Pedals

I used to have a comparatively big pedalboard in the rehearsal space: the original Pedaltrain-2. I got it in order to have space for my wah and volume, which I soon got rid of. Then I eventually concluded that out of the seven pedals I had on there (not counting the tuner), I was mostly using two, at the very most four. Therefore I decided to swap the -2 for a Nano+, and it's been perfect ever since. Should I want another pedal, there'll be a tough decision on which of the existing ones has to come off. That keeps me from getting tons of stuff I don't need.

Switching over to the small board meant that I had to substitute all of my patch cables for the ones from EBS, with the flat heads. That was worth the money and then some. I had tremendous issues with the expensive and supposedly "good" cables, but I have thus far never had the slightest problem with the stuff from EBS. Also, not really shown in the picture is the Cioks DC5 power supply. It has worked consistently for years, supplying clean and quiet power to my pedals. I discovered the hard way that there is a great deal of truth to what the experts say about patch cables and power supplies. It is better to invest in the good stuff straight away than incrementally work your way towards it. I would even go so far as so claim that it is better to have cheap pedals with good power than the other way around.

I have my thoughts on the proper pedal order, but they don't really apply in the case of my own board, since I basically never use two at a time anyway. If it were a serious option, I'd run the chorus and delay through my effects loop, just to get that cleaner sound out of them. The phaser works better before distortion in my opinion. As it is, I keep the pedals in this order just because Boss pedals don't really play nice with others. It'd be a serious challenge to try to find an MXR between two Bosses.

TC Electronic Polytune 3

There is no substitute for a tuner pedal. I will not gig without one. Clip-ons work fine at home, but live they have been a source of perpetual frustration. As for brands, I am pretty agnostic. I got this Polytune because my store happened to have it in stock when I went shopping for a tuner. I was looking for the Korg Pitchblack for no other reason than that I've used Korg tuners in the past and I have been very satisfied with them. The most important thing in my opinion is that all my tuners agree with each other, which has not been my experience in the past. I have never been able to get the Polytune feature to work as advertised, so the first thing I do is always to deactivate it.

MXR Phase 90

Your common-or-garden-variety modern block-logo M101 phaser that you can get anywhere except maybe the pharmacy. It has been one of my mainstays for more than 10 years, and I actually couldn't imagine putting together a pedalboard without it. Phaser is such a versatile effect, that can add some nice swirl and 3D quality to a distorted line, some psychedelic spin on a clean tone, and even do duty as an ersatz wah if I keep the rate up. I usually leave it set around 9 o'clock unless I really feel like doing something wild. I like MXR's stuff because it is easy to dial and sounds really good. There is something to be said about the simplicity of a one-knob interface.

Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive (/Ibanez Tube Screamer Mini)

Running an overdrive pedal to focus the low end and add a bit of extra drive does give my heavy sound a firm kick in the pants. Yet I find that it usually doesn't need that extra something; the amp tone is fine as it is. Therefore I reserve the drive pedal for solos. I have tried countless overdrives, but it wasn’t until I got around to the bog-standard Boss SD-1 that I suddenly hit upon the secret sauce. As a solo boost, it is the best overdrive I have ever tried. There is something about it that no other boost or OD has been able to get me. I actually find myself increasingly preferring it to the Tube Screamer even for those tight metal rhythm sounds. But I’ll keep the Screamer around just in case I should ever change my mind.

Boss CE-5 Chorus Ensemble

This is the fifth chorus pedal that I've owned. My favorite effect? It's more that I cannot decide if I really like it or not, and I am currently experimenting with keeping it the hell away from my clean sound and just adding it to fatten up my heavy sound. That's why this is the Boss CE-5 and not the MXR Analog—the latter was unfortunately way too noisy to put into a distorted amp. I figured I couldn't go wrong with a Boss and this one had the same control layout as the MXR, enabling me to dial out a bit of the treble. As for clean modulation, read on:

MXR Carbon Copy Analog Delay

The Carbon Copy is a great delay pedal, with a full 600 milliseconds of delay time available. I would recommend it on that strength alone. The feature that really sets it apart from just about anything else I've owned or tried, however, is the modulation function. At first I didn't use it, because it made me seasick. Then I tried dialing back the rate and depth of the modulation via the internal trim pots, and the pedal instantly became my no. 1 desert-island effect. If I could have just one pedal, this would be it. It is the only pedal that has inspired me to sit around and play with a clean sound for hours. Since it's an analog delay, the repeats are slightly darker, which rounds off the transients and gives the sound a wonderful trail of modulated goodness while leaving my actual tone intact.

I have always had a complex relationship with pedals. They can be little inspiration boxes that can really add to your tonal options. But in my experience they can also be a mighty hassle. Having power available at a suitable location on a stage is by no means a given. Pedalboards also have lots of potential points of failure, many of which I found out about the hard way. I’ve never shown up for a gig with just a guitar and an amp, and subsequently regretted not bringing my pedalboard. The reverse has been true many times.

Pedals are dangerous. They are electronics boxes, they make fun sounds and they come in all these cool colors that activate the same part of the brain that made me want to collect toy cars when I was a kid. Since I have yet to develop a taste for boutique gear, they are usually not all that expensive, so the boundaries between "need", "want" and "could be cool" are way more liberally drawn than in the case of guitars or amps. I have never purchased a guitar or an amp on a whim, but I have done so with pedals. It might not even be noticeable in the short term, but eventually, it adds up. I was able to finance my PRS seven-string just by selling off pedals I wasn't using.