Elliott Gruenberg

In the video "Blessthefall - GEAR MASTERS Ep. 6" on Digital Tour Bus, Elliott Gruenberg discusses his use of the Musicom LAB / EFX MK-III PLUS pedal at the 5:45 mark.

“I think I’ve had that for seven years, and it’s my oldest pedal. I’ve been contemplating buying a new one. I’ll run that, and then the signal goes back into the front of the head from there. Then I have effects in the effects loop.”

“This is my favourite Tube Screamer-type pedal. This is the dream one I always wanted – either this, or the Fulltone OCD. This one is used by Killswitch and As I Lay Dying – many bands in that kind of vein were advocating it.

“Great saturation, it’s awesome and it makes your pinching sound great. The tone is pretty much in the middle, and I balance the gain from the actual head with the pedal, so it’s not too much.”

“Pretty standard – I had a TC Electronic PolyTune for a while, but I found in a live setting when I’d strum open, it didn’t always get it. And it can only go so many semitones [down] before it loses frequency, so I went back to the TU-3 just because it’s easier.”

“It’s one of my favourite delays. I went between this, a [MXR] Carbon Copy and a TC Nova Delay. I love the Carbon Copy for what it does, and the Nova Delay is great, Eric runs that. But the DD-20 is just easy and user-friendly. It’s the iPhone of pedals.

“I keep that pretty standard, and on this tour, I’ve kept it on the tap tempo. There have been times before when I’d go through and bank everything, adjusting the effects levels, but I find it varies according to the rooms we’re playing sometimes. It can be subjective to what sounds good in our practice space, and whatever venue we’re playing.

“There’s leads I’ll use it on, but on the new record there’s lots of pretty swells, lots of parts to complement our sound so it’s not so dry. Even when we do our older songs, I try to put it on when I’m playing things like octaves, so it’s not so abrasive. That’s why we use passive pickups, too.”

“This is the newest pedal I’m running. I used to run the Holy Grail, but Eric’s using mine right now. He had this one originally. They’re a bit fragile, but they’re great, and they sound good. Lee [Malia] from Bring Me the Horizon is the one that sold me on it. I feel like I’m on Logic with it, and I pull up all my reverb plugins with it.”

“I think this is the most important pedal I have, because this is what will sculpt the tone. For my sound, I boost the bass a little bit, the lower tones, then I bring it up a little towards the mids so it gets a little of that high saturation. Then I just run that to the return of the amp.

“It can be a volume booster if you want it to be, but whatever rig I ever play, I’ll probably always try to run an EQ on it. You can hear where the bad things are, and just cut them out. You’re saving the sound guy some time by doing it.

“I find that a lot of times with high gain, once you get to saturation you’re really in a battle to hear notes – and you want it to be clear and crisp. This thing definitely helps sculpt the tone. I remember when I brought this to Eric and I said, ‘Listen, we need to run these’ and it just kind of changed the game for us.”

See him talking about this pedal he owns at 4:59

See this pedal at 6:05

See this pedal at 6:10

See this rack at 7:28

Elliot talks about his JST and how he uses it throughout the entire video.

In the official studio video for Bottomfeeder, from BTF's third album Awakening, on Fearless Records' YouTube account, and in several timestamps, Elliott can be seen playing a Gibson Les Paul Standard 60s in Ebony.

At 7:18 he reveals his use of a 5153 amp

At 4:56 in front of his pedalboard is the 5150 channel switcher.