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dorian
Copper Member
Canada
15 Posts |
 Posted - 02/20/2007 : 14:57:55
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I'm going to have 14 pedals on my pedal board one of them being an Mxr booster as with so many pedals i'll have to boost the signal,anybody else got a lot of pedals and any tips or advise on using so many?
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Dr. Bob
Moderator
Australia
6593 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2007 : 15:13:07
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Hi dorian
Ask StratoSphere, he has about 44 in his everyday setup.... 
44 divided by 14 = A lot of pedals.
Regards Dr. Bob  |
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Dirk
Platinum Member
Netherlands
1309 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2007 : 16:38:37
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Question is: do you really need all of 'em when playing with a band?
Whether one likes it or not, I found that usually less is more, and with too many pedals, you usually stray away from actual playing.
Decide for yourself off course, this is just my experience.
Btw, the LS-2, NS-2 or PSM-5 can help with switching multiple pedals at once if desired.
As for collecting, one can never have enough pedals  |
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StratoSphere
Double Platinum Member
Canada
2232 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2007 : 20:31:13
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playing live or jamming/band playing i would never use more than 3 pedals. theres a time for experimenting and theres a time to shut the hell up and play. trust me..the rest of the band doesnt want to be tripping over your gear or wait for you to change settings after every tune. not to mention the audience.
one other thing is the tone suckage. playing at low volume its unnoticed but i find that more than 3 pedals in your chain will start to take away from your sound at higher volumes.
on the other hand, when im playing at home, i like having EVERYTHING right in front of me ready to go.
dorian, a few small tips..
keeping everything tidy is key.
pedal order is crucial.
noise supression is important too especially when you have a larger arsenal.
and Dr Bob. i decided to bump out my 4th chain so im back to only 25 pedals in the bedroom setup.
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Basstyra
Gold Member
France
523 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2007 : 21:41:42
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| I have more than 150 pedals at home, but when I play, I just use my 2-channel amp + 3 pedals (TC Electronic Booster + Line Driver / Ibanez STL (overdrive) / DD-6 delay). |
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mattoqua
Silver Member
Canada
438 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2007 : 21:56:00
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I have 15 pedals in my setup, but thats just for casual playing. I dont play live, so ive never had to cut anything out, but I wouldnt bring them all. When I jam with some people, I use them all though, since its usually here and nothing special.
I ordered a PSM-5 to control everything though.
If I start to get really serious about playing, I would invest in a rack, and just have 2 or 3 pedals.
But collecting, of course theres never enough |
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zestystrat
Silver Member
USA
283 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2007 : 22:50:29
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I�ll throw in my $0.02 here�
Your collection vs. live rig are two different things. I have numerous pedals in my collection and 8 pedals in my live rig. Sometimes the fear of tone-suck looms large. Here are a few things I did to keep things manageable and less sucky:
If you are playing live and using a few pedals, get a pedal board � for a few reasons: ease of set up (open and plug in) protection and IMO it really cuts down on theft at gigs.
True bypass is a really good thing. Boss aren�t, so we�ll all have to deal with that � but when adding other boxes look for true bypass fx � or at the very least get a true bypass wha pedal. Spend the extra cash it will be worth it. Or you can set up a true bypass loop on your pedal board.
Let�s face it, there are days when we�d all like to have a dozen distortion pedals in front of us but the reality is if you don�t have a rodie you are in for a very long night at the club. Gear the board to the gig/band. Look for pedals that have a large sonic pallet, work the gtr volume knob and get really good at changing pedal knobs with your feet.
My live rig:
Boss TU-2
Maxon AF-9 (TBP)
Analog Man Bi-CompROSSor (TBP)
Budda Bud Wah (TBP)
Rat 2 (TBP) or Boss DS-1 Analog Man Pro mod
Boss SD-1 (Analog Man TS-808/Silver mod with symmetrical/asymmetrical clipping)
H&K Rotosphere MK II (TBP)
Boss DD-3
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Edited by - zestystrat on 02/20/2007 22:52:08 |
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RRV-10
Silver Member
Australia
246 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2007 : 23:27:30
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| I'd want some sort of switching system to cut most of them out of the chain when they're not being used. Simplest would be a "kill all" switch but it be cool to have the pedals grouped into loops, say a 'gain' loop, a modulation loop, or you could group them according to how often they're used and leave the most used pedals out of loops. There's plenty of sites that will show you how to build true bypass boxes - they're simple and cheap. |
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stratman
Silver Member
Australia
283 Posts |
Posted - 02/21/2007 : 01:54:00
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Hi dorian,
See the following thread for what I've done. About 1/2 way down the page. Works amazing for me...
