Guitar Effects Pedal Whore

Now that I’m playing a clean amp, I’m coming to depend on effects pedals for tonal changes. I’m really starting to discover the difference between pedals and boutique pedals. Yes I know this sounds snobby and others will disagree but the difference between £25 and a £400 drive pedal is amazing. The tonal quality, the buffers, the bypasses everything is just a light year better  (I’m sure there are exceptions to the rule) I first noticed this when I had a Boss BD2 pedal, its a nice pedal no question, I took a gamble and bought a Keeley modified Boss BD2. The difference is amazing, such a fuller sound, more range and better overall. If you’re playing a crappy or well driven amps I don’t think you notice it, but if your playing a good quality clean amp, it really matters.

I’ve really noticed the difference between a vintage Boss CE2 chorus – which at the time was mass produced and todays CE2 and CE3 pedals. Then we up the game to the more boutique market. I’m finding I’m turning into a real brand snob, depending on the likes of Robert Keeley, Analogman, Klon, Bob Sweet, Rogery Mayer and Mad Professor. That’s not to say others are not good, but I’m just really starting to appreciate the quality put into the higher priced kit.

I’m trying to find a smokey tubeless overdrive pedal at the moment and I’m on the waiting list for an Analogman king of tone version 4.

If you think I’m a gear snob, that’s fine, there is an element of truth in that, however if you read what I’m saying I think it’s worth trying a few of the higherend pedals and see if it makes a difference to your sound and the way you play. It certainly has done for me.

Pedals & Effect Layout

If you’ve read any of my posts since this blog started you’ll find I’ve gone through major setup change for my guitar sound. One of the biggest differences is how I use pedals. My main pedal requirements are different drive and gain pedals, I’m playing with a lot of variations on drive/fuzz/gain/boost pedals which give me both different sounds and variations while allowing my under lying tone to remain the same, due to not coming close to saturation any more.

As a result my pedal board has really stripped back to a few drive pedals and a boost pedal which is great for plugin and go type approach. I get the variations I want, however the sound is still the same root sound. This works well for me, but I’m also looking to vary things up sometimes. I’d like to have a more full sound option at my disposal, sometimes adding a little delay, univibe, chorus, tremolo, octavia style effects, would really work well. When recording this is fine as you can setup the pedals in the chain you want and record. When playing live this is a problem as you’ll either end up with a huge pedal board, with a controller like the gigrig device or doing a crazy tap dance with looper pedals. It’s also limiting as once you’ve used a pedal once, you can’t use it again on your board. I’m looking into building a midi-switched pedal based effects setup. This involves back lining all my pedals into a case by the amp, passing each pedal through a relay based switcher, programming the switcher with “patches” which can be a one pedal patch, or a combination of multiple pedals. The control of the signal chain through the switcher is done by a midi based foot controller.

Not my pedal board, thank God. This is how it can get though

Daniel and Sarah at The Gig Rig have been exceptionally helpful in providing information of how the Gig Rig pro 14 can be used as a midi controller. This is now allowing me to look for programmable relay based switching units. It has to be a programmable unit as the gig rig is a dumb controller, and it has to be relay based as this will keep the signal path clean. This is my first toe in the water for midi based pedal switching, the last midi unit I used was a rack based effects unit and it was poor, it put me off midi units for a long time. I’m also looking at a Custom Audio Electronics RS10 midi foot controller. This is pretty much the top end industry foot controller, with a little more brains under the hood, however it does come with a price tag to match another gig rig pro 14 controller, so if possible I’d like to not spend that money again. I’ll keep this blog updated with my midi back line pedal setup as it progresses. Input and comments welcome on this.

Fender Blues Deville – work on your tubes

I dug out my Fender Blues Deville amp the other day and played it on what I thought was full in the middle of my living room expecting the walls to come down, I was quite surprised to discover that a loud fart was the best sound I’d get out of this. This all opened a door for me to try some stuff Ive wanted to try for a while since reading and learning a little more from others how important tubes are to amps. A few discussions from my trusty amp tech at Tipton Amps and a little reading up from people at Music Radar  and decided to work with some different tubes. A visit to HotRox and Tube Amp Doctor later, some cash has been splashed and time has fast forward I have  new set of tubes and my spare set of Fender badged tubes.

