Board, taking it all apart and starting over. Wanna help or comment?

As I get going again in playing, I am going to take apart my pedal board (I really kinda had two), and rebuild the whole thing. From the actual “board” up. I think I will start with my “big” board I have in a vintage Samsonite suitcase, and see what is left over, and what I want to do with those. I have two amps, my ‘61 Fender Concert, and my Peavey C-30, and have inbound today a solid state amp with an eq and cab simulation (Quilter Interblock 45, it looks basically to be about the same size as my old Boss looper) which I am setting up to use with JamKazam, and online playing and training I am planning on doing.

And I have a new power supply inbound for the larger set up. And will have my old, seemingly well functioning basic OneSpot for a second board if I want it. As said, I think I will first build up a “large” board, with all the various pedal types I have, and then see where I am.

Knowing there are no rules, I am going to start with a pretty standard starting place, with some adjustments.


Here is what I have been using lately. Though I hardly ever turn the delay on, and have used the M9 mostly for its tuner, even though it is sitting at the end of the chain. Gonna change that for sure. May pull it off the main pedal board altogether for a while.
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These are other pedals I have to experiment and play with. Closer up look. On the top, that DS-1, the Bad Monkey, and the CE-5 were basically my first pedal board. In that order. I used to like to stack the DS-1 running into the Bad Monkey (which made the DS-1 less harsh), and then liked to turn on the CE-5 to get kinda a Cobain thing going. Then I added that yellow tube screamer clone (with lots of options to tweak tone), it has a nice clean boost built into it as well. I am thinking about putting that pedal later in the dirt chain of the new set up to use as a clean boost. That little BYOC fuzz is a very simple, kinda spitty sounding “Radio Shack” fuzz a friend built and I grabbed cheap from him for fun. It was called a Radio Shack fuzz as its circuit was supposed to be able to be built from stuff you could get at Radio Shack. I have never used it much at all.

The pedals on the bottom of this pic are ones I want to use and experiment with more. I never have learned to use a wah much, and want to. And I really want to explore that Carcosa. Was thinking I might swap it in instead of the Muff for a while, just to make myself turn the knobs all over and learn about it.
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This lower part is the real estate available for a big board. I am going to finally put some wood underneath to raise it, and create a place for the power supply. A TrueOne CS-12. And I will cut some holes through which to run power supply. My initial thought is to keep the pedals in this top row (maybe not that radio shack fuzz) together, to use with the Peavey. But maybe not. Esp, the CE-5. If I did have a second little set of pedals, after reading what Howard Gee says about the tweed based Catalinbread Foundation series pedals, i would think I would use the F.5 where it is in this pic as a foundation for that second chain.
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Some random thoughts:

As you can tell, I have some pre-dispositive thoughts, but am open to throwing that all away and trying other arrangements, etc.

I want to learn to use that wah.

To simplify matters, I might just pull the M9 off altogether and set it aside for awhile, to be further explored on its own, as there is a lot in there. And then just get to know these stomp boxes better, then maybe recombine later. If the M9 does stay on a board, it will be before that Polara reverb and Carbon Copy delay. But again, it kinda duplicates so for now, thinking I will just pull it as I experiment with the stomp boxes.

The live wire patch cords have seemed fine. I do have some build your own stuff I bought a long time ago and never used. I might finally make myself some other patch cables, but what I have seems to work without a ton of noise. The Fender Concert, while not super noisy, is not silent either.

The Fender Concert is less finicky now that I have replaced some tubes. There was a microphonic one in the preamp section that was causing noise, and I didn’t know why. It made the amp not like fuzz pedals nearly as much as the C-30 did. Now, that is fixed so I can start over and see which fuzz(es) I want to use with it. I have three. The muff, the carcosa, and that little spitty radio shack guy.

I have always loved that Rodent Rat Clone, so will want that in the mix for a while. It can almost do fuzz too.

I would like to work that tubescreamer clone with clean boost in, and will experiment with that at the end of the dirt, and earlier in the chain.

The starting point for the Catalinbread F55 is at or near the end of the dirt (depending on the clean boost placement) based on what I read from Howard Gee in his notes in the instructions for the pedal. It is designed to be set so that the volume knob of your guitar can really control what that pedal is doing as a tone foundation, and then you can stack stuff into it to add flavors. Howard says there are no rules, and one can try it going into other pedals, but that was not really the design intent. But, as long as things are torn apart, who knows?

