Tonight I messed around with just four pedals and not my $2000 pedalboard(many high priced pedals) and had a blast !!! Ever get tired of the snob pedal train pedalboard ???

I don't use all that many pedals...so I'm inclined to agree to a certain degree...I have a clean booster...and I'm rotating stuff until I find the right counterparts...but so far...All I know is I want some kind of modulation, and I want some kind of compression/limiter.

I'm gonna say no.

Tonight I'm playing my Keeley Rat and my DT10. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Personally, I prefer the challenge of trying to do more with less. Also, it's a lot easier to carry my Pedaltrain than it was to haul around my old MKS RM-10 Pedalpad. I might feel differently if I had roadies.

Yeah, but for me, when I'm playing in a wedding and the old people are wondering why it sounds like Slayer playing "Rock Around the Clock", I'm glad I've got more than one flavor of OD.

And when I'm playing a pop tune, I'm glad I can get that chorused compressed tone and "sound like the record". For me, that's the main thrust of my gigs.

Tonight I'm hosting an open mic jam, so it's an OD and a tuner.

In a band setting I use very little outside of guitar / amp, usually a wah (Fulltone Clyde Deluxe) and a boost (Java Boost). If a song calls for it, I might add a Octafuzz, Vibe, Delay and/or chorus/flanger, but I stay far away from a mess of pedals on the floor as I want an easily recognizable sound and draw as much color from the guitar / amp as possible. I own a ton a pedals, but usually they only get broken out when I have a session where I'll be asked to give a specific sound. If I'm using a EL34 amp I drive distortion from the power tubes, but I use fuzz with 6L6 amps. Usually, playing my Carr Imperial (Fender BF style amp) will cause me to break out a larger board.

Whether its justified or not, I find that the more pedals a player uses to "define" their sound, the more generic they sound. I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I think its analogous to cooking, i.e., its one thing to spice to bring out the flavor of the food and another all together for the food to be cursory to the spice.

When putting to gether a board I generally look at from a "Studio Players" perspective, or at least try to. Even though I prefer a small simple board I find that the type of music I end up playing spans several styles and having the pedals to help out really makes the difference. I try to look at my board as a "Swiss Army Knife" for all musical applications. But it sure is embarassing to lug out my board to a country gig with 3 different flavors of OD/Distortion and Trem/Chorus/Delay not to mention a wah. They hardly ever get used sometimes but they are nice to have "just in case".

I'm actually looking to get a PT Jr. board so I can tailor the pedalboard for the gig, just select the proper tools, slap them on the board and away I go!

I'm always into what Sid McGinnis uses, lord knows he has to cvover ALOT of territory!

clapointe, I can relate to that. I don't know if sizing down is necessariy "better"...that can be pretty subjective and dependant on taste, application, set lists, etc.

But I do find it liberating to play with as few pedals as possible sometimes. It forces me to rely mostly on, well, ME. A decent dirt pedal, maybe a boost pedal, and a good amp are in some cases all I want to hear...damn what the record sounds like.

Some of us are in bands that do require a "nailed" sound from a particular genre and that's cool. But my preference is to go simple whenever possible.

I have 9 soon to be 10 pedals on my board and the plan is that 3 will always be on for tone shaping...the rest are flavors and may or may not get used depending on the room/situation or amp that I bring to the gig...at one time or another they all get used and I am sure glad that I do have the choices avaliable to me even if they don't all get used on a particular night...!!

Chow,
Seegs

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Originally posted by John_M:
Yeah, but for me, when I'm playing in a wedding and the old people are wondering why it sounds like Slayer playing "Rock Around the Clock", I'm glad I've got more than one flavor of OD.

And when I'm playing a pop tune, I'm glad I can get that chorused compressed tone and "sound like the record". For me, that's the main thrust of my gigs.

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+1

I might only use 3 or 4 of my pedals for a song or two, but I'm mighty glad I have them when the job calls for it.

I enjoy getting a thousand different sounds from my rig...I count on my style and technique (or lack of? ) to NOT sound generic.

When I hear other people play through my rig, it doesn't sound like me. That is what makes it OK in my book!

Oh yeah, I like to think that my toys help unlock certain ideas in my mind, so I like playing around and see what inspires my creative side.

Its all fun for me

No . . .

I want to be able to run my compressed signal into two overdrives and then run the squashed mix into a seasick phaser followed by trailing delays that would make Gilmour jealous.

I want to wail through my Fuzz Factory and just as it breaks up into feedback madness step on my wah and then croak the noisy mess into a machine gun tremelo.

I want to roll back on my Fuzz, run it into one of my ODs to smooth it out, run it through my chorus pedal cranking out a leslie vibe, get a good slapback delay and get my blues fix on.

I want to get a Lovetone ? Flanger and a Moog Murf to go along with my Fuzz Factory just so I can set up a pay-per-view cage match to the death between the three of them (my money is on the Fuzz Factory but only because a ZVex Machine pedal jumps into the ring with a chair just as the Lovetone goes for its signature move).

I can get a great amp and have great tone and sound like all those other great guitar players with great tone (except for the fact that they have great fingers and I, unfortunately have my fingers) . . .

