Effects Bay

Today, I wanted to put out a reminder post for the Pedal Projects Owly Booster Give Away. If you’re running a tube amp, this is going to be a great addition to your board. Boosting your signal to overdrive those pre-amp tubes is a great thing. But, the pedal could also be used to drive pedals as well (so I don’t want to say that tube amp is required for goodness). I’m a huge fan of driving the preamp!

First, let’s talk about Pedal Projects. They’re a great company out of Iceland making some awesome sounding/looking pedals. Attention to detail is high. Ásgeir is a pleasure to deal with. Among the Owly, he also makes the Growly, Klone, Marbleverb, Litli Fuzz, Bufferlo and also performs modification. One mod that is gaining popularity is a EM+Drive Mod. Definitely check out Pedal Projects for more information. I also did an an interview with Ásgeir a while back as well!

One of my favorite demo guys is Curtis Kent (I would highly recommend that you subscribe to his YouTube Channel. He does an excellent job showing what pedals are capable of, goes through the functionality, and the recording quality is high. I also love that he uses a Matchless amp (I too use Matchless.. love those amps!!). Here is Curtis’ demo of the Pedal Projects Owly Booster:

Okay.. now back to the give away! You have until July 28th to get your entry in… and you can do that here. Also, if you could, please share, tweet, email anyone that might be interested! Spreading the word would greatly be appreciated!

Today’s pedal line is from Florent Paris. If you have a pedal line (doesn’t have to be in a board) for your rig, please email me a photo, bio, description of pedals and routing to pedallineeffectsbaycom. Every Friday I’ll showcase a pedal line submission. Make sure you include any links to your band or music page.

Hi effects bay !

Here’s a new french contribution for your friday’s pedal line !

So basically the first board is for both my guitars (Fender Jazzmaster & Harley Benton Open tunned), going to a Fender BluesJunior. The second board is for both my accoustic guitars. I play mainly for my solo ambient/post-rock instrumental project called Hors Sujet, and you can find all the latest news here: www.facebook.com/horssujetmusic

Now about the gear itself

First Board :

SHO clone : A Super Hard On Clone made by a french compagny called Crust Pedals. A great way for me to boost the incoming signal into the pedalboard. Plus the Crust pedal’s guys are really kind and did a custom paint just for me ! You can trust the Crust!

Buzz Electronics ABY box : Allows me to change between my Jazzmaster and the Harley Benton (Open tunned).

Earnie Ball Jr: The attack is faster than the Boss FV, which is good!

TC Electronics Polytune mini: Recent purchase, I thought it couldn’t do open tuning (I had read that somewhere, long time ago), but this little baby can’t be more precise for both my guitars!

Zvex Instant Lofi I love the immediate and typical vintage compressed sound it can delivers, and although it doesn’t fit everywhere you can get a subtil and delightful sound with it. It works VERY VERY well when the EHX Freeze is freezing a note.

Digitech Whammy  Lot of use of this one. Mainly for its one-octave-down bass layers, I also loop a lot of glitchy sounds and play with them. Since I play solo, it’s perfect to have some strong bass layers!

Fairfield Circuitry Barbershop My main sound. It gives me its lovely crunch. I’ll never get rid of it. 95% on, it goes from great boost to really warm overdrive.

Fulltone OCD My big overdrive. It’s sharp, very versatile and nice overdrive.

EHX Big Muff Really awesome fuzz ! Big wall of sound, infinite sustain, and when I use it with the whammy, boom, fat bass !

Devi Ever Aenima : Depending on the mood, I use this fuzz or the HFOA (see below). The Aenima is really a textural fuzz. Dirty, yet very distinct. So much gain from this cute thing.

Holy Fuzz of Antioche (the yellow one on the far left of the unused) Here’s the story: I was a member of a forum, but few months ago they decided to put an end to that forum. So a nice guy decided to make a “present” to some people, and built a pedal as a “farewell forum” thing. This is a heavy fuzz, really massive.

