Pedalboards

If I was to run a lot of pedals how do you connect them upto a foot controller to make life easier? seen a few boards with loads of effects connected to like a several button foot switch

the finer points depend on what foot controller you buy and whether its midi or mechanical, but they always wind up in discrete true bypass or buffered loops

just the usual 1/4'' jacks? I don't even know anything about those, just seen them and interested by them. don't know which are good or anything haha

just the usual 1/4'' jacks?

yup... some are expensive midi 1/4" patchbay type racks with separate controllers like the Voodoo Lab GCX and ground control, other are fancy true bypass loopers that are all on the floor like the Carl Martin Octaswitch.

I think a lot of people who are into pedals find themselves saying, "I am going to get a ton of awesome effects and then they will inspire some amazing parts. I just need to build up and streamline a killer board!" That works for The Edge (at least in his mind). I always come up with a part and dig out effects if it needs something beyond what I'm doing with my hands and the gear I always rely on. The funny thing is, I LOVE effects pedals and rack processors, fiddling with knobs... but every variable you add makes gigging rougher and sometimes you get so out of hand you are taking away more than you are adding both from an electrical and musical standpoint. I like every idea to hold up well on acoustic guitar and/or piano. No frills. Reducing my options in my periodic pedal purges of the last decade has really sharpened my wits.

I don't really do that, I'll usually come up with a intro, verse, chorus and an interlude and then see if I think its missing anything or if I think it would sound better with effects. I know people who are like that though, but me I just want effects to expand on what I've done and add them where I feel necessary. like I find myself using my amps in built effects which sound pretty shitty to tell you the truth compared to good quality pedals. Overdrive is something I really need, I use overdrive more than I do distortion these days. I mainly want two distortions and a overdrive, a clean boost pedal and a few modulation effects. Don't really want more than I feel I need in all honesty. I know on my board theres a few effects I probably won't get to be honest.

I have been playing with just the clean channel and a DS-1 for a fair few years before getting a small clone because I love chorus. I can see what you mean though and I can see how eefects can start to take away from the music

I wasn't saying you are definitely an Edge kinda writer. Just philosophizing about pedal guys in general. But you don't have a tube amp of your own. Before planning your super pedalboard maybe consider putting all your beans into that perfect amp and seeing what it does for you with what you have. Spend awhile with the amp and a few core effects. Like only 1 of each type startung with what you use rehularly like the ds1. Play some gigs, ask your fiance how you sounded from the vack of the room at them... you get the idea. If you go the ac15 route its going to be a serious paradigm shift for you as far as overdrive goes. The amp provides a lot of subtle shades of not-so-clean at gig volumes. It slides into OD more subtley and earlier than a fender princeton or deluxe reverb because of its cathode bias scheme and higher gain. This what die hard fender guys have against voxes. The only fender that really behaves the same is the tweed deluxe. This is always why I stick with the ac30 even if 2 ioff mine have 1/2 power modes. When i need loud, punchy clean tone (not my usual sound) that doesn't break up when i dig in or i want a pedal platform i can use 30 watts. If the gig is huge i can take two 30 watters. Investing in more than 1 or 2 basic effects before getting a high performance amplifier is like eating a bowl full of gravy with no meat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF0xJyS6eSc

I built my own board using Velcro, some wood from B + Q, and duct tape.

I tried the homemade pedalboard route back before there were readily available boards in anything but plastic cases. It worked well. It was pretty small, I removed the backs from the pedals andbolted them onto the plywood by drilling some through holes and then using the back plate screws and some washers to mount the pedal directly. Defintiely the STURDIEST board ever for stomping. It was a simple layout so I powered it off my tuner which was plugged into a furman that was mounted underneath. My radial ABY was plugged directly into the power conditioner. I think that board only had the switcher, a TU2 and an MXR blue box though. I think I skipped the vintage small stone phaser because it had a funky power supply like all the old EHX effects do, as I built up a few more effects in new songs I just added them in on the floor because they were all vintage and ran on batteries only....

so I am not sure how the DIY method works for serious pedal junkies. I've seen guys do it. I guess if your time is not valuable to you it can be pretty cool. I found a small board to be as much work as I had time and patience to build.