My new tube array

This little bundle included a 6L6WGC-STR GE-Style black-plate premium matched pair and TAD 7025 highgrade selected valve pack from Tube Amp Doctor, some gold series 12AV7′s from Groove Tubes, and gold and black model 12AY7′s from Electro Harmonix, as well as the Fender branded (Groove Tubes I believe) Red valves. I first put the Fender Red’s in as a straight swap out, the volume came back and all was well, however I wanted to experiment. I normally do a slight mod swapping out the first pre-amp tube from a Electro Hamronix 12AY7, this really cleans up the clean sound and gives a lot more head room, it also warms up the sound a little for me. Instead of the 12AY7, I tried the groove tubes 12AV7, this warmed the amp sound up compared to the Fender tubes, and certainly gave more headroom, but the clipping it gave was a little harsher than the 12AV7′s. My next plan was to remove the second pre-amp tube and again replace it with a groove tube. This was done and it really made a positive different, cleaned up the sound massivly, and removed the clipping almost totally, but then when I drove the amp harder I got the clipping back, but it was much better much more full, but also still a little mid/tinny, almost like a cheap distortion pedal for the mid’s sound. Groove tubes to one side, I dumped in the Electro Harmonix black 12AY7′s in place of the two groove tubes, ahhh that’s more like it much much nicer, fuller sound, much deeper clean, warmer, and the clipping is very natural, I really had to drive the amp to get it to break up too. Very pleased with this, on my Blues Deluxe I use the Electro Harmonix gold 12AY7′s, as I’ve said on this blog before, I think I can hear a difference in them, slightly smoother, dropping out the mid and high end a little, and softening the bass side a bit, now that said I only think I can hear that, in that I’m looking for something different becaue thse are supposed to be different. I dumped the golds in and was happier with them, either because I’m nuts, or there is a slightly different sound to them. Now for more experimentation, for the phase valve I dropped the Fender out and put in the TAD 7025 not much different in terms of tone, but it really opened up the sound, made it sound a little louder and the speakers rang out so happy with that too. Now the big boys, the plan is to give myself so much clean head room that the pre-amp valves don’t muddy the sound, the power amp tubes do, so I dumped the Fenders again, and used the TAD 6L6WGC-STR’s. Perfect, it’s like a new amp, I’ve got a great clean Fender sounding amp, that I can drive really hard, and when it dirtys I’ve got a really natural and full driven sound that’s pretty much all created from the power amp, rather than pre amp. I’ve still got a few glitches with this amp which will require amp tech touches, such as the drive channel is slightly louder than the clean (never use the drive channel so it’s not a big deal, but I’d like to know if there is a problem) and as I’ve not used this amp for a while I want it to have a good good service

Reminder for myself what valves go where

Pink1 and 002BA Progress

Project Pink1 and 002BA (details on oo1BA here ) are underway. If you are aware of what the “black1″ is then this will make more sense to you. I made a prototype strat a while ago out of an old (80′s) Fender USA strabody and 40′th aniversay strat neck, with some custom wound pickups from Bare Knuckle Pickups. The project was to make a less harsh strat and experiment a little with sounds, setups and playability on the strat. it was a big sucess to me, and my guitar tech really liked it too as a strat, different from the norm and very playable. Taking what I learnt from that, with a bit more thought I decided to make a next generation model which for reasons which will become clear in a minute is called “pink1″. A big part of the features of the prototype partsocaster nick named MDJM was based on a sound from John Mayer’s custom shop stratocaster “black1″, and some of the parts for pink one have been taken from a John Mayer signature strat, in this case the neck. I pickedup a John Mayer 2009 Fender signature stratocaster neck for a snippet of the price, which has a nice C shape profile which I like on it. It’s currently had the laquer removed from it which I now do as a matter of personal taste, despite the think satin laquer on it. This neck has a nice African Rosewood board on it and the longer string tree placement, so should suit me perfectly and fix a few of the issues I had with the MDJM. The body has been found from a another 1982 alder stratocaster body which is a great lump of wood, and I’ve found a 1972 USA Fender trem unit. That’s where that currently sits at the moment.

001BA was a telecater project I wanted to build, initially I wanted it to come direct from Fender, or even the custom shop, but from what I wanted (telecater with a minibucker neck pickup and rosewood board) didn’t exist from Fender, and the custom shop price for these minor alternations was crazy high.   002BA is another telecater project in the same style, I wanted a slightly different sounding telecater and found the La Cabronita telecaster from the Fender custom shop, however this is £5000, and for what it is, well, it’s a lot of money. Plus I wanted a two pickup version rather than their standard one, so 002BA will be my own take on a custom shop telecaster and it certainly won’t cost £5000. Wroking with a luthier we’ve selected body wood (alder) and working out some template patterns for shape and layout. It’s very early yet, but it is moving.