Well, when we last left off, it was with the Final Configuration of a fully stocked pedalboard in 2007:
Got to love the Zip Ties.
Anyhow, and I’m not sure why, I tried to get back into compression again. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something about that effect I knew could do something for me. But I wasn’t sure what. So in came a modded Boss CS-3 Compression/Sustainer:
And out it went. Still didn’t know what it was supposed to do.
Well around this time I was getting into modded pedals, so I picked up a modded Boss DS-1 Distortion, and I thought it was so cool that I got rid of the KOT! Somewhere around here the Sonic Stomp got ditched as well, and I liked the verbzilla so much that I thought “ooh time to get some REAL spring reverb on the board!” so in came a VanAmps Sole-Mate Real Spring Reverb Pedal. Now the board after its first spring cleaning looked like this:
Not sure if this was an improvement, honestly.
At this point I had an ABY pedal for my amps on the board, but no pedal to switch in effects en masse. I didn’t know the name for it. A/B pedal? Panning pedal? Effects Loop pedal? Well it’s hard to buy the right pedal for a function if you don’t know what it is. So yeah I bought this pedal as a looper, an Ernie Ball Stereo Volume/Pan Pedal:
Yeah, two hybrid volume pedals on the board now, haha.
At this point I realized that the Fuzz Factory was too insane for my abilities, plus someone offered me lots of cashola for it, plus my pedalboard had this whole industrial theme going on that the Hangul was messing with (all very important factors!) so off it went and in came someone’s homebuilt Triangle Big Muff. I thought “hey, I have to get some angry bees back on the board but with more clarity than the old Sovtek, this will do it, right?”
Judge for yourself (check me out using the panning pedal to turn off the effects, bleh):
But what is that foot controller there on the board? That’s my first stab at a rack! It’s an A/DA TFX4 Time Effects.
A bit of verbzilla on Octo setting before I got rid of it, then got it back. Kinda hooked on that Octo setting. To be honest, I still like that setting, I should get that pedal again…
Well out of everything on that Rack, I liked the flanger function the best – that bathtub jetswoop sound. So gone went the ADA, and in came a reissue Ibanez FP-777 Flying Pan Reissue Phaser Pedal. Note that I wasn’t that cued in on the differences between a Phaser and a Flanger yet.
Holy moley. This period just reminded me that I used to have this Boss BF-2 Flanger pedal, picked up during the $25 pawn shop sweep (yep, got it for $25 too):
These memory lapses will happen more frequently as the pedals start coming in fast and furious. Which they do around now.
So, did I mention I was into those mods and homebrews? The D.I.Y. community was starting to build up some steam around this time, and I picked up a B.Y.O.C. Custom Shop 10-Band EQ:
Build Your Own Clone, indeed.
So the aesthetics appealed to me, but it got pretty hissy when used as a booster pedal, so gone it went. Honestly I was just starting to get an idea of what I needed. Like “clean boost.” The Big Muff certainly couldn’t get me any of that! So, Uh, what would? Maybe a RAT with the distortion dialed all the way off? Ok I’ll try it:
Well it wasn’t that clean, but it gave a nice sharp edge to any muddy Muff tones, so that was nice. ProCo Whiteface RAT stayed. That panner pedal left, replaced by an actual effects loop pedal, the Keeley Japanese Apartment Looper (such a solid utilitarian pedal, I still use it!). That’s the little black pedal to the left of the Boomerang Wah. And I reduced the footprint of my phaser by replacing it with…a flanger. Original MXR M-117 Flanger. And OH NO I GOT RID OF THE DMM for a Mad Professor Deep Blue Delay – starting to get into boutiques! And I gotta have chorus and vibrato, right? So here comes the Boss CE-1 Chorus Ensemble. I told you it was coming fast and furious. Here’s the whole time-based side mess played together:
That tremolo at the end was from the amp. Bias driven tremolo was my fave! But I didn’t have any reverb on the board or the amp anymore. So sad. So I got a 1965 Fender Reverb Unit, the one with the transitional black tolex and white knobs to match my Princeton:
Ok maybe one more update for this part until lunchtime. I read that I had a distortion pedal, and a fuzz pedal, but no overdrive effect. Since I still didn’t have any bias against racks yet, I went out and got a Chandler B.K. Butler Tube Driver Rackmount Overdrive.
This got surprisingly close in sound to my amp just cranked up, like so:
Which made the ears bleed unless I used a Weber Mass 150 Attenuator. Seemed silly for a small NYC apartment to have an attenuator that could handle a Marshall stack.
With that, I leave ye to go grab a Sloppy Joe!
Jahn 