For a while after my band broke up I was working as a sideman and I was using my strat, later my esquire and a gretsch duo jet for that gig. I wound up with a small effects setup that worked really well. I had a little plywood board with the footswitch to a TC G Sharp processor, a Korg Pitchblack tuner and a Catalinbread Hyperpak CMOS overdrive for a fuzzy lead boost velcroed down. I ran my HC30 clone into a marshall 4x10 into a hotplate knocking off 2dB and then used the lineout on the hotplate to feed the TC processor set to 100% wet into another marshall 4x10 driven by a solid state poweramp. My wet signal was only vibrato for a stereo chorus effect on arpeggios or slapback for the really contry numbers and I think I had a few patches with those effects as well as some spring or plate reverb simulation. But the pedalboard for that began as a homemade jobbie and then upgraded to a pedaltrain jr I think (we were supposed to fly to Nashville so I wanted something more airplane friendly.... funny thing is that gig and the subsequent tour then fell apart and my little pedaltrain got traded off not long after). That board was streamlined as heck but it did A LOT -- 2 buttons for the TC and a tap tempo for longer delays, tuner on/off and the OD for solos and stuff. If I had added one more dirt pedal that effects setup would have covered all bases, but even with just 1 effect out front of the amp it covered everything this adult contemporary and country singer needed me to do and then some. Throw in some tasteful bigsby use and I had a happy employer!

Both times I tried a pedaltrain I was not as happy with Velcro as I was bolting the pedals to plywood, but it was a fair trade off for the good flight case and a metal board with no give when you stomp aggressively. I definitely recall needing to reinforce some of my pedal boards. Also, nothing really beats going Kurt Cobain style and just laying your pedals out in front of the floor wedge however you feel most confortable and then gaff taping them to the stage. But it can be problematic if you need to set up and break down quickly. That's still my preferred way of handling things and maybe the reason why I like to keep it simple.

I remember this! I was going to go through making my own pedalboard... but then I found a Pedaltrain 1 with flight case at the Hollywood Guitar Centre for $40, albeit the case wasn't the new fancy tour case, and the it was falling apart so I had to superglue it together, but I couldn't be more happy the day I found such a deal.

Wow, that was one whole sentence. I bet that's a run-off.

your PT1 case is a hardcase and its coming apart?

Wrong one, PT-1 is the new version. This is the one I have:

https://reverb-res.cloudinary.com/image/upload/a_exif,c_limit,f_auto,fl_progressive,h_620,q_75,w_620/v1427396228/xp6bbrz7pj5pltssveo1.jpg

At the corners, there is a little seam that can pull apart to reveal the insider where the padding separate the board from the case itself. It was coming apart, so I superglued it. I know, my explanation may seem vague, but that's the only way I can describe it. When I got it, the corners had been duct taped to stay together.

I get it because that looks like the case my pedaltrains had... I never had an issue with them though.

I love how the vox does that but to tell you the truth that's less of my thing, I prefer to have a ton of headroom. I really like the ac15 mind you and it does clean up at those volumes by rolling of the guitar volume abit. I do love how it has that amazing creamy overdrive that vox are famous for. I do prefer Fender amps though, I like the Marshall DSL40c, youtube seems to make them sound really shitty though but in person they sound really nice but I'm not much of a Marshall guy really, I think I'm gunna have to try a voxac15c2, a Fender hot rod deluxe and a Marshall DSL40C and see what sounds the best to me at different volumes etc. I love the Fender drive and more drive, sounds so awesome to me, just something right up my street. I think when I have the money at the start of next year I'm going to sit down at a shop and try one after the other on my Ibanez or if my paul is finished on that. I love the spring reverb in the vox and the fender too. The vox tremolo is a nice touch too. hard to see which is best for me from youtube though to you the truth with out trying them for yourself.

