PEDALBOARD, CONT.

PICKING up where I left off, we'll start with my signal booster...

MXR MICRO AMP

The Micro Amp is a signal booster, first and foremost, and it does a fantastic job. Basically, by running it before all the rest of my pedals, I get a sparkle that none of my effects have on their own- put another way, it makes my pedals sound more like themselves, I guess. The Micro Amp is also extremely useful as a volume boost for jumping over the mix during a solo, and when it's dimed it creates a crunchy rhythm overdrive that shimmers like crazy but cleans up nicely for bright, sustained lead tones when used with my compressor.

I bought this pedal for 40 bucks brand new on CL, and that was a steal... the guy who sold it to me had bought it thinking it was a distortion pedal, and then decided to sell it after using it once. Even at the higher retail price, I'd say it's pretty essential, especially for a smaller board, because it provides a lot of versatility both on its own and in conjunction with other pedals. It's an MXR, so you can't go wrong there in terms of quality craftsmanship and overall bulletproofness. Also, I dig the white, slightly textured box.

I have few complaints, but when it IS cranked, it gets pretty noisy (especially with a compressor set high as well), but I don't really see how that could be avoided... I'd like to see how it works with a noise clamp like the Smart Gate, also by MXR... That might be a purchase I'll be making soon. Also, I wish MXR would stop putting their 9v DC jacks on the side rather than at the top of the box. It makes running a daisy chain a huge pain in the ass. But whatever.  All in all, this pedal is one of the most integral parts of my board and my sound overall.

PROCO YOU DIRTY RAT

This was the first distortion pedal I bought, and I picked it solely on a Gearmandude review on youtube. I really had no idea what type of distortion I wanted, and I was intrigued by the fuzzy roar that this pedal produced in demos. But when I first got it, I had little idea how to use it, especially since I was running it through my solid state Fender, which tends to be really muddy. I got so frustrated with it that at one point I put it up on Ebay, but no one bought it, and now I'm really glad they didn't.

The first thing I think anyone should know about this box is that it LOVES tube amps, and sort of hates solid state, based on my experience running it through both my Peavey and my Fender. Although I eventually got a tone dialed in with the Fender that I liked ok, this pedal never showed it's true colors until I ran it into the Joyo American Tone amp modeler that I recently purchased- now it's probably my favorite distortion/overdrive pedal, producing a huge range of tone that it particularly suited to the neck pickup of my tele. I can only imagine how good it must sound through a real vintage tube amp.

The Dirty Rat takes a basic RAT pedal tone and crams some fuzz and extra body into it. It's not a fuzz pedal though, like the Fuzz Face or similar. It's just a fuller, fuzzier distortion than your average dirt box. The filter knob is the key to this pedal, and it can be used to sort of scoop the mids and highs, taking the tone from a dirty but harmonic metal sort of tone at 9:00 to dark turbid mayhem at 3:00. It also has some extra compression built in, so the sustain is amazing and even oscillates nicely on long bends with the filter knob around the 12:00 position. Built sturdy as a concrete bunker, this box seems pretty indestructible, and has a killer reputation for consistency and durability. The only thing that sort of sucks is that it has a 1/8" DC jack, which requires a special adapter. If you buy the 1Spot power source package you get one that works, but I still think it's lame that Proco didn't just use a standard Boss-style jack.  All in all, this is a box that I'm still learning about, due to it's huge versatility, and every time I use it I discover some new tone, which is a lot of fun.

OK, next up, the Boss SD-1. Coming soon...

FINALLY, A PEDALBOARD POST!

OK, so it's been a while. But I'm gonna make good on my promise to explain my pedal board. However, in the couple months since I last posted, it's grown considerably, so this process is becoming increasingly more difficult, and it's made more frustrating since I'm still pursuing a couple key elements, like a reverb pedal (I just ordered the Biyang Baby Boom Tri Reverb) and a custom Valvecaster (which I might just end up building... or trying to build.) So I think, for the next couple posts, I'm going to run through the chain as it is now, and give as thorough a review as possible, based on my experience with each. I'm going to use stock photos for much of this, just for the record. I'll start with the switcher box.

SATURNWORKS ABC BOX

This pedal was custom built for me by Bryan at Saturnworks Pedal company. I usually switch back and forth between my Tele and my Gretsch a couple times per show, and on a few songs I play the fiddle or tenor guitar, so I needed a way to make all that happen seamlessly and without a bunch of crawling around on stage looking for cables, causing a huge delay between songs. Originally I was running a DOD 270 AB box, but I wanted to have three inputs so I could run both guitars and my acoustic DI. I checked out the Morley ABC, which looked ok, but it lacked independent volume pots for each channel, which I wanted since the Gretsch is a bit quiet and the DI box is hard to adjust the volume on mid-song (not to mention that the passive clip on fiddle pickup I run doesn't have a volume control either.) One day as I was poking around online looking at boutique pedals I found Saturnworks, and got ahold of Bryan just to chat about the stuff he had up on his website. He mentioned that he does custom jobs, and we came up with this pedal, which he built in less than a week for an unbelievably reasonable price!  Basically, the box allows either 3 in / 1 out OR 1 in / 3 out.  In addition, all 3 channels can be selected individually or together, so theoretically you could run 3 amps simultaneously, which seems unnecessary but potentially awesome. I'll stick to 3 instruments run to one amp for now.  Individual green LEDs are a nice touch that a lot of switcher boxes don't have, and all the components are top-notch. If you need something built, contact Saturnworks- great work at great prices. It's pretty cool to have a one-off ABC box that provides full functionality for all my needs.

