second, with onboard effects loop)
- Clusterflux (sort of a chorus/flange with six wave forms for modulation)

Normally if I'm using the 'Foogers only one or two will be in the audio signal chain at a time, but the others will be running as well. The back panels are where these get their flexibility:



Yeah, that's about 3-4 dozen jacks between the five pedals. The oscillators and/or envelope filter in each pedal can be jumpered to control the knobs of any other pedal, opening up sounds like square wave auto wah, envelope-controlled phasing, flanged echo repeats (with the original signal unaffected), etc.

Here's the current line-up that I've been experimenting with on the bass:



The MXR Bass Octave Deluxe is the first octave pedal I've ever been satisfied with. The EBS BASSIQ is an excellent envelope filter/auto wah for bass. I haven't tried it on guitar yet, but will if I have time this weekend. I originally bought the Bass Big Muff to fatten up my upright's sound for one particular venue I had been playing. I've recently dug it out again and like the way it thickens and dirties up my electric bass signal.

Ken

[blargfromouterspace]

Winner

[Brock]

The only efffect pedal I have that gets notable use is the BBE Soul Vibe, and I really like the sound of that pedal. It's a really neat effect.
http://www.bbesound.com/products/stomp- ... -vibe.aspx

[meowmix]

So you all want a simple amplifier, to make things simple.
Then you front load it with a stomp boxes and a bunch of dials.

[louis cyfer]

So you all want a simple amplifier, to make things simple.
Then you front load it with a stomp boxes and a bunch of dials.

simple amp to dial in a good basic tone. the pedals are to change that tone on the fly instead of having to mess with the dials on the amp. you don't play out live much meow do you?

[blargfromouterspace]

So you all want a simple amplifier, to make things simple.
Then you front load it with a stomp boxes and a bunch of dials.

simple amp to dial in a good basic tone. the pedals are to change that tone on the fly instead of having to mess with the dials on the amp. you don't play out live much meow do you?

That is a good observation Meow. However IMO pedals are the simplest way to get some sounds - eg delay, fuzz, tremolo - even getting a good dirty sound from a simple, good sounding tube amp requires serious volume, IME there's no way around that. YMMV.