EHX#1 Echo Clean delays. I do a lot of slapback echoes with it, the blend knob can be strange at the first attempts, but once you get it, you’ll love it.

Sib! Mr Echo My favorite so far.For his warm decay and the craziness of the self-oscillation (if you press the Slam switch, you’ll never forget it). I’m still amazed by the harsh noise it can produce. This one was hard to get (I had to get it on american ebay, and ask for the man to send it to France…that wasn’t easy believe me). Back in these days I had got it for 80$.

Boss RV3 Perfect pedal. It has the 100% wet, the reverb+delay, and the delay itself.

Boss TR2 The first tremolo I had, I’m not that much of a modulation guy, but I like this one. This is the best example of “I bought it when I built the board, it’s hard to imagine it without this pedal, haha)

Looper Reverser This is the kind of thing that change the pedal’s order.This one allows me to change the order of the RC2 and the Kaoss Pad III, to avoid double overdubs. When there’s some sample played on the RC2, the Kaoss Pad has to be first to avoid re-recording RC2′s samples, and vice-versa.

Boss RC-3 + DIY footswitch Small, incredibly useful, it’s the second most used pedal of my righ. Everything goes in, a looooot of things are sampled there, and since I’m playing solo it’s a great tool to play live with. Coupled with the Kaoss Pad = more fun. 99 banks, perfect for live !

Kaoss Pad III : Such a powerful and incredible tool for musical creativity, a lot of different effects and since it’s a tactil unit it’s a great way to experiment unusual settings. I really like the stutter effects of its looper and the sampler’s effects. I often record small and little layers, like swells or bowed strings for exemple.

EHX Freeze This little pedal is amazing, you can go from simple layers to really weird things (by playing on the guitar’s head for ex., or with the reverb trails)

EHX SuperEgo Before the loopers on the rig, it’s a perfect way to have some unbelievable torturated layers or to merge different notes with the glissando effect. Love it.

T1M Buffer : End buffer, just to enhance the tone & gain loss before the amp. And when I say “enhance”, I’m talking about a REALLY NICE enhancement with this one !

Second Board :

Boss FV500: I’ve got this one for ages (since the beginning of my project), nothing to say about it since it does its job perfectly.

Boss LS2 : What do you want more, I can choose between 2 instruments and an additionnal third one (piezzo mic for Mandoline, my casio SK1, sometimes my Hurdy Gurdy…), it’s a perfect tool !

Korg Pitchblack : Super tuner, I often play in small places without lights, but the lights can spread through in any dark places!

Modified Boss CS3 Nice for accoustics, clean the tone and compress slightly.

Mooer Pitch box : Same use as the first board. Mostly for “others” instruments than accoustic guitars, this little guy does its job perfectly.

TC Electronics Hall Of Fame mini : How nice. The reverb aren’t too cold, you can change them via the Tone Print Editor, it adds a little bit of reverb on the accoustic set.

Line 6 Echo Park : My old friend. Very versatile, can goes from warm analog-sound delays to digital clean repeats. The reverse is really fun to play with !

Boss RC20xl : Same job as the first board, but with the reverse and the fade out options !

Needless to say that I’m always considering a lot of new gear to try, the more important thing is the sound itself and how to improve what’s in your head and how to draw it with music. If you wanna listen what I do with all that, feel free to go on my facebook / bandcamp or even to browse my videos. Here it is, thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed, if you want some details, I’d be more than glad to talk about that !

Florent Paris | Hors Sujet
Toulouse, France

This is not an ‘effect’, but I’m a big fan of routing tools. They can be quite handy and can make life much easier. Today I wanted to talk about the Morley George Lynch Tripler Multi-Amp switch. Note, this is an amp switcher for the ‘front end’ of the amp. Do NOT plug speaker cable outs into this unit. This switcher basically routes output signal to 1-3 amp inputs. With this device, you would run your pedals into the input of the switcher, and the signal is then split into 3 signals which could be delivered individually to amps, or set to send signal to all 3 amps at the same time.

