Help me plan my pedal board

no, I don't think GUITARS sound okay with hughes and kettner amps, but that's me

most of their current offerings are full of innovations geared at metal guys and they favor super high gain tones at the expense of a decent clean sound... I have also seen more broken tri-amps on the road than any other amp but the JCM2000 series (they just don't build 'em like they used to, but they sure do pack them full of pointless gizmos you would not miss if they were not there)

although the puretone by H&K is okay... if you are looking at a puretone its a good amp with a nice vintage Marshall on steroids sound.... never seen one broken either

others will disagree, but I just find H&K to be europe's mesa... jamming all those options onto a small amp chassis is just asking for reliability issues... also, even a simple bright switch will have an effect on tone even when n bypass (its got plenty of extra wires to act as an attenna and to add capacitance, put enough voicing switches and you are trading some of your signal for bells and whistles), so adding lots of potentiometers and switches to make the amp super versatile is always taking something away (this is my complaint with the ampeg V series amps thata re being discussed in another thread).... channel switching is a tone suck too, don't let anyone tell you otherwise... only the best engineers seem to design around it effectively and a Soldano or Tone King is an expensive buy in... I have NEVER been knocked out by the H&K stuff. Its all 'okay'. Those amps sit tonally in the Soldano camp of high gain, but are not made as well and it doesn't sound as good as a result.

I think if I had to build a rig from 'almost' scratch like you are doing and I already had a tubescreamer I would just get a silverface deluxe reverb. I relied primarily on a 60s Princeton reverb and pedals through a lot of the 90s and was never disappointed by the tone. Not the sound I was shooting for, but I always sounded good and was seldom too loud (though the deluxe would give you somewhere to go when you needed more power, whereas a Princeton is pretty limited in the volume department fr larger gigs where they are not putting the amps through the PA, that came up back then, but it might not now... things are so different at venues today). A good deluxe reverb (1980 or earlier) will serve you until you are old and grey and will deliver a lot of great classic rock tones from spanky 60s clean to Cheap Trick dirt and when you add the tubescreamer you can get SRV tones with a strat. It will also NEVER break and seldom need much in the way of routine service as long as you stick with JJ output tubes. Fenders just keep running and running. Old deluxes can be pricey though, so if you can tolerate more wattage I recommend the blackface bandmaster which is still a real sleeper and can be regular had for 600 USD or less. Maybe a bit more with the matching 2x12. I ahd one of those for a while and it was a killer American amp still running on all its original parts from '66. A little ahrder to overload at tolerable volumes, but even more of a champ with pedals than even a Princeton or deluxe, The bandmaster just inhales drives and delays. Fender heads from the 60s are still a vintage bargain for how great they all sound and how indestructible they are.

If I were you and I were going to abandon all ym current gear and start over I would probably get a Marshall 18 or 20 watt clone, a Vox handwired ac15 or 30 or maybe a Marshall Studio 15 from the 80s if I could find one for less than a grand (it happens, the Studio that I ahd was marked at $600 when I got it and I traded a Maestro fuzztone form the 60s for it flat out... but I sold it on ebay for almost a grand, so YMMV)

Thnx

that's just my .02, but I've owned and worked on a lot of amps and I have a pretty nice guitar sound by most people's estimation (though some of it is my guitars and some of it is my 25 years of playing experience), so you may or may not want to put what I've said in reply to you (and in other threads about getting a 1st serious amplifier) in the background

an old fender is a pretty good place to start looking for YOUR sound if you aren't going to start off trying to cop someone else's tone.... black and silverface fenders made from '63 thru '80 or 81 are a nice, reliable line of amps that provides a fairly neutral start point by guitar standards:

clean, but not too clean

punchy and percussive, but not overly so

bright, but not piercingly bright

made in huge numbers for almost 20 years, so there are plenty of them to go around (although in silverface I would stick with princetons, deluxe reverbs and bandmaster REVERB heads... pretty much everything else is better in blackface, though even if you go with one of the less desireable silverfaced amps, they still sound pretty decent compared to a lot of what's out there today... just stay away from Twins and other 4 power tube fenders, the 80+ watt vintage fenders from 1960 on are really loud and clean and utterly worthless for home use)

AND SUPER RELIABLE

Well, as for planning, you've a pretty simple set up. Get your massive board. Zip-tie (or whichever method) on under-side of the board. That Fly Rig should go bottom left side. If there's any remaining space, drop your volume on the bottom-right side to take up the space and ease of use. HOWEVER, if you're not going to use your volume frequently, but you use your Whammy quite frequently AND you have the space, you could drop the Whammy snug next to the Fly Rig. Tuner should go right above it. Because you're using a Waza Craft version, go straight into the tuner, then into your volume. The rest... not my department. Ricochet can fit basically anywhere.

