Let's see your PEDAL BOARD!

[Chankgeez]

i finally got around to testing the Haxan i ordered, and believe it or not it's kicking my Distortion+, my OG pedal, off the board. it can pretty much get my favored D+ sounds, but a whole bunch of other stuff besides. i was slightly concerned that it might not fit on the board because it's a bigger box, but i would have turned the Randy's Revenge sideways again if i had to. gotta straighten out those reverbs, though.



main board with Haxan 2-25.jpg

[dubkitty]

i’m really happy with the state of the big board. every box on there does something that makes me smile.

a nice thing about the Haxan is that it also does relatively quiet boost at the lowest settings. it helped that i looked it up and saw what the Shift switch does. that’s a really clever thing, to be able to turn on the toggle settings on a foot switch.

this layout would be impossible without cables with small flat plugs.that’s the only way everything would fit on the front tier, along with top-mount jacks in strategic spots.

there’s changes afoot (so to speak) for the FEB, though. i got it out to retest the Instant Lo-Fi Junky (which is still too noisy) and found that the Fjord Fuzz MIME reverb is also too noisy to use; if i turn something on and it noticeably increases my noise floor i stop using it. within reason, of course.

the most likely candidates to replace it that i have in-house are the Keeley Realizer and the Muza 900. i was thinking that delay would be nice and the Muza does that, while the Realizer might be better in the second oddball reverb slot than it was on the main board. or maybe the DemonFX tape delay Secret Santa gave me would work, though i need some other reverb besides the Expanding Universe. great…something else to work on.

[dubkitty]

i spent some time last night and this morning testing reverbs for the FEB. The Realizer would work, but i don't really like any of the sounds. i don't seem to get along well with Keeley pedals. the Muza add a high-pitched digital whine, so that's also out. i wound up getting out my RV-3 and that's the ticket. i just wish there was a 2-second delay like setting #3 with reverb added. since i'm not accommodating the expression pedal out that's oddly placed on the bottom side of the MIME i moved the reverbs back into normal alignment. i have enough outputs that i can run the Attack Decay in front of the board when i want it.

i think that settles two boards. next i need to test the LM-2 against the Keeley Bassist Limiting Amplifier with the looping board to see if either will actually give me brickwall limiting to control overall loop volume.

[dubkitty]

i never seem to notice when pedals are crooked until after i post the photos LOL.

the Gen Loss is making digi-noise whether on or off. it's quiet on its own, though.

i want to get a couple of latching kill switches to use between the 3 boards so i can mute when i want to switch stuff...the recorded CLICKs are irritating in the loops.

the Roland rackmount line mixer arrives today, so i guess i'm going to reconfigure the rack as well. i think i'll take out the GEP 50 that has the SPX90 running in its fx loop and keep the rest of the stuff. the mixer has two effects sends so i could set it up with the reverbs on one loop and the tools (compression and parametric EQ) on the other. i'll have more than enough channels to run the guitar system, keys, drone synth, and drum machines.

[dubkitty]

i put my wee Solidgold FX buffer between the Gen Loss and the end of the chain and it helped the noise problem; putting it ahead of the Gen Loss had no effect at all. it's still noisier than i'd like, but it's better than the T-120 videotape delay ever was. it's a dilemma because i really need the dying VHS sound but everything i've tried (Gen Loss, T-120, Wardenclyffe) adds noise even when turned off.

[dubkitty]

and to conclude this round of board revisions, i compared and the Boss LM-2 limiter is tons better than the Keeley. at least it was a simple pull-and-replace rather than the moving shit hither and yon that the other 2 boards required. i'm still not certain it's going to work, but at least it's an improvement and if i wind up running the guitar system through the rack i can limit to my heart's content with the Rane MC22. i'm pretty much over Keeley at this point, the BLA and Realizer having both disappointed. so all that's done for now. i think i'll do a bit of looping with the Normie Board to see how well that goes. i'm dying to hear the Hopf on the loops.

[dubkitty]

i realized that i don't need kill switches because i run the volume pedal between the FEB and the main board and i can just shut the signal off at the loop board by turning the volume down or turning that channel off.

[dubkitty]

i got out the rack and got everything connected and powered up and something’s wrong with the SPX90…when it powers up it’s got some glitch where the input level is maxed regardless of whether something’s plugged in or not (i don’t have the rack plugged into an amp so i don’t know exactly what it’s doing, presumably some awful feedback or hum), the display doesn’t work, and none of the controls has any affect at all. i looked up the factory reset and it did nothing. i can use the GEP50 instead because i set up the same presets on both Yamaha units, but i’d rather have the SPX90. the GEP50 is billed as a “guitar effects processor,” which means that it has a front panel input and a bunch of atrocious digital distortion/fuzz settings. i’m going to have to go through the presets i saved over a decade ago and figure out just what it’ll do. the other stuff is dead simple: the MV2 is all presets, and the compressor and parametric EQ are pretty simple.