SO, I've examined my guitars in my last couple of posts, and they take up 2 positions on the ABC, so I'll quickly look at the third channel input- my acoustic DI.

LR BAGGS PARA ACOUSTIC DI BOX


I've played acoustic instruments for most of my life,
and I've always assumed that feedback, uneven volume, and general mayhem just comes with the territory. Then, a few months ago, when I was complaining about the particularly challenging aspects of playing fiddle and acoustic guitar through a solid-state fender in a small club, my buddy let me borrow his Para Acoustic DI; pretty much, my life was changed. After gig testing his a couple times, I went on a quest to land one of my own, and after some ridiculously good luck I was able to score a brand new one for 50.00 (less than 1/3 of the price they go for retail.) I'll admit that I haven't learned all of the ins and outs of this box yet, but what I have found is that while some of the settings can be tricky and time consuming (notch, etc.), even a quick mix using the low, mid and hi channels can make a world of difference in quality of tone and the character of the instrument being played.

Also, the phase inverter is a godsend- if you start feeding back, just push the button and the feedback disappears. Any residual noise can be filtered out with some additional tweaking of the mids and notch.  The box features a 1/4 inch IN and OUT, with an additional XLR out to the house system; this XLR also grabs phantom power from the PA. There is also an effects loop which I haven't used, since this box is in-line with the rest of my pedals and I'm not really interested in running my fiddle with effects... yet. There is also a Gain knob which can add a bit of boost and slight grit- it sounds cool turned up with my very bass-y archtop tenor guitar.

My only complaint is that, if you're not running off phantom power, you have to resort to a 9v battery. This is frustrating to me because I don't want to deal with a battery dying in the middle of a set, or at all, period- that's why all my other gear is powered by adapters. Additionally, if an instrument is plugged into the input, the battery is engaged, so even if I'm only playing acoustic instruments during 10 percent of the set, I'm using battery power 100% of the time. I thought I could get around this problem by using a battery-only adapter cord that came with my 1Spot, but it turns out that the battery compartment isn't wired with a battery clip- it just has contacts similar to a flashlight or lantern. So if you can use phantom power, do it. Otherwise, carry extra batteries. This gripe is small, though, compared with the awesome control and tone shaping abilities that this DI provides.

WELL, now I've examined all three inputs (Tele, Gretsch, and DI) along with the ABC box. But before the effects pedals comes the tuner. I spent a long time deliberating over which one to get, but ultimately I decided to go with the:

KORG PITCHBLACK CHROMATIC TUNER

Way back in the day I had a Boss tuning pedal, but at some point I sold or traded it to someone. So when I was putting together this board I did a lot of research, mostly focusing on the Boss, TC Electronic and the Korg. I chose the Korg because it's got the best display and it has great sensitivity without being too touchy. Basically, it does what a tuner should- it keeps me in tune, has true bypass, and even provides a 9v out, so you can power another pedal from it. This box is solid as a brick, and very well made. I got mine for 50 bucks on Craigslist slightly used, but even for the $ 80.00 or so that they cost new I'd say it's a great deal. The visibility of the display is key for me, and beats the shit out of the Boss, which is hard to read even when you can really take the time to focus on it, let alone in the middle of a song, drunk, singing backup on a badly lit bar stage. Plus it looks cool and is pretty compact. Not much more to say about it than that.

"SOB" STUTTER PEDAL

This is the first pedal I built, and I've kept it in my chain because, quite frankly, I'm proud of it. It's a pretty basic box- analog in the truest sense and totally passive. Basically it passes the signal unmolested until you step on the Normally Open momentary switch. When the switch is depressed, it shunts the signal to ground. This creates a cool 'stutter' effect when you stomp the switch in rapid succession, preferably with the beat. I added a 1000k Ohm pot that regulates how much signal goes to ground; the range is from full kill to slight volume variation, which can create a cool analog tremolo effect or just add some weird layers to solos or open chords. 

This was my first foray into wiring up a box, and my switch ended up a bit noisy... I'm not sure if that's due to my soldering ability or to the switch itself, but once you get up to a decent volume the noise isn't noticeable. It's a cool pedal, and I mostly use it for messing around with feedback during intros or at the end of songs, or as a rudimentary volume pedal for dropping my volume during intros, quiet verses etc- I just select a moderate decrease in signal and depress the switch until it's time to rock out again. I used an old Drilldex bit box for an enclosure and wired the whole thing up with parts from radioshack, except for the switch, which came from Small Bear Electronics.

OK, that's it for tonight. I promise I'll try to keep moving on this topic as soon as I can. Next up, the MXR Micro Amp.