Edit: Wait, did you even buy your equipment yet?!

Edit: Dammit, I misinterpreted this thread. Anyways, you got a free pedalboard plan by me. \m/

I ended up deciding on not getting that whammy. I think the ricochet will work with it enough. I don't play Tool a whole lot anymore anyway. I won't buy this stuff until September about, when I get my student loans in.

the ricochet looks really fun! especially since I suck at wah-type rockers being an inveterate foot-tapping, stage dancing type of player. My expression pedal work is too boring and on-beat to be interesting as I just can't keep my feet from keeping time perfectly. Maybe you have the same issue too.... I think playing bass for hire made me all rhythmic like this, when I sued to play bass I always ahd to keep my whole body in the groove if I wanted to lead the rhythm section effectively.

You should get a smaller board, then. That Classic Pro is too massive to fit such few pedals. You have five rails when you're probably only going to use three. A Metro 24 would work out great with only three rails but plenty of width. Or a Classic 2 with a fourth rail to fit more on the top rail in case you want to add more pedals.

Mmmm thanks!

...it's better to save up and buy the expensive thing you know you want and will like VS...>

I couldn't agree more. In the same vein I've the mistake of going for the thing that it attainable now, VS having the patience of waiting for the thing I really want.

I'm planning on a pedal board so trying to be as methodical and patient as possible. The planning, dare I say, the dreaming is half the fun.

Good topic.

I have the money for a Kemper now, but I just cannot do it. It would cost 1200 for me to get the pedalboard I planned out and this board would allow me to do a lot. Pitch shifting, drop tunings without actually messing with my tuning pegs, chorus, synth sounds, delay (I've never used delay before), and compression. The Kemper; however, is so much amp in such a small package. I stared at the Kemper for hours before assuming that it would NOT be able to replicate delay or pitch shifting.

I feel like a failure for some reason. It's hard to describe beyond that. I was looking towards a Kemper for so long and to go a different route now feels like I'm doing something deceitful.

how good does your delay need to sound as a bassist? You're not going to lean on it like The Edge....

try the Kemper, I'll bet something that pricey has a 7 day return policy or better

I ended up buying another Spector. I found an amazing deal for a Euro 5 LX in great condition and ended up saving 1400 off of it.

I tried to come up with an order that would make sense from a tonal perspective as well as a synergy/make it pretty stance. What do ya'll think?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v321/KaiNHooD/Booms%20Board.jpg

if you're only using the noise gating on the theta then why not just get a decimator?

and what on earth do you need a noise gate for? there's hardly anything in your rig to generate noise.

I think you could just dump the theta and go simpler and be just as happy.

I have the Theta sitting around. I like having rigs that can switch between bass and guitar as well. If I need a ton of crunch, the Theta will be there. It's just a really expensive pedal that noone wants to buy and I'm stuck with, so I figured why not use the noise gate.

On this setup, I already own the TU-3 and Theta.

I figured I would save some cash and avoid getting the Delay for now as well. I have an Old digitech BP-200 that I believe could give it to me if I NEEDED it.

hahaha, I guess use it if you are stuck with it

or wait, how much do you want for it? I can't imagine using it for guitar with my collection of guitar gear, but I am always looking for new gadgets to use to treat my outboard synthesizers prior to pressing record (there's a different feel to effects that are 'part of the sound' when you're playing a keyboard or tweaking knobs while a sequence plays versus stuff applied later in a DAW even if the results are pretty similar to what you get adding distortion or whatever at mix down because you aren't going to be able to change a recorded part to take advantage of an effect unless you do it by editing, whereas at the tracking phase you might play an extra note or get more extreme with that filter cutoff knob and pitch wheel)...

I haven't been planning on buying more gear for awhile because I bought a lot lately, but if the price makes sense to me I might be interested in the theta

I offered a friend of mine $250 to take it. That's over 100 off and the pedal is practically unused.

high for a modern pedal that's mainly gain-based effects, but it sure does a lot of sound shaping.... hmmm

I'm going to mull that over for a day or two and see if the local music chains have one I can try on some different isntruments.

at 350 retail it really ought to arrange my songs for me....

does it accept MIDI program change messages or allow for MIDI control of any knob functions? I want to think its a MIDI controllable preamp for some reason that at least allows real time MIDI patch changes

I'm not knowledgeable on that front. I would think so because there are 2 extra jacks in the back.

http://www.sweetwater.com/images/closeup/750-ThetaPreamp_detail4.jpg

nope, I'm wrong.... its not MIDI controlled... must be a different ISP product I am thinking of!

In that case I can't justify spending $250 on a glorified distortion pedal. Thanks though Boom.