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Some guitar effects pedals, taken in Feb '05. Missing from this pic are my: Green Russian Bug Muff; Guyatone MD-3 Delay; Keeley Modded Boss TR-2; MXR Distortion+; MXR M132 Super "Chimp"; Marshall RG-1 Regenerator; CryBaby Wah; Maxon Phaser; Roger Mayer Voodoo Axe; ProCo Turbo Rat.; Fulltone Fulldrive 2 MOSFET Edition; MXR M108 10 Band EQ; Electro Harmonix micro-POG; Way Huge Swollen Pickle Jumbo Fuzz; Way Huge Fat Sandwich; Ibanez PM7 Phase Modulator; Fender Fuzz Wah; Interfax Harmonic Percolator; MXR Q-Zone; Catalinbread Teaser Stallion 2; Red Witch Fuzzgod 2.
(January 2009)
I recently got my hands on the Digitech HardWire DL-8 Delay pedal, so that brought about another revision to the pedalboard. I removed the really old Boss pitch shifter/delay and analog delay pedals. I may put back the Boss analog delay, but I'm not sure I'll ever need three delay pedals on there!
I also moved the VariOboost to the top row, which puts it in the effects loop instead of in front of the amp. This makes it's effect MUCH more pronounced. I have it set to tame the insane amount of midrange that I can't otherwise dial out of my Mesa Stiletto. (I don't need it with my Lone Star, though).
That leaves an empty spot on the bottom row for another addition. I'm thinking about the Catalinbread Serrano Picoso boost. We'll see.
One other note....
Those Digitech HardWire pedals have an interior switch that allows you to turn true bypass on or off. I turned true bypass OFF in the reverb pedal, since it's the last one in the chain, and the signal is making a 20 foot trip to the pedalboard and another 20 foot trip back to the amp. The others are true bypass, so I thought it'd be a good idea for one of them to have a buffer on. The same is true for the bottom row - the MXR phaser is non-true bypass, so I have a buffer there, too.
(This is probably way more than anyone wanted to know.)
Here's what's on it, in order of signal flow (right to left, bottom to top).
BEFORE THE AMP:
Peterson Strobo Stomp tuner (v1)
Keeley Compressor
Fulltone OCD overdrive (v1)
BB Preamp overdrive (with cool copper finish)
MXR EVH Phase 90
IN THE AMP'S EFFECTS LOOP:
Catalinbread VariOboost parametric eq/boost
MXR Carbon Copy Analog Delay
Digitech HardWire DL-8 Delay/Looper
Digitech HardWire RV-7 Digital Reverb
AND FINALLY:
Amp footswitch (Stiletto switch works identically for my Lone Star)
My little Boss pedalboard, even though it doesn't have a single Boss pedal on it.
Back in the 80's I used to see a lot of guys at GIT carrying these around, but I was at an age where I had to make everything harder than it needed to be and kept lugging rack gear around until I got old and tired.
So I finally decided to give one of these a try. I feel guilty about spending the money to set up this little board, but my Rat clone and Lunar Module clone didn't cost me a fortune to build and the other three pedals weren't horribly expensive. I've had the Heptode for a while. I've built several clones of the Demeter over the last couple of years, but finally decided to buy a, "real" one.
I can get pretty much anything I ever want to hear out of this little board, though. I mean, my vocabulary isn't huge in terms of sounds I use, anyway. So this totally does the trick for me. I was on the fence about the Zero Point until I tried it and then I was all, "Oh, I will not live without that."
Heh...anyway, now I need to stop spending money and earn money for a while so I don't have to keep beating myself up about spending money.
Anyway, that's mah board. It's simple, but I'm not all that complicated my own dang self.
OK, so right to left, there's a Demeter Opto Compulator optical compressor. Very transparent. None of the strangeness in the attack that's typical of a lot of compressors.
Next there's a clone I built of a Skreddy Lunar Module. That's Skreddy's shot at the David Gilmour fuzz sounds from 'Dark Side of the Moon.' It's an amazing circuit, IMO.
Next is what I call my, "Swiss Army Rat." It's a Rat built on the BYOC board, but I built this one with am LM301, which is a little lower-gain that the LM308 that production Rats had. Vintage LM301 op-amps sound really good in this circuit.
There are the six clipping options on this board.
The first three are standard Rat-style clip-to-ground:
#1 Standard symmetric Rat clipping from 2 x 1N4148 diodes.
#2 Turbo Rat clipping from 2 x red LEDs.
#3 Asymmetric (Boss-style) clipping from 1 x 1N4148 on one side and 2 x 1N4001 on the other side.
The second three are in the feedback loop like a Tube Screamer or a Boss OD-1. These give you a kind of Rat-Overdrive that's unique among Rat pedals, as far as I know.
#4 Symmetric clipping from 2 x 1N4148 diodes.
#5 Asymmetric (Boss-style) clipping from 1 x 1N4148 on one side and 2 x 1N4001 on the other side.
#6 MOSFET clipping from 2 x BS1`70 MOSFETs.
If all these options weren't enough, the LM308 depends on a compensation capacitor for its performance. The recommended capacitor is 30-33 pF in the original Rat circuit. The smaller the value, the wider the bandwidth of the op-amp. The higher the value, the more the bandwidth is compressed.