. . . or I can have the pedalboard of doom that will get someone to come up after the gig and ask . . . how the $%^#! did you get that sound?

Yeah . . . pedalboard of doom baby !

this year, I put my pedalboard back together, after a long time playing a multi-effects pedal (Korg AG100, ho-hum). I think I've said this before here, but multi effects, to me, are like the buffet at Ryan's: lots and lots of mediocre choices.

So my tone took a huge step forward.

But I hate all the tap dancing. There are instances when I'd like to go from one combination of several effects to another combination of severa effects, and those are the times I miss my old AG1000.

Sure, you can buy a Bradshaw system or a MIDI Octopus or a Combinator or something, but that involves mega bucks and lots of cables, etc.

So here's what I want:

I want some pedal making genius to design an interface--a single box, maybe about the size of a Vox Tonelab SE. But it wouldn't be a digital modeling thing. Instead, it would contain the guts from all my favorite pedals.I could solder in the innards of an LTD and a Mos and my Ross clone, and the other 9 pedals on my board. Everything could be switched digitally, allowing for multi-pedal combinations. You could have a row of knobs across the top that would replace the actual pots in the real pedals. Everything would be the same as on my individual pedals board, except that the boxes would be gone, and all of it would go into a true-bypass, digitally-controlled switcher, so that I could just set up patches.

It could even be modular, so if I wanted to swap out my LTD guts for Tim guts, I could do it.

Pedal-building geniuses, get busy!

For years I was anti-pedal and ran nothing but an arion tuner into various amps. But then somehow, in the last 2 years I've amassed a pretty big collection. Part of it is my style has changed. Like somebody said above, i like having different options available, even if only for a part or two. I could pair down to 3 pedals if i had to though (honey bee, balance, keeley tr2). I'm currently at about 8...

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I want some pedal making genius to design an interface--a single box, maybe about the size of a Vox Tonelab SE. But it wouldn't be a digital modeling thing. Instead, it would contain the guts from all my favorite pedals.I could solder in the innards of an LTD and a Mos and my Ross clone, and the other 9 pedals on my board. Everything could be switched digitally, allowing for multi-pedal combinations. You could have a row of knobs across the top that would replace the actual pots in the real pedals. Everything would be the same as on my individual pedals board, except that the boxes would be gone, and all of it would go into a true-bypass, digitally-controlled switcher, so that I could just set up patches.

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Kinda like one of these ? Get your checkbook out !

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Originally posted by JoelEric26:

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I want some pedal making genius to design an interface--a single box, maybe about the size of a Vox Tonelab SE. But it wouldn't be a digital modeling thing. Instead, it would contain the guts from all my favorite pedals.I could solder in the innards of an LTD and a Mos and my Ross clone, and the other 9 pedals on my board. Everything could be switched digitally, allowing for multi-pedal combinations. You could have a row of knobs across the top that would replace the actual pots in the real pedals. Everything would be the same as on my individual pedals board, except that the boxes would be gone, and all of it would go into a true-bypass, digitally-controlled switcher, so that I could just set up patches.

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Kinda like one of these ? http://www.petecornish.co.uk/fxboards.html

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touché Señior

Cool! I had no idea such a thing was out there. Do Pete and Lynda have children? If so, maybe if I kidnapped one of them. . .

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Originally posted by mongoose_eyeball:
Cool! I had no idea such a thing was out there. Do Pete and Lynda have children? If so, maybe if I kidnapped one of them. . .

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You know, your other option is to get a router/switcher and a midi controller for it. Axcess Electronics makes 2 models that are supposed to be great (I don't use them myself), a rack version and a pedalboard version.

http://www.axess-electronics.com/

I use both (pedalboard and loose effects), but really prefer having my pedalboard with me. It is set up for optimum effects performance (for me, anyway) and it's just nice to have all of those colors available while playing.
Mesadude

I am looking for simple AND versatile. That actually puts a split burden on the pedals and me as a player. The pedals have to be capable of good tone under almost any circumstance, low volume, high volume, church, country, rock, blues, jazz, gospel, or just in my basement. I take about the same pedalboard everywhere. The rest of the burden is on me. I have to know all the secrets locked inside each pedal. Not just how to plug it in and step on it. Is there a magic sound when the guitar is turned down? Are there pedals that combine well? etc. I haven't really gotten along with too many effects other than overdrive, tremolo, and a little bit of delay. That helps keep the board simple. And I am not trying to sound like any particular artist or band. Just finding and keeping the sounds I like and tossing out the rest. And keeping the least number of pedals (and the smallest pedals) that get the same job done. Right now the board has six effects and a volume pedal on it. A fuzz, three overdrives (of various gains), a trem, and a delay. I almost sold one of my favorite OD's in a fit of insanity a week or so ago. The "make it simpler" bug got the better of me. Fortunately it didn't sell and it is safely back on the board sounding great. Also, I use a wah and an echoplex occasionally but they live off the board. About the only thing I would like to add to the board is a Mojo Vibe. Vibe is about the only swirly pedal I have any use for.