This can be quite cool for rhythm vs. lead tones handled by amps vs. pedals. The downside of this, is you would need to lug around multiple amps, but the upside, some serious tone and control!

Beyond the 3 footswitches, there are also is a Boost knob providing 20dB of clean boost to all 3 outputs.  LEDs indicate what amp is receiving signal.

If found this YouTube demo of the Morley George Lynch Tripler by Andrew Gardiner:

I also wanted to bring this up, because I found a sale price on this unit. The Morley George Lynch Tripler lists for $206, and is usually available for $103, but is currently on sale at Amazon for only $79.13 and ships for FREE. Not bad.

If you have experience with the Tripler, please let us know what you think by commenting below!

Yesterday, while on Facebook, I was introduced to the musician Petteri Sariola (aka Pete). The video was a cover of U2′s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”. I started to watch the video with the Petteri and his acoustic, and was expecting another “looper” singer/songwriter deal. My first initial thought during the first 10 seconds.. “yeah, it’s okay”, but then I started noticing and paying attention to what was going on. He was playing percussion on the guitar, but the sound was sounding quite realistic (especially the kick drum sounds). Then I started hearing the bass lines. Then I realized.. “hey wait.. there is no looping”. I had to learn more. But first, let’s get you up to speed.

Here is the video I mentioned above (posted by Candyrat Records):

Okay, as you can see/hear, there is a lot going on here. Petteri uses a special guitar with a custom top so he can do the percussion. Also, his set up is quite interesting, with splitters taking care of specific areas of frequencies, etc.

There is a great video where Petteri goes into detail about his set up. Very interesting!

Here is a break down of pedals that he is using:

Allen & Heath ZED 10FX Mixer
Digitech Whammy
Boss OC-3 Super Octave
Mad Professor Little Green Wonder Overdrive
Strymon Timeline Delay
TC Electronics Corona Chorus
TC Electronics PolyTune Mini
MXR M87 Bass Compressor
MXR KFK1 10 Band EQ
MXR M108 10 Band EQ
Suhr Buffer (w/ISO split)

Let me know what you think about this by commenting below!

I’m pretty excited about this give away!  I love showcasing builders, and I recently had an interview with Ásgeir of Pedal Projects located in the awesome country of Iceland! You can read the full interview here – “Talking with Ásgeir Helgi Þrastarson of Pedal Projects“. When I first started doing some research about Pedal Projects, the first thing that impressed me.. the circuit boards. You usually don’t get to appreciate the boards, but when you seen and awesome board, those details speak to me. Instead of just slapping something together, there is attention to detail found. This attention to detail results in great tone, great style, great construction, great service, etc. The small things, add up!

I was very stoked when Ásgeir sent over an Owly Booster to give away to a lucky EffectsBay reader, so let’s talk about the Owly! The Owly (v2) is a MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor) booster in a tiny enclosure. The Owly is great for boosting signal or to drive pedals, etc. Simple concept. One knob… set it to your preference and one switch to turn the unit on/off. Jacks are Neutrik and all wiring is 22AWG wire.

I’m going to a random entry on July 28th. I will email that random entry asking for the answer to the question listed below. You will have 24 hours to respond with the answer. If the 24 hours passes and I don’t hear from that finalist, I will select a new random entry and repeat the process until I receive confirmation from the winner. This is open to everyone. Yes, that means international! Also, one entry per person. Please read that last sentence again… “one” “entry” “per” “person”.

The submission form will be open until July 28th (Mon) 2PM MST.

On top of that, Ásgeir at Pedal Projects is going to sweeten the deal. If you ‘LIKE’ Pedal Projects on Facebook and you’re selected as the winner, he’ll throw in an extra prize – Pedal Projects t-shirt!

So, it’s pretty much a no-brainer to like Pedal Projects on Facebook! Just click the ‘like’ below.