http://www.bossarea.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1699&whichpage=5
Basically I've converted my pedalboard to include several true-bypass loops. Discussed in more detail in the thread. Pic included! Very quite and not much tone loss at all. |
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gurran1928
Gold Member
Sweden
650 Posts |
Posted - 02/21/2007 : 09:27:59
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| I want to have more pedales in my chain but I don't own that many cables.. :) |
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stratman
Silver Member
Australia
283 Posts |
Posted - 02/21/2007 : 09:30:46
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And the way I've done it requires a lot more cables than just a straight chain!
i.e. one proper cable for each input for each group and another for each output for each group. For my 4 x goups of 3 pedals... that's 8 cables and 8 couplers. Since I used the George L cables I could make them the exact size for what I needed. Also helps secure the pedals to the board. |
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ronster
Gold Member
Australia
645 Posts |
Posted - 02/21/2007 : 13:45:10
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I love playing with a heap of pedals at home but the noise is just unbearable! As suggested above you really would need a noise suppressor of some kind.
I usually use no more than 6 pedals playing live and if I tried really hard I could probably cut that to 3. I agree, simple it better at times.
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guirat
Silver Member
United Kingdom
186 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2007 : 00:14:53
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I've been trying to play guitar for many years now, but only recently became addicted to reading about effects pedals online, and I keep seeing references to 'True Bypass'.
It makes me wonder why did no manufacturers use it until recently - I imagine it's not rocket science and a brand new invention, or is it?, and secondly how did the great players of the past seem to do just fine without it? Maybe the big names used customised gear that was in effect 'True Bypass', but this term did not exist at the time?
Is the main reasoning behind it to allow you to use more pedals in series without sound degradation? This is probably not the right thread for this, it just seems people are all striving for a 'perfect' tone that will end up leaving everyone sounding the same, much as the processed 'Lukather' tone or whatever it was became the ultimate in the 80's. My old Selmer Amp (now sadly deceased) used to scare me witless by making pops & thumps of it's own accord, as if it was readying itself to deliver a nice 240V surge through the strings, but I would like to recapture that sort of old sound (maybe I just need another old Selmer...) I shouldn't complain, I'm probably just in another camp - 'lo-fi' I think they call it, and admittedly one that does not play live. |
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stratman
Silver Member
Australia
283 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2007 : 02:27:50
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With my setup there is no noise (well hardly any at all). It really is very quiet. All the loops are grounded properly so you don't get any of that hum.
The circuit I used is from the www.singlecoil.com website. Dirk was the guy there and he was a great help. Incidently he says on his site that he got help about the whole true-bypass subject/theory from Andreas (stinkfoot) so it's got to be right!!!
Both these guys seem to really know what they're talking about and are extremely helpful too. I urge you to check out the singecoil site for more info.
The reason the circuit is so quiet is explained on this site and he also goes into the buffer side of things. I'd rather not quote from this site here (although Dirk seems pretty cool with sharing this info, but just in case there's any sort of copyright issue...)
Anyway, if you want to know all about true-bypass and how you can use it in your own setup... PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE VISIT THIS SITE!!! |
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guirat
Silver Member
United Kingdom
186 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2007 : 04:23:45
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| I visited, the true-bypass-strip looks like a great project, thanks for the link and its info. I may be an old luddite but I can also see that if new better methods exist then it probably makes sense to use them. I'll get into trouble now for adding that any 'oldschool' noise could be added/removed by use of a suitable effects pedal - best of both worlds. I now also know how to pronounce Lehle |
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nibla
Bronze Member
France
131 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2007 : 12:01:13
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I love all my pedals but I never use more than 3 of them live, they are good for experimentations but I prefer to keep my tone simple...
It's more simple for me, because as a bass player you need less efects!
and I've found that even with a noise suppressor the spectrum was reduced...
Therefore, I'm fed up with the fact of having 12 power supplies or batteries, and my sound depending on them...
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Never enough pedals