With pedals I don't want to buy to many before getting an amp, what I'm going to get for the time being is a boost, an od and a distortion to phase out the ds-1 because im board of my ds-1 after all these years of using it

Speaking of, I thought about this as well. The thing with our band is that we're all pretty low budget and the church puts its money in different areas, music not being too much of a priority as it's OK now. Our tech knows we have to run direct for lack of good amps, so he has this virtual amp thing on his computer that he runs it through.]

I figure, if I have my pedals running through that, maybe I'm good for now until I have the money for a good amp?

sure... I mean, its church music, I would think God will be happy that you are playing for him at all

and wouldn't Jesus want you to give your gear budget to the poor?

You're referring to Matthew 19:21, which basically said perfection lies in those who give away their possessions to the poor and follow Jesus.

Personally, I think that that was a simpler time. It would've been easier to do so judging by the miracles he conducted, like with the bread and fish. But now, things are different. Jesus is not around to follow, and miracles don't happen the same way. We all do wrong, and because of that, perfection is impossible.

I'm not an expert in the field, I just spill out what I know so far and what I believe. After all, part of being a Christian is interpretation. Probably why Muslim extremists exist, why the Crusades occur, why Thérèse of Lisieux lives the way she does, etc.

An now, a short tangent point: Don't paste a name on all Christains because not all are the same!

Rant over.

actually, though the Roman Empire was a more agrarian culture than our modern society the Roman world was not so different from our own otherwise... definitely not simpler

I'm not trying to hold devout Christians to Jesus' principles as I seemed to interpret them here, just having a little fun. Who knows what Jesus was getting at or if Matthew and the other evangelists reported it correctly writing from at least a full generation's remove. Heck, there's no documentary evidence for JC's very existence for that matter and some of the details surrounding his birth are unprovable or downright inaccurate when you look at Augustan sources regarding that census. Not to mention the fact that Josephus and other Jewish contemporary historians fail to mention Herod the Great' slaughter of the innocents (and given even Josephus' scathing criticism of Herod's reign it seems improbable he would have failed to mention the wholesale slaughter of male newborns), but I digress. We pretty much can all agree on some sort of historical character names Jeshua ben Joseph who did some stuff and said some stuff that really resonated with Europeans, near easterners and even some Africans back then. As long as modern people are taking something fulfilling from it that is working for them and they aren't bothering anyone else its a cool thing.

As narcist has pointed out that is I guess, a way you could take the story of the rich young man, however, Jesus told him to discard his possessions as they were becoming a barrier between him, and God, and was hindering their relationship.

If we are using that money (So maybe a worship budget) for the honour of God, and to develop ours, and others relationships with him, then it is allowed.

But then you need to make sure you don't go over the top. Down South there's a church a friend of mine went to once, called Christchurch Bristol, and as much as they put their heart, and soul into worship, having a full set pf brass, strings, and all sorts, as well as the ususal Guitar, Bass, Keyboards and Drums, is a bit mad Ted. If you're spending more time orchestrating, and working on the music than the worship you need to rethink what's going on.

Hey it's really cool that your a Christian as well. Might slightly help my case next time my Mum, has a go at me for using forums. It's encouraging to know that there are guitarists out there in places, that aren't just opinionated atheists, that constantly take the piss. I don't really know of a nice way to say, it's not your problem, or your responsibility to fix/unconvert us.

coughGlenn FrickerCough

I believe St Paul was quite clear that all you need to honor god is to believe and pray and that all you need to make a congregation is a pair of devout Christians..... but I could be all outta whack here since I am not religious and haven't read anything ecclesiastical since I was young. I was just tweakin' noses because its fun. No harm meant :-)

everyone should follow their muse and do whatever brings them fulfilment