Yikes! Can’t believe how piled up my man-cave got, so I started arranging stuff so I could feel less cluttered while recording. It’s going to be a two-day job – there’s A LOT of stuff to move around; not just mine, but boxes of my wife’s books and sports equipment, etc. In the end, it’ll be all good. 🙂
As for my pedal board, I decided it was time to get all my frequently used pedals all in one place – yet again. For the last few months, I’ve gone with a simple, four-pedal board, but I missed things like my wah-wah and booster. So I decided to get my act together and assemble my board. Here’s the order:
BOSS TU-2 Tuner ->
Paul Cochrane Timmy Overdrive (transparent) ->
Tone Freak Effects Abunai 2 Overdrive (transparent, but compressed) ->
EWS Little Brute Drive Distortion (I LOVE THIS) ->
VOX Big Bad Wah ->
TC Electronic Corona Chorus ->
Mad Professor Deep Blue Delay (hand-wired) ->
DigiTech Hardwire RV-7 Reverb ->
Creation Audio Labs Mk.4.23 Clean Boost
I know that lots of players prefer the wah in front of the overdrives and distortion, but I’ve never liked that sound, so I put it behind them, and before my modulation effects. As for the clean boost, I’ve always preferred it to be the last in my chain to do a final boost before going into the amp.
FYI, I rarely, if ever stack my overdrives. The Timmy is good for stacking when I’ve done it, but I usually just use a single drive to dirty up my signal. Especially since I’ve gotten the Little Brute Drive (“LBD”), when I want a high gain sound, I’ve been using a distortion. The thing about the LBD is that it’s super gainy, but it’s also amazingly transparent. I wasn’t expecting that. In fact, what’s cool is that when engaged, it doesn’t give much of a volume boost, so I haven’t had to use my attenuator at church. I just play clean, then switch on the LBD when I need crunch. And the LBD with the Deep Blue Delay? OMG!!! Fuggettaboutit! What a sound! Gainy and ambient – perfect for leads!
Oh well… I’m sitting at a local Peet’s Coffee shop right now, waiting to pick up my daughter from ice skating with her friends, and all this talk and thought about gear is making me itchin’ to play! Dammit!!!
Guitar Gear 
Thank you for sharing the pedal line up – I struggle with the what goes where. There have been moments! Furman and others might want to consider some more advanced switching options such that I can have all of my pedals on the board and then select which ones are in circuit (it would save me having to do it). At issue are the various delays and over drives. The next problem is at the amp end. I play in stereo, on one side a Marshall on the other a Mesa. Some pedals sound better through on amp rather than the other. The guitars are of course mono (ahhh there in lies the answer – need to jack them out through a stereo jack and then have a split signal at the get go – but how do you work two wahs simultaneously?). Well if it was easy I guess everybody would be doing it!
Thanks for listening but I am more than open hear what others have to say about what must be a common problem. And Dog – good luck with the re-org – there is always more work to it than meets the eye (and then the spouse takes a look see….) — Ron
I suspect your modulation pedals sound better through one amp rather than the other. For that, you could keep those in switching loops dedicated only to a specific amp or have those on completely different chains altogether. I was thinking something like this diagram:
The switching system could still work on individual pedals or whatever combinations you want, but the pedal topology would dictate what pedal plays through what amp.
My thanks – let me give it a test and I will report back. — Ron
So you are correct it works – but that being said there is now the struggle with capacitance – going to have to visit the actual wires and while I am thinking about it it may be time to consider installing a power conditioner at power in to the amps AND the pedals…. its only money….
🙂 Yup, I know that tune very well….