Delays. I need to learn to use that Carbon Copy in the place of reverb, or with reverb. And part of the intent of the M9 was to have other delays so I could learn to stack. But, that was another thought I had that never developed as my playing skill and understanding of how to do that well never developed. Another possibility to look at again.

I could sell the DS-1 and Bad Monkey, but they work nicely together, and I can’t get much for them anyway. And I like how they play with the C-30. That rat shack simple fuzz is probably extra too, but after I figure the other fuzzes, it could be fun just to see what it does swapping it in.

I want to have the Trio+ available, but maybe not part of the chain, unless I am using it. Which I intend to do more as I start playing more again. I have a Boss RC20-XL also, but I am not sure if it is even working. Will try it and see. Another tool I never really used to learn well, and would like to finally.

Buffering. I have buffering potential in the Polara, and in the M9, and really any of the boss pedals, and was thinking on a big board, it might be well to have some of that near the beginning and end of the chain. Will want to learn more.

Noise gate. I used to have a Boss Noise Suppressor, but sold it as I thought it tended to mute or dull things too much, and being absolutely silent when not playing (I was not noisy) was less important to me. I have a noise suppressor I think in the M9, but not sure I am even concerned about it.
 
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Ok, that ended up being a TLDR thing. But, I wanted to get my random thoughts down. If you want to just look at the pics and not read my blather, and just give me thoughts, opinions, suggestions, that is cool too.
 
This is your opportunity to take every effect and use it solo to find out not only how you like it best, but where you want to put it in the signal chain. Forget all the rules and put stuff where it sounds good.

You also have an opportunity to use the Fender and Peavey as a stereo rig. I would use the M9 last to take care of the stereo conversion. You could also use the CE-5 in a wet/dry configuration, or the TRS out on the Polara (not sure how it splits the signal).
 
This is your opportunity to take every effect and use it solo to find out not only how you like it best, but where you want to put it in the signal chain. Forget all the rules and put stuff where it sounds good.

You also have an opportunity to use the Fender and Peavey as a stereo rig. I would use the M9 last to take care of the stereo conversion. You could also use the CE-5 in a wet/dry configuration, or the TRS out on the Polara (not sure how it splits the signal).
Sounds like a plan. Or really two plans?

I will watch those two pedal guys as I saw the other day they had a thing on wet-dry, and wet-dry-wet. And I had never heard of that before.
 
Sounds like a plan. Or really two plans?

I will watch those two pedal guys as I saw the other day they had a thing on wet-dry, and wet-dry-wet. And I had never heard of that before.
Here, save yourself an hour of yammering:

Put your dirt pedals through one amp.
Put your time based effects through the other amp. If your time based effects are stereo and you have a third amp, put the dirt amp in the middle and the stereo amps on both sides.
 
holyfuckingwalloftext
I told you. TLDR. Look at the pictures. Comment if you want. :wink: That first post was 2o minutes of ADHD infested free associational thought to get some notes down to think about.

And I had not taken my brand new adderall.
 
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Those pedal guys do have some good info sometimes, but often I get bored of wading through their little jokes and the name dropping horn and etc. to get to the info.
 
Those pedal guys do have some good info sometimes, but often I get bored of wading through their little jokes and the name dropping horn and etc. to get to the info.

They have a lot of really great info they take forever to get through. I'm not going to begrudge anyone being themselves and that includes me skipping around to find out what I need to know.

I've spent part of this afternoon working on a solo on the original tune that got me to break out my board in the first place. Carcosa has been the main distortion and now I'm working on the boost. I think the DOD 250 based KRAMMSTEEN! is the right choice. Maybe the Super Fuzz in another section. The Skreddy Hybrid Fuzz Driver seems to pair a little better with my Pickle Drive. Or maybe I'm just creating sets of dirt pedals due to newness and preconceived notions. I guess I'll break out the Pickle Drive and have 5 dirt pedals on the board for a bit. LOL.
 
They have a lot of really great info they take forever to get through. I'm not going to begrudge anyone being themselves and that includes me skipping around to find out what I need to know.

I've spent part of this afternoon working on a solo on the original tune that got me to break out my board in the first place. Carcosa has been the main distortion and now I'm working on the boost. I think the DOD 250 based KRAMMSTEEN! is the right choice. Maybe the Super Fuzz in another section. The Skreddy Hybrid Fuzz Driver seems to pair a little better with my Pickle Drive. Or maybe I'm just creating sets of dirt pedals due to newness and preconceived notions. I guess I'll break out the Pickle Drive and have 5 dirt pedals on the board for a bit. LOL.

good motto.