Please take a moment to Tweet, Share, Email this give away to your gear friends. We all like free gear right?

So the question is…. “What was the first pedal you purchased? And do you still own it?”

Today’s pedal line is from Jason Williams. If you have a pedal line (doesn’t have to be in a board) for your rig, please email me a photo, bio, description of pedals and routing to pedallineeffectsbaycom. Every Friday I’ll showcase a pedal line submission. Make sure you include any links to your band or music page.

Hey,

My name’s Jason Williams, I perform vocals and guitars for the band, Animal Holograms.  I found out about your site from a friend of mine, Nathan (Hot Nerds, Some Girls, All Leather) who you recently featured.  Animal Holograms and Hot Nerds are actually playing a show together next month in Chicago.

I’ve been playing the guitar since I was nine years old and haven’t let go of it, tired it out or found it any less limitless as a tool for manipulating pitches, timbres or human emotions since.  I started Animal Holograms as a solo project while playing in other bands and often recorded guitars clean for my songs, then later manipulating them using all sorts of odd combinations of plug-ins, spending hours re-arranging the sequence of FX, their parameters, sending them to multiple buses and experimenting with “subcutaneous audio tissues” or “ghost nested” reflections of the source track in order to achieve an original sounding albeit only subconsciously perceivable, though present ambiance.

A few years of this led to finally getting the right people to perform Animal Holograms songs live, but I found myself without the outboard gear needed, let alone a single clue how to re-create or simulate the sounds I achieved mixing in-the-box with fancy plug-ins.  So I recently started constructing the board pictured in the attachment.  It has only four FX components:

1. Electro-Harmonix Vox Box
2. DOD Supra Distortion
3. Deltalab DD1 Delay
4. Lexicon MX200 Dual Channel FX Processor (reverbs and delays and the offshoot FX created by manipulating these like chorus FX, as well as a few others like pitch and modulation FX)

The guitar (Fender Telecaster) runs through the EH box (not effected, simply bypassed), the distortion pedal, then the delay where the signal is split.  The main signal (the prominent “source” guitar signal) is sent through the DD1′s “Output ‘A’” where it ends up running through a Marshall VS-100 half stack.  The “ambient signal”, or as I put it before the “subcutaneous audio tissues” or “ghost nested” reflections of the source signal, goes out from the DD1′s “Output ‘B’” where it is sent to the Lexicon MX200′s mono input and patched back out to a combo amp or a B-52 stack.  The signal is heavily reverberated, often delayed and creates essentially a washed out, organic sonic sea of sound for the main source signal to comfortably float in, giving a greater sense of space, color and atmosphere.  The ambient signal is quite a few dB’s quieter than the main signal, since the intent is not to combine, clash or compete with the first signal , but rather sit modestly in the background and serve more of a contextual, textural and supporting role sonically.

The only other input is the microphone which runs through the EH box and runs directly from there to the PA.  If set to Vocoder, the pitches/notes played on the guitar are recognized by the vox box and synthesize a vocoder effect keeping to the key of the song by analyzing the various frequencies present in a chord (ex: An A minor chord, depending how its played, will have, let’s say, an A4 (440Hz), C5 (523Hz) and E5 (659Hz) and replicating them synthetically.  Its really the only effect I use on that pedal except for vocal reverb and the occasional pitch manipulation using the “gender bending” parameter.

We’re in the process of preparing to record our first full length.  The tracks we have available on sound cloud are a mixture of heavily produced demos with electronic drums and full band with live instrumentation (ex: Hello, my Dark).

Listen to Animal Holograms on Sound Cloud

To hear specifically heavy & prominent guitar effects songs using my pedal board listen to:

- Gratur
- Circular Shapes
- Lorca

Thanks for taking the time to read this and hopefully you’ll consider featuring this homemade, very “MacGyver’d”, though beautiful as it can be abrasive sounding pedal board of simple design despite a relatively complex routing configuration and its various (seemingly endless) set of functions.

