My actual pedal board finally lives - what's your gig rig?

[motterpaul]

When I joined this group I had never made a pedal. My gig rig pedal board was based on using a tube amp for gain, so my pedal board was built around also having an effects loop. My only gain boost was in my effects loop, and I used it to boost the volume of my already crunchy sound for leads. I used a Tim, with a TC Flashback delay in the Tim's loop, followed by an MXR EQ.

With wanting to learn more about up-front pedals, I resolved to change my gig rig approach to a single channel clean amp with nothing but pedals to make all my tones: clean & chunky rhythm, plus leads. I just put my full pedalboard together and played live two nights ago, Everyone said my rig sounded great.

I have a Marshall 2204 (JCM800 50-watt with spring reverb added) into a Traynor DHX212 dual Greenback cab. I plug into the low input with a super clean sound.

My pedalboard has seven home-brew pedals from this forum - here is the layout in order

1. a Morley wah (because I like the convenience of the optical switching)

2. The Briggs Diamond compressor (from here)

3. The TS808 (from here)

4. The Nagy Supa Nova (from here) for my lead "marshall" tones

5. The Dimension P Chorus (from here) with the (6) BMP with LBP1 for a tone/trim circuit (from here)

7. The ROG 3-band EQ (from here)

8. A Boss Waza delay (I chose to go with a branded delay because it has "ducking" which none of the delays offered here seem to have - plus it came with a free Sanyo Pedal Juice which is a rechargeable 9v power supply that will power my whole board for five or more hours on a single charge.

9. The one-knob noise gate (from here)

I use the compressor and EQ all the time. Combined with the ROG EQ, the compressor gives a full and lush clean tone like a Twin Reverb - the EQ recovers the bass brilliantly. Using this pedal towards the end of my chain also  gives me an overall volume and tone control that I like better than changing my amp's tone. This simple pedal is now one of best tools.

I add the TS808 when I want a chunky rhythm tone, and switch to the SupaNova for my lead tones (turned up louder) - but still going into the ROG EQ and fed by the diamond compressor.

-- bottom line, after playing to a roomful of strangers (three guitarists total) a few people told me my tone just blew everyone else away. After the two other guitarists packed up & left he bass player actually said to me "Why does your amp sound so good?"

I told him "years of looking for the best tone - and finding the right combination of pedals." The compressor and EQ together just make the amp sing. For the lead tones I tried a lot of different pedal builds from here, but when I plugged in the SupaNova I knew I was getting almost exactly what my old tube amp used to give me - clear but powerful sustain for great lead tones. NO, all overdrives do NOT sound the same.

Bottom line, I just feel really great that in addition to learning a lot about how pedals work, my bigger goal was to make the best sounding set of pedals for a clean rig that I could find. I owe this web site a lot for teaching me how to do that - for showing me that stark differences between over-drives, as well as clean boosts and tone circuits.

Thanks to Mark & Miro most of all - and everyone else who helped me troubleshoot my problems here. I am very happy now.

[Frank_NH]

Thanks Paul!  I love reading about application of pedals like this, because it can become very bewildering, especially after building three dozen dirt pedals!

I've wanted to try the ROG Tonemender, so your recommendation may push me to build it soon.  Right now, I use my Klon clone as a preamp and it works really well to give my base guitar tone some snap and additional level.

As for the Supa Nova, I believe that's the Jay Nagy design, correct?  I don't think Subdecay has a design called that (though I have built and modded the Liquid Sunshine).  I'm really liking my modded Marshall Shredmaster (built on vero) for classic rock tones along with the tube screamer, but have yet to use either live.

I'm hoping to get a fully analog rig together but for now am using my Digitech RP1000 for effects for live gigs.

[motterpaul]

You are right - the design here is the Nagy SupaNova (Sorry, I don't know the difference but I will look it up). I guess the Super Nova is Subdecay.

[motterpaul]

By the way - My plan is to build the TS808 and the SupaNova into one box with an A/B footswitch so I can set up a great crunchy rhythm and hit one switch to have my lead tone.

