FX Pedals Thread: News, Views, Etc.

[SJ_Digriz]

Here it is plugged in. I don't know about 2x4. The idea was too keep it the size of the nano. That board is really small.

[SJ_Digriz]

The only things I'd want to improve are
1) Ability to move the spark around in the chain.
2) Tremolo instead the Corona. Corona has trem, but so far I haven't been successful to get it to not suck.
3) Phaser
4) a mini fuzz. Looking at JHS now.

But with toneprint, this setup is super flexible.

[khanyz]

There's the Z.Vex Fuzzolo too.

It is a neat solution you have but just not my taste. I usually have a couple of short chains which I can switch between. Each has either a boost or overdrive pedal to give an alternate option.

[SJ_Digriz]

Yeah, pedal configuration is all personal taste no question about that. I've cannibalized my aging full sized board. I'm going to a West Coast 16x34 board with dual amp + FX loop and MIDI. I have a couple of Moog Pedals, a bigsky and timeline that will be on it too. The TS and DS-1 are both Keeley modded. The Tesla treble boost is incredible.

[PurpleCatfishBettie]

cool pedal setups. i like the mini pedals with 'normal' (not the tiny) knobs. you guys have some great pedals/setups.

will have to post a pedal chain pic of my own.

[SJ_Digriz]

@xiangqi , my one true complaint about the actual TC pedals themselves is that the knobs are too easy to turn. The size of the knob doesn't bother me at all.

[Uncle E]

I'm thinking of getting an Orange Micro Dark to replace my Orange Crush as a practise amp. It has an FX Loop so I'm wondering if I should get a Lexicon MX200/TC M350 to use with it, rather than just pedals. I can get a bundle deal as I'm getting a 10" Cab (Celestion Tube 10), Gig Bag etc. too.

A good idea and which one? The Lexicon looks better for me as I like the reverbs in my Digitech and it's cheaper. I could just use my Digitech (RP155) but it's a pain to set up. I need something more twiddly.

You can get a used PCM70 for a little more money. It's not particularly twiddly but it's an industry standard for a reason.

[khanyz]

Yeah, pedal configuration is all personal taste no question about that. I've cannibalized my aging full sized board. I'm going to a West Coast 16x34 board with dual amp + FX loop and MIDI. I have a couple of Moog Pedals, a bigsky and timeline that will be on it too. The TS and DS-1 are both Keeley modded. The Tesla treble boost is incredible.

I use a Gator Pro board (30x16) with the power supply underneath and custom Orchid Electronic Isolators and a Muting DI for splitting/recording points. One chain is built around a EHX Double Muff/Blackstar HT-Dual combo, the other a TC MojoMojo/ GarageTone Chainsaw combo. I sometimes switch in a Carl Martin CrushZone but that may now be replaced by a T-Rex Totenschlager.
Everything starts with a Dr. Green Booster Shot, it's pre-DI.

[khanyz]

You can get a used PCM70 for a little more money. It's not particularly twiddly but it's an industry standard for a reason.

Thanks, but even very used it's too much. I can stretch to a TC M-One XL, which looks/sounds worth the extra £100 so I'll go and demo it.

[khanyz]

Anyone tried One Control stuff? I'm checking on their switching pedals but they've just introduced a series of mini pedals too, by the Mad Professor guy.

http://www.one-control.com/

[PurpleCatfishBettie]

@xiangqi , my one true complaint about the actual TC pedals themselves is that the knobs are too easy to turn. The size of the knob doesn't bother me at all.

looking at all of the pedals on your mini-pedal board, the thought struck, 'yeah those are all good. you can see all of them, and they don't look like they're going to fall off'.

it's the 'off-brand' mini-pedals with their eency teency knobs that i now find offputting. i still use them because they're already paid for (and some of them sound really good imo), but going forward the search will be for pedals with larger knobs.

gonna have to put a TC pedal on the 'to-do' list and see what they're about, 'usability-wise'...

[SJ_Digriz]

gonna have to put a TC pedal on the 'to-do' list and see what they're about, 'usability-wise'...

Toneprint is a tremendous advantage in this kind of mini setup. The ability to zap a setting to a pedal via cell phone on the fly is really sweet. Being able to hook up a USB cable and really tweak lets you get the pedal to your own specs. They really are unique. And they sound great. They are all true bypass, but the tumnus is buffered, so i have that little issue covered even if I run a crap long cable.

Things I don't like about Toneprint and Editor.

1) All the artist patches are a waste of F'n time. Getting 1000000 versions of the same thing just because it stamps some guitar players name on it is about the most useless use of bandwidth imaginable. Most of the pedals have multiple algos. There's no way to audition algos by just browsing the bazzillion artist patches. And there's nothing to tell you what the feature/function of a given patch is other than generic marketing BS terms. The only way to do it is to hook up the editor and audition patches and move interesting ones to favorites then load and tweak those later.

2) They f**ked up the editor and now it is portrait only. Not only is it portrait only, it is fixed orientation, so the usb port has to be facing down. Since you have to have the USB interface plugged in to use it, you can imagine how convenient that is.

But, once you get round those issues it's really sweet stuff. This was more of a fun thing to do, so now that I'm done my guess is that I'll be replacing a few pedals for distortions.

I would recommend a mini Spark to anyone on any board. It is is simply the perfect boost IMO. It's cheap enough that you could put 3 in key positions (pre board, pre mod/echo/chorus,post board).

The Flashback is all you could want in this form factor. It can even function as a chorus or verb. And with the toneprint you can swap out functionality on the fly.

I haven't come to a conclusion on the mod pedals yet. Still have to play with those. But, I would probably just have the Shaker and would kill for a the Viscous Vibe in mini form. I'd toss the Vortex and Corona off and put on a fuzz and another OD of some kind.

[macmurphy]

My current board. It changes every week/ 2 weeks due to me being an indecisive bugger.

pedals.jpg

Sorry for the dodgy photo - I quiver a bit.

Signal flow for those interested, Buffer > Peterson Tuner > Stone Deaf PDF 1 > Digitech Drop > Fredric Effects King of Klone > Time Travel Audio Vortex Phaser > TC Spark > Boss GE7 > ISP Decimator > TTA Salvador Delay > Line 6 M5 for reverb.

[SJ_Digriz]

It changes every week/ 2 weeks due to me being an indecisive bugger.

I would think that most of us swap pedals fairly regularly. I don't even do it on some kind of tone quest. Although working through tones is part of it. I just think its fun to mess with different stuff in different orders.

I regularly do things that people say "don't do x" all the time. In fact if I read "this didn't work", I'm pretty much compelled to try it myself and see what's up. Not that I'm a contrarian or anything

[PurpleCatfishBettie]

definitely messin' with the pedal chain quite a bit over here.

one thing i'd forgotten... how much fun it was to play with the high school's echoplex unit, and how some of these 'contemporary' delay pedals bring back memories of that. ah the 'simple' pleasures in life.

same thing with choruses, or drives/distortions/fuzzes. messing with those and remembering 'how it used to be', back in the '70s-'80s.

these past several years (or even couple of decades), i'd been 'in the box' so much, that the memory of using pedals had been lost. i think 'in the box' gives you a certain precision, but just messing with several pedals in real-time affords more 'happy accidents'.

anyway, pedal on!