- Jason Williams

www.facebook.com/animalholograms
www.soundcloud.com/animalholograms
www.twitter.com/animalholograms

Andy over at Digital Audio Labs (maker of Stompblox Pedalboards) sent me an email yesterday including their press release about some expansions to their awesome line. Please read the press release below. For those of you not familiar with Stompblox Pedalboards.. they’re making a unique modular pedalboard system! Small boards that can be connected, and expand to your needs. Very cool!

Chanhassen, MN – June 9, 2014 Hot on the heels of the successful launch of Stompblox modular pedalboards, Digital Audio Labs announces the first modular expansions to the Stompblox line–the Stompblox Riser and the Stompblox Extend. These two products connect to the Stompblox system expanding functionality and customization options.

Players with large pedalboards often find themselves reaching, stretching, or dancing to try to reach pedals in the back row of their pedalboard. Stompblox Risers snaps into Stompblox pedalboards, raising sections for easier access to pedals. Multiple risers can be used to raise a whole section of a pedalboard, or just one can be used to raise a single effect pedal. Up to three risers can be used with each Stompblox unit and convenient pass throughs make cable management easy.

Stompblox Extend is a dual function extension for the Stompblox system that gives users an additional 4.5″ of surface depth for pedals while also housing nearly any power supply without drilling holes. A unique mounting system works with power supplies from Voodoo Labs, Modtone, Cioks, and others. And of course, Extend has plenty of pass throughs for cable management and routing.

Expected pricing for the Stompblox Riser is $8.99 and Stompblox Extend is $34.99. Both units will start shipping in September 2014.

The Stompblox modular pedalboard system including the Stompblox Riser and Stompblox Extend will be shown at the Digital Audio Labs booth #1236 at the Summer NAMM show in Nashville, TN.

Let’s talk about the Fulltone GT-500 distortion! The GT-500 is FET high gain distortion and coupled with a overdrive boost in one enclosure.  When reading reviews of this pedal, you read about how ‘amp like’ this pedal is. Sometimes high gain distortions sound a little ‘pedal-ly’, especially, when amp-like is desired, but this is always contingent on what exactly what you’re after!

When looking at the Fulltone GT-500, one thing that stands out.. is control. The FET side has high, low and mid controls. Like I’ve mentioned before, having mid control is pretty awesome for distortion. The overdrive has high and low EQ. The high gain side has a inductor driven midrange circuit, which Fulltone states.. “Never been done in a pedal before”. This circuit gives you the ability to increase/decrease the entire lo-mid, mid and hi-mid frequencies.

Additionally, you can control the order of the boost vs. hi-gain FET! Want the boost before the FET? No problem. Want the FET in front of the boost? No problem. Series Select Switch manages this!

Here is a demo by Roh Kyung Kyun going through the controls:

So this morning, I came across a great deal on the Fulltone GT-500 Distortion! The GT-500 lists for $199, and is usually available for $160, but is currently on sale for $119.20 and ships for FREE via Amazon! Not too bad at all! At the time of this posting, there were 4 units in stock, usually when the number gets down to 1, the price will jump, so if this sounds like something you want, you’ll want to to jump on it ASAP!

If any of you already own the Fulltone GT-500, please let us know what you think of the pedal by commenting below!

Last month I was on tour with Magpies for a Midwest jaunt.. going as far East as Cleveland, OH. The highlight of the tour was playing the PRF BBQ in Chicago, which was a fantastic indie gathering. 4 days of awesome music, food, beer and smiles. While planning the tour – a Seattle band Chung Antique contacted us and noticed that we were both on tour at the same time and wanted to do some shows together. We were super stoked to make new friends and to do some shows around the country! Along with playing with them at the PRF BBQ, we also played with them in Cleveland, and finally we played with them here in Missoula, Montana.