One of the big challenges of a live rig is having the right tone AND volume ( for changing from rhythm to lead) ready with just one footswitch. A looper pedal can do it easily obviously, but that just adds another pedal that takes up space.

I read someplace that Dumbles have some built in compression. I am loving that sound up front and can see why.

[motterpaul]

The tonemender has a fair amount of clean boost built in - but it also has a volume control that manages it very well. The good thing about it is that it seems to give you the expected response no matter what you put into it - meaning the tone and volume you dial in remain very consistent even as you switch pedals up front - assuming you have those pedals set up right of course.

Here is another life-saver. Once I had all my pedals dialed in to work together (you know, it takes a little while) I marked every single knob on each pedal I have for the right spot. When I set it up many knobs had moved so I had to reset them. Perfect results just as I expected.

This is the ticket:

[negativefx]

I use a settings saver but find that a few of my commercial pedal knobs are so close to the 3dpt that they move when I kick it on/off.  I ended up getting "Poster Putty" (not sure if it goes by the same name everywhere) and I wrap pieces of it around the base of the knobs.  Holds them in place even in a case with cables/mics/tape/etc all thrown on top of the board and it's easy to remove cleanly.

I play bass in my primary band, here's my setup:

bass > voodoo labs gcx > split to verellen amp and korg rack tuner

GCX is controlled by a ground control pro and I just use direct/quick select (ie. no multi-pedal patches set up).  I have an expression pedal plugged into the gcp that I use to control the m5 and whammy

front of amp
1 - diamond bass comp w/ tilt eq for guitar/baritone/bass (johnk mods)
2 - myco Three tube od
3 - orange mk2 w/ johnk bass mods
4 - musket fuzz from johnk schem
5 - empress EQ
6 - digitech bass whammy (new one)

fx loop
7 - strymon deco
8 - line 6 m5


I also have a mxr/cae boost hardlined into the fxloop running as a buffer based off the tge layout

Side projects:
my guitar setup is:
strat/LP > eb volume > super duper > thunderverb > rockerverb 50 > line 6 m13 + eb expr pedal

my baritone setup is:
reverend h90/fender bass vi > diamond bass comp > boss bass eq (lolz) > thunderverb > ezekiel > super bassman > deep blue delay > ghost echo

[motterpaul]

Cool - lots of bass-players here so I hope so more post their gigging setups and guitar setups.

By the way - I just did these demos of my board (I posted one elsewhere already). I forgot to play the chorus pedal, but it sounds good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slFgYeNq7z8 - showing my board layout

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPT84TGghbM - a demo of my pedalboard sounds

[Edit: I use "zip ties" instead of velcro. I tried Velcro and it eats pedals) zip ties are firmer and do no harm to the environment.)

[negativefx]

My pedal boards are 12x18x3/4" MDF with a 12" strip of non-adhesive velcro stapled to it.  $5 a pop.  :)  

My bass rig is in a 6U rack box though.  I've been keeping the pedals in two 2U drawers but they each weigh around 8 pounds (!!!) so it's heavy as hell.  Weighs more than my tube head.  Trying to find ways to reduce weight but I need to be able to easily hit the stomps on the soft-touch pedals after plugging it in so I went with the drawers.  They make lightweight spacer trays, but those are screwed in to the racks.

Anyone know of a fastener that would work on rack mounts that allows for quick release?   Wingnuts won't cut it.

[Beaker]

Would something like these work?

Quick release fasteners for motorcycle race fairings, car bonnets etc:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/6-Race-Fairing-Fasteners-1-4-Turn-14mm-D-Ring-Dzus-Panex-Quick-Release-Clips-/181814776304?hash=item2a550151f0:g:vKwAAOSw~gRV2yCc

Or these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FAIRING-FASTENERS-QUICK-RELEASE-RIVET-TYPE-17mm-PACK-OF-10-PIECES-DZUS-TYPE-/381529199639?hash=item58d4e99417:g:tFoAAOxyoA1RScto

[negativefx]

Awesome. Thanks beaker!