So I put a 33 pF monolithic ceramic capacitor in Position 1. Position 2 is a 56 pF ceramic capacitor. Position 3 is a 100 pF WIMA poly capacitor. Finally in Position 4, I used a 220 pF WIMA poly capacitor.
The effect as you run through them is that the sound is a tiny bit more squashed as you go up. Not a lot, but a little. It actually sounds a little bigger as it gets more squashed, or it seemed to. There's also some change in the midrange at the higher settings. You may never move it from its factory setting, but depending on the amp, the higher settings can sound pretty cool.
So yeah, then there's the Catalinbread Zero Point flanger. The concept is that there are two parallel audio lines going and you slow one down when you step on the switch. So real flanging, like slowing down one tape deck. No regeneration, no LFO...just real flanging. When you release the switch the second line slowly regains sync with the direct signal.
What's super-dope about this is that it's got a fairly bad sync when you aren't stepping on the button. The two lines drift a little relative to each other, giving you a really kind of groovy comb filter effect even when you aren't stomping on the switch.
So you could use this like a chorus-style pedal (doesn't really sound like a chorus, though) and bring in a whoosh of grooviness when you really wanted it. Very hip.
Finally there's the Heptode Virtuoso phaser, which is a slightly updated (buffered) version of the old Maestro Phaser, which is my very favorite modulation effect of all time.
I finally 'finished' it (as much as it can ever be finished). I need to do some work on the top row (replacing the leftmost two Bosses), but I'm really happy with the bottom row.
Here's what's on it, in order of signal flow (right to left, bottom to top).
BEFORE THE AMP:
Peterson Strobo Stomp tuner (v1)
Keeley Compressor
Fulltone OCD overdrive (v1)
BB Preamp overdrive (with cool copper finish)
MXR EVH Phase 90
Catalinbread Varioboost parametric eq/boost
IN THE AMP'S EFFECTS LOOP:
Boss DM-3 Delay (analog)
MXR Carbon Copy Analog Delay
Boss PS-2 Digital Pitch Shifter/Delay (using it for digital delay)
Boss RV-3 Digital Reverb (used for basic verb with Mesa Stiletto only)
AND FINALLY:
Amp footswitch (Stiletto switch works with Lone Star, too)
The primary difference between this version of my board and the last version is the Eventide ModFactor. After not very exhaustive non-scientific lab work, I determined it should go in the effects loop, rather than in front of the amp. Therefore, it needed to go on the top level, displacing the amp footswitch to the bottom level, where the Phase 90 used to be.
I'm about ready to sell every modulation pedal I own (and that is a good number of pedals). The ModFactor renders them obsolete. Sure, it's probably not a perfect clone of all of my old pedals, but it sounds great anyway. Man...I haven't heard flanging like this since the last time I hooked up my A/DA Flanger.
Next up (as soon as I can raise the funds by selling some of the aforementioned pedals), a PitchFactor!
Signal chain goes:
1. TC Electronic Polytune Noir Mini 2 tuner
2. AMT LLM-2 volume pedal
3. Area 51 wah
4. Hoxton OWL
5. Walrus Voyager overdrive
6. Skreddy Lunar Module Mini Deluxe fuzz
7. Earthquaker Grand Orbiter phaser
8. Catalinbread Echorec delay
9. Moog Minifooger MF Delay
(at this point, the signal splits into stereo)
10. Walrus Descent reverb
11. Electro-Harmonix Super Pulsar tremolo (rate controlled by Roland EV-5 expression pedal)
12. Pigtronix Infinity looper
Board power comes from a Walrus Phoenix power supply. Wiring is all Evidence Audio's Monorail signal cable. The board itself is Chemistry Design Werks' Dragonfly 1.0
Here's how it goes:
Guitar > Peterson Strobo Stomp (tuner) > Z-Vex Fuzz Factory > Keeley Compressor > Fulltone OCD v.1 > Xotic BB Preamp > MXR Phase 90 EVH > amplifier.
I'll have two other cables connecting the top row of pedals to the effects loop of the amp. Send > Boss Analog Delay > Ibanez Digital Delay > Boss Digital Reverb.
You may notice a certain lack of chorus pedal. I generally don't like chorus much, but I'm waffling on whether to drop in my vintage Boss CH-2. It might be cool for some things (worship music).
I already had to swap out the Ibanez Delay because it couldn't handle the level I had coming out of the effects send. I replaced it with my 20-year-old Boss Pitch Shifter/Delay. It'll do until I can get the MXR Carbon Copy Cloner or TC Nova Delay.
On the way: Catalinbread Varioboost. Soon: Xotic RC Booster.
With this board running into the Mesa Lone Star, my tone has never been better. Seriously.
guitar->Okko Diablo Gain+->Rothwell Switchblade->Skreddy Screwdriver->Fulltone OCD v3->Tone Freak Severe->Catalinbread DLS v1->Homebrew Three Hound Chorus->Retro-sonic Phaser->Turbo Tuner ST-200->Catalinbread Semaphore->this1smyne mini buffer-MXR Carbon Copy v1->Boss DD-7->fx-return
guitar->Korg Pitchblack->Mojo Hand Nebula->Blackout Effectors Musket Fuzz->Lovekraft Mojo Drive->Catalinbread Silverkiss mkII->Ibanez DE-7->amp
I did two mods, switched the gain knob to a 1MC reverse log to move the breakup to earlier in the pot, and switched the volume knob out for 100kB linear to increase the volume faster on the knob.