Hello all!
Rather than write another smug blog post today, I thought I'd post my most recent pedalboard photo, with a little explanation of my rig as of now. Like many silly people, I used to tote around a much larger board than needed, complete with a multi FX spaceship for wiggly underwater sounds. But I've learned, the more crap you bring with you the more things can go wrong. I will leave those topics for future posts, I digress. Feel free to chime in with any recommendations,tips, or lessons learned!
I made it a point about a year ago to buy a PT Jr. with the intention of never going larger than the space the Jr. would allow. This way, I had to truly decide if I was actually using something or not, and if it was really worth bringing to a gig. 95% of the time my signal chain is solely Tuner>Octafuzz>RC Booster>DM3. The Octafuzz may get swapped for my Tall Font Russian (Green Muff clone) if I'm feeling a little more "muffy" on a given day, but it is a rare occurrence. I've been through a number of pedals throughout my musical career, so I used to have quite a habit of constantly swapping things out. The reason why these four pedals have stuck is because they sound good no matter which axe I'm playing. It may sound obvious or silly, but if you haven't figured it out, some pedals sound like total crap with guitar X, but sounds spectacular with guitar Y. Being a minimalist, I don't want to have to tote 3 extra overdrive pedals around because each one only sounds good with one guitars. I will now provide you with a quick synopsis of how I use them in my rig, in the order of the signal flow. I play a Tele, Gibson 339, Jaguar, Baritone Tele, and a Guild S-100. I run everything through an Orange Rockerverb 50, using both channels. EQ fairly flat with a slight mid boost. Clean is clean. Dirty channel is a little past the point of breakup. Sometimes (but rarely) I run in stereo with an AC30, set to a similar sound to the Dirty Orange channel. Volume knob to clean up.
Tuner: I have no brand preference on this. As long as it works, and doesn't suck my signal dry it works for me. I much prefer a tuner that has a "Strobe" feature, which is a more accurate way to tune. The "Poly" function on this tuner is nice, but I don't use it often. However, I've been in a situation where I know I'm out of tune, have four seconds to figure out which string is unruly, and fix it before a lead phrase comes up. I will say that using the "Poly" function as your sole tuning method is not a good idea. Even though I've had everything "in tune", it clearly wasn't the case.
Moog Murf: I can't really even describe in words what this pedal does. Long story short, each of those sliders is a different filter and you can select 12 different patterns for the filters. By flipping the LFO switch, you can reverse the pattern that you have selected. I use this as my "modulation" on my board. I can get a cool choppy tremolo, phasery/vibey swirly sounds, and arpeggiator-esque sounds (minus pitch modulation). To be honest, it doesn't really do any of those in a "traditional sense" and that's why I love it. It has a "Drive" knob so you can add some analog distortion to the sounds to make them even weirder. I have no quarrel with bending over and changing the settings on a pedal, so I don't need a modulation spaceship with presets. There really aren't any good videos that do this pedal justice out right now. I hope to maybe make one someday (but it'll never happen). This is the best one, which actually wasn't released very long ago by Moog themselves. Just wait for the Murf segment to hear it. I do also have a Moog Ring Mod that I love dearly and sometimes that will replace the Murf on the board. The Moog pedals have built in buffers so I have it at the beginning of my board, and the DM3's buffer at the end of the board.
Micro POG: Here's another weird pedal. I actually use it quite a bit, and it tracks quite well. The POG stuff is discussed quite a bit so I won't get into much detail. I primarily use it for a Bass Octave, Octave up-esque sound, and B3 organ when combined with the Murf. I never run the octave settings past 1 or 2 o' clock because it can start sounding a bit cheesy. I used to have both a HOG and a POG2, but I settled on the Micro POG for my needs. The HOG was just way too weird. The POG2 was nice, but it was way too large, and I was really only using it for stuff the Micro POG could cover. It's a good way to catch someone's attention with a lick. It's also not like a Whammy or even the HOG where you write a song around a lick you made with this pedal. You can actually turn it on and it sounds cool just over some playing. I like to play Leo Nocentelli (The Meters) riffs with this.
Ghost Echo: I own an EHX Cathedral that I was using fairly regularly. But since it's such a large pedal and it can suck some signal, I've been starting to experiment with this Eartquaker reverb. I normally put a reverb at the end of my chain, but this unit doesn't have much headroom so I have to put it before my boosts. I don't use much reverb, but I don't like walking over to the amp to turn it up or down. It's pretty extreme, so I keep the settings low. Like it's name implies it has some slapback qualities if you dial it in right. You could probably use it as a really short delay if you wanted. I have been enjoying it, so it'll stay (for now).
Octafuzz: I actually rarely use the "Octa" setting on the toggle switch. The "Fuzz" is just nasty. Mike Fuller could seriously just make the "Fuzz" side of this pedal and I would buy it. It sounds HUGE into the clean channel of my Orange. You can also get this really fantastic gated sound into the dirty channel. I love this fuzz because it sounds epic whether I'm using single coils or humbuckers. It's the first fuzz I found that works well with both types of pickups without farting out with the other. Can't say enough good things.
RC Booster: I've gotten further and further away from overdrives and much more into clean boosts. I love the sound of my amp, so why the hell would I want it to sound like something else? The RC is the first real "transparent" boost I've fallen in love with. I'm sorry Paul C., the Timmy sounds pretty good, but just isn't "transparent" compared to this. My Klon now sits on the shelf collecting dust since I've gotten this. It seems to fatten things up in all the right places without adding a Mid-hump that most do. It does add some slight Treble frequencies, but that's what the Shelf EQ is for! The Shelf is probably my favorite feature about this boost. My Gibson can be a bit boomy, so I like to roll back the Bass and give it a touch of Treble. With my Tele, I roll off some of the harsh Treble, and some of the boominess of the neck pickup by rolling the Bass back a hair. I can't say enough great things about this. I've even considered getting a second.
DM3: Like many of you, I love delays. But this IS my favorite delay. Hands down, no questions asked. I own the Moog delay, DL4, DMM and I've owned/tried dozens more and this is it for me. I had tried a DM2 before and always wanted one, but I was really skeptical of the shorter delay time. After a good friend let me try his I had to get one. Like with my PT Jr., being limited really allows me to get creative with my delays (long delays are overrated anyways). The slapback is superb. You can also do some pretty insane indie-rocker stuff with it. I won't say anymore, I love this thing.
Well there it is. There are a handful of runner ups, but those four aren't going anywhere in the foreseeable future. I power everything with a mounted PP2+. I use some nice Fender patch cables I got for a good price too. I try not to get hung up on the small stuff like cables. Please don't misjudge, other pedals are great. This is just what has worked best for me.
- Stonewall
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