Overhauling my pedalboard (yet again)

holster · December 4, 2024, 7:05pm

In hindsight, I should’ve taken a “before” picture of my pedalboard before starting, but I decided to overhaul my gig board that I swore was “just right”. hahaha!

I’ll try to post some pics with the progress, but I’m waiting for a few things to show up today

I’m sure some of those pedals that I’ve had on there for the last few years will return, but I just wasn’t quite getting what I was after with my tone now that I’m playing more slide stuff. I picked up a Hudson Broadcast AP for the slide stuff. I’m digging the sound. Its funny because it normally wouldn’t have been a sound I would’ve been into prior to playing slide, but I can already tell its doing the thing I’ve been missing.

ingolee · December 5, 2024, 2:31am

Can you give us your signal chain, amps etc.? Guitar tuning for the slide, and what tunes you’re using it on? Of course a vid clip is worth a thousand words,

holster · December 5, 2024, 5:04am

Sure thing!

Guitar: For most gigs, the guitar is typically a PRS 594 semi-hollow and also an Epiphone 335 that I upgraded serves as a backup. At some point in the near future, I will likely replace the PRS with either a PRS 594 SE or the DGT SE, or something else entirely different. As much as I love playing that and as versatile as it has been, I’m not necessarily crazy about the idea of gigging regularly with that one and the liability/risk of theft, damage, etc vs cost to replace. I’m not quite as concerned about the guitar in a live setting as long as it is close enough in tone and feels right.

Pedalboard: TBD. lol current work in progress. But the short version is, a couple flavors of overdrive pedals for grit, to a muti-effects mod pedal for the wobbly stuff (trem, chorus, phaser, etc), delay pedal, reverb.

Amp(s): I no longer use “amps” at live gigs for a number of reasons, which I’d be happy to do a separate thread/discussion. At this point, I am using (2) Two Notes boxes. The Cab M+ and the Opus. I absolutely love that I can literally show up, plug in, and say “turn it on and leave the EQ flat”. It’s that simple. I don’t have nearly as many issues as I had with real amps and mics vs the “sound guy” or the PA. I also not experiences the issues that I’ve had in the past with other amp sims etc. This has been a real game changer for me and has brought the fun back in playing. There hasn’t been a gig yet that I don’t have people compliment my tone. What more could I ask for? YMMV

E standard at this point. Although I’ve taken stabs at playing slide in the past, this is my first time really playing slide more regularly (multiple songs at each gig). So, I am intentionally teaching myself how to play in standard tuning so I can freely pick up any guitar and feel confident in what I’m playing. After I get that down, I can start working on open tunings, etc. I’m also (as mentioned on another thread) converting a guitar of mine to baritone (B-Standard), but the rules remain the same, so that’s not much of a stretch, lol.

Dude! I don’t even like seeing pictures of myself. Why would I shoot video of myself?!?

You’ll have to accept a thousand words instead (broken down in installments)

holster · December 6, 2024, 12:24am

I didn’t take a “before” picture prior to starting this overhaul, but I found one from a little while back that was somewhat close!

ingolee · December 6, 2024, 1:00am

Thanks! Kind of hard to read.

Danny_Danzi · December 6, 2024, 5:03pm

Nice pedals there! I got a question though…do you have to tap dance to make changes? I had a board like that and I absolutely hated it because of that. Or a knob would move in transit and my tone would be irritating me while trying to figure out what changed.

The best thing I ever did (for my needs) was scale down and go multi effects. I use Fractal stuff and I couldn’t be happier. I used to bring a 25 space flight case full of gear with me. Now I just use a small rack with a pre amp, power amp and wireless.

For the local, smaller venues, I use a 2x12 100 watt Fender Champion. I slave the power section and run my Fractal board into the fx loop. One of the best tones I’ve ever had. Instant patch changes, boutique modeled pedals and 0 tap dancing. These are what I use now. The big one is for special events.

holster · December 7, 2024, 1:00am

yeah, that was a lousy picture. Low light I’m guessing. Starting Right (top) to left (bottom):

Wampler Terraform (multi-effect)
Volume pedal
Keeley Halo (delay)
Universal Audio (UA) Golden (reverb)
Warm Audio - Foxy Tone (octave fuzz)
J Rockett .45 (overdrive)
Warm Audio - Warm Drive (overdrive)
Nobels ODR-1 (overdrive)
Jet Red Sea (wet/dry/wet) box
Supro (overdrive)
Wampler Velvet (fuzz)
Wampler Faux Tape (delay)

I went back to a slighty smaller board directly after that pic. lol

holster · December 7, 2024, 1:38am

Hey thanks! And good to hear from you man!
Yes, I totally get it. lol. That particular board was actually temporary. I’ve been playing a rather large catalog of covers in a lot of genres and I was trying to narrow down exactly what would be most useful.
Not as much tap dancing as it would appear. On most songs, I have an idea of what I want and get there between songs and it mostly stays that way the entire song or multiple songs in a row. I may kick on some delay or longer reverb for a solo, but that’s about it.
I’ve been doing this long enough now though that I’ve really simplified my setup. I’m now down to 2 overdrive pedals that stack well if I need higher gain, a multi-effects for the pretty stuff, a delay and a reverb.

holster · December 7, 2024, 1:39am

I’m loving those setups!! I’ll bet they sound killer in person

Danny_Danzi · December 7, 2024, 5:33am

Yeah I figured you had it down to where you were happy. I love pedals and have a bunch of them, i just dont use them other than in the studio. You got quite a bit of cash invested in those. The boutique ones really make a difference.

I’m changing sounds so much, there’s no way I could leave a few settings. I used to sort of leave things alone, but I really enjoyed the challenge of using a wide array of sounds. I got string sounds, acoustic sims, drop or raise tuning at the touch of a button, old plexi, etc. I’ve never had so much fun in a cover band before.

All local shows within 45 minutes of my house, great pay, booked solid for 2025 already, and most of all, I love the songs we’re playing. Rock, metal, country rock, Skynyrd, it’s a blast and we do them our own way, so they really rock hard.

Yeah, I like to think my rigs sound pretty killer in person…at least for the sounds I like. It’s weird man…with modeled gear, no matter how good one guy may sound, another may sound terrible. The modeled amp sounds are created for the player and the guitar they use. So someone just plugging in may listen to my rig and throw up when they play through it even if they are a great player. Lol!

I used to create tones for Fractal products years ago when I was a beta tester for them. It was amazing how bad some of the sounds would translate for other people. So what I did was, I’d ask them to send me a DI of them playing a song they like and I’d create the tone from their performance. I made some really cool sounds because we have that tone match feature. It’s so cool!

I got old and newer VH, various Lynch tones, Vito Bratta, Warren Demartini etc. I just like the modelers because they are so practical and I don’t have to lug amp heads around anymore. Plus Fractal really got the 12ax7 tube sound down, which is what I need more than power amp tubes. I don’t even need my amps because I can go right out of my board to the snake and it really sounds amazing.

At the end of the day, whatever makes you love what you do, is what you use. Great to hear from you too!