[dubkitty]

aaaaaand the battery on the GEP50 has gone. so i now have zero Yamaha units in working order. i don’t know if i want to try to replace the battery myself. so for now i have the MidiVerb II, the compressor, and the parametric EQ. truth be told, i don’t really need the Yamahas…the reverse ‘verb is kind of disappointing, and the various other functions are covered by the boards.

edit: surprise! i was able to reset the GEP50 and it appears to be working normally. now to bring the mixer up from the lobby and put it in the rack.

[dubkitty]

i think i have everything wired up properly.

i used to use the rack on my “early loops” so it’ll be interesting to see how it works now. i don’t think i’ve ever used the EQ.

i want a second EQ so i could run the rack in stereo, but another one like mine is now $350 when they were under $100 in the late 00s. since i wouldn’t run in stereo unless i was recording i can live without it.

[dubkitty]

i’m so confused…i tried running the rack gear in the mixer’s effects send/returns and it just wasn’t happening. i don’t know why. so i put the gear after the mixer’s output and eventually was able to get all 4 units running and processing like they should. i’d love to know what i did wrong because it’d be nice to use the fx send/returns, but as long as everything’s working it’ll do. i downloaded the mixer manual but it didn’t help at all. anyway, that’s enough for one day. i’m running a loop into the mixer and used the EQ to kill some of the background noise, and have a backwards reverb running on the MV II. perhaps tomorrow i can figure out why the fx sends don’t work.

[BitchPudding]

Alright, fuck it. Its been long enough since I updated this hoe. Time to share with the rest of the class.



This year has been about nailing down what tones I really want, then filtering with what I need and use practically. The core of it will pretty much always be a super overdrive into a fuzz with an extreme eq behind that for solos and a tuner at the end to mute. From there, its just adding spices to the cake. And honey, we got ourselves a LOT of spices.

Mask Audio Electronics Massive amp - MXR rockman x100 (when it arrives) - Whammy Ricochet - Eventide Knifedrop - MXR Q Zone - Boss Super Overdrive Waza - Mask Audio Electronics Black Math - TC Electronic Polytune Noir - Earthquaker Devices Aqueduct - Nativr Audio Buffalo Days - NuX Tape Core

Feel free to ask me anything about whats here. But just wanna get it out of the way: the knife drop has become more essential to me than I realized it would be. Its basically a REALLY fucked up POG. It can do the crazy gnarly shit, but it can also be more controllable and subdued if you want it to be. Currently, I have the filter dialed in so the attack is just noticeable enough to give the notes a little extra “thump” instead of straight auto wah quack. That on its own is a pretty clutch extra boost just for pushing notes to the forefront of a mix without boosting volume too much. The pitch section might be my favorite octave sound ever. It thickens riffs like you’d expect and the tracking being so tight gives the whole thing a old school organ vibe on chords. I’ve used it on so many new Phantoms songs already, its going to become a signature part of my sound going forward.

Tape Core is also really sick. Really good Spacd Exho option for cheap. Surprised more people don’t talk about this one.

[dubkitty]

is this the setup you used on the new record?

[dubkitty]

i'm truly puzzled by the fx loops thing with the Roland mixer. i did some more tests and it works fine with a pedal, but for some reason the GEP50 doesn't see signal from the fx sends. the rack chain works swimmingly when i run the mixer output into it. i'm running out of possible solutions...since the fx send/return works with a pedal it can't be that the fx loops are defective, and since the chain of rackmounts works with the mixer main output it can't be anything in that chain. but when i hook up the rack stuff exactly as i hooked up the floor pedal, nada. there has to be some reason...maybe i need TRS cables somewhere? i'll bet that's it.

the rack stuff is working nicely, though. right now i'm playing one of the loops i uploaded last fall with the Yamaha doing a pitch-shift downwards along with the fundamental, the MidiVerb on a odd reverb with echo and modulation (patch 28), the compressor compressing, and the parametric EQ lopping off line noise from the original recording. i think i should use it with the loopers, which i did on some of the old Soundcloud stuff. the multiprocessors have some interesting variations on floor effects e.g. flange, chorus, and delay, and the Yamaha also does compression and parametric EQ.

[Gone Fission]

The sends are at -20 dBm rather than +4 dBm, which is what the main outs are at; this should be fine for pedals but not for all rack stuff. You might need to really bump the input gain on your processors.

(As to non-issues: The sends should be unbalanced, so TS cable same as to a pedal should work fine. I'm assuming your channel levels pre-sends aren't getting adjusted, but the sends are post-fader; reducing the channel fader will reduce the send level, too. I doubt it's the issue you're having, but just in case.)