The pedal experiment sounds fun. I don't own any of those except for the Carcosa.
 
good motto.

The pedal experiment sounds fun. I don't own any of those except for the Carcosa.
The 250 is another op amp distortion, like the RAT.
The Super Fuzz is a Behringer clone of the BOSS FZ-2, which itself is based on the Univox Super Fuzz.
The Skreddy is a fuzzy overdrive. Think treble booster, but can be used as a standalone overdrive into a clean amp.
The Pickle Drive is a Way Huge Red Llama clone.
 
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Id be happy with:
Wah(off the board)>Bad Monkey>Ds1>F5>Chorus>Delay>Reverb>Trio(off the board)
I rarely use Distortion, Im more prone to stack ODs, and I never really got on with fuzz at all. But if I was gonna use fuzz, Id put it 1st on the board, and prob the Carcosa since it has a variety of sounds and small footprint compared to the Muff) But Id probably just leave the fuzz off the board and run it just after the Wah, easy to switch out.
If you want to try wet/dry you could split the signal at the chorus.
If you want to work in the Trio, either put it last(off the board, use it as needed), or if you go wet dry it needs to get sandwiched in before the split, probably right in front of the chorus, else your playback will only come out of one side.
 
Id be happy with:
Wah(off the board)>Bad Monkey>Ds1>F5>Chorus>Delay>Reverb>Trio(off the board)
I rarely use Distortion, Im more prone to stack ODs, and I never really got on with fuzz at all. But if I was gonna use fuzz, Id put it 1st on the board, and prob the Carcosa since it has a variety of sounds and small footprint compared to the Muff) But Id probably just leave the fuzz off the board and run it just after the Wah, easy to switch out.
If you want to try wet/dry you could split the signal at the chorus.
If you want to work in the Trio, either put it last(off the board, use it as needed), or if you go wet dry it needs to get sandwiched in before the split, probably right in front of the chorus, else your playback will only come out of one side.
That is pretty close to what I used with the C-30 back in the day, except the Monkey came after the DS-1, to tame its square waves, (and of course I did not have the F5, which I guess would help to the same thing) and my reverb was in the C-30, and I did not have the Trio+ yet. And yeah, that set up worked pretty well on that amp for a long time.
 
That is pretty close to what I used with the C-30 back in the day, except the Monkey came after the DS-1, to tame its square waves, (and of course I did not have the F5, which I guess would help to the same thing) and my reverb was in the C-30, and I did not have the Trio+ yet. And yeah, that set up worked pretty well on that amp for a long time.

THE SQUARE WAVES WILL NOT BE CONTAINED :mad:
 
Fuzz isn't my thing either but, if the pedals were right in front of me, I'd have to see what the Radio Shack into the Muff sounded like.
 
Fuzz isn't my thing either but, if the pedals were right in front of me, I'd have to see what the Radio Shack into the Muff sounded like.
I think that is one thing I will do, put all three fuzzes in a line, compare and contrast, mess with settings, combine, re-order and recombine, etc.
Probably will do that with the two Catalinbreads also, and maybe put the other dirt pedals in front or behind them and mess around with that.
Kinda focus on the dirt chain first, then start messing with other stuff. And while I am playing with this dirt chain, start practicing stuff I want to do to get my playing moving again, etc.
 
I think that is one thing I will do, put all three fuzzes in a line, compare and contrast, mess with settings, combine, re-order and recombine, etc.
Probably will do that with the two Catalinbreads also, and maybe put the other dirt pedals in front or behind them and mess around with that.
Kinda focus on the dirt chain first, then start messing with other stuff. And while I am playing with this dirt chain, start practicing stuff I want to do to get my playing moving again, etc.

Dirt is always the rabbit hole for me. Im always switching out, combining, reordering various dirt. Then I reach a point where I just say Fk it, pick one, and just play that for a while.
 
Dirt is always the rabbit hole for me. Im always switching out, combining, reordering various dirt. Then I reach a point where I just say Fk it, pick one, and just play that for a while.

I think it helps if you have some specific tones you know you want in your chain based around the type of music you typically play.

For me this covers my bases:
mild OD > more OD > splatty fuzz > mid-heavy/cutting saturated fuzz > super wooly mammoth fuzz > high gain
DLS >Bone Shaker > carcosa > suryua > pharoah >tight metal jr

stacking certain pedals in that set gets me some in-between tones and other noisy fun. Edit: out of those the carcosa isn't a mainstay sound I use and would get dropped if I need to make room elsewhere.
 
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