As I mentioned, Chung Antique are from Seattle, WA. They are an instrumental band (which I absolutely love that genre of music – Explosions in the Sky, Earthless, Russian Circles, etc). A 3 piece band consisting of Charlie on guitar, Mike on bass and Whitney on drums. All are super skilled, and with an incredible natural feel for tension and vibe.. and melody. Easy to pen them as ‘math rock’, but the push pull with melody makes it more complex, more interesting – in the ‘feel’ area.

Okay.. I don’t usually do this (and I should do this more), but let’s talk about the drummer. And as I mentioned, her name is Whitney. It was pure magic watching her drum. We’re talking top-shelf drumming – open style. What’s fascinating is the duality of the complex drumming while making it look SO effortless. You can tell she is completely comfortable behind the kit. In the world of *dude* drummers, you get thrown into the how-hard-can-I-hit-the-drums as a technique, and it was completely refreshing seeing someone play at that level.

Check out this mini-documentary about their fantastic album – Sweater Weather.

Since they were in town, I was able to get some shots (via my awesome wife – Amy Donovan Photography).

Here are Charlie’s pedals

Boss TU-3 Tuner
MXR ’78 Distortion
ProCo Turbo Rat
Korg Chorus CHR-1
Boss DD-7 Digital Delay
MXR Carbon Copy Delay

Here are Mike’s pedals

Boss TU-3 Tuner
BBE Green Screamer
Electrical Audio Destructors Chernobyl

Chung Antique – Great Band. Great People. Check ‘em out

The following is a guest post by Mike Emiliani of Smart Bass Guitar. If you are interested in guest posting, please contact me!

Buying Effect Pedals: My Love-Hate Relationship

I’m a huge fan of bassists who do new and exciting things on bass guitar. Thundercat, Squarepusher and even younger, more niche players like Nathan Navarro, and Eric Hyland from Cosmic Dust Bunnies are just some of the names that I believe are really stand out players in bass guitar both in how they play and how they’ve made the most of the instrument. I’d argue these musicians use of effect pedals is what really does bring their music to life in a larger way.

Periodically, I’ll get a stroke of inspiration from listening to these artists and feel inclined to purchase some pedals of my own. However, once the pedal is purchased it quickly becomes a nuisance in my life. The need for additional electronics to keep it alive and functioning, having to take it from show to show, having to find more cables and more gizmos to work the thing into a set and so on. The excitement of owning and playing with a new pedal soon wears off and is replaced by frustration and buyer’s remorse.

So goes the story of my love-hate relationship with effect pedals.

Shiny New-ish Pedals

The possibilities of effect pedals to take my music to another level is always an attractive thought but the realities are not so glamourous. As I mentioned before, the kick starter for me to get a new pedal is a spur of inspiration from some source. I’ll hear a particular sound or covet a particular tone and absolutely engross myself in it to the point that a purchase is all but inevitable. After a look-over of a few Amazon reviews, I’ll head over to eBay or Guitar Center used and check out the deals. If I find what I’m looking for, I’ll make a purchase then and there.

The package arrives and I unbox the pedal and plug it in. Like anyone with a new toy, excitement is all I’m experiencing right now. Excitement to plug it in, excitement to write some material around it and excited to just mess around with it and see what comes out.

But slowly, that excitement fades. The reality of the purchase begins to set in and the frustrations begin to set in. The batteries that power the pedal die frequently and it costs money to replace them, sometimes the pedal won’t work properly despite being plugged in properly – simple things that might not bother the hardcore pedal user or collector start to eat away at me taking the idealistic fun out of the playing experience.

Moreover, the looming feeling that additional purchases to support this pedal and the prospect of more pedals is not a comforting thought. Pedals and pedal gear is not cheap – even used. A power brick, pedal train, amp cables, patch cables, other widgets and gizmos and just other pedals to complement existing pedals that will aid in helping me express the sounds inside my head all come with a sizeable price tag that, quite frankly, doesn’t sound at all attractive.

The realities of owning, maintaining and just working with pedals as a bass player to me slowly seemed like more hassle than it was worth.

About a month passes by and the zeal of the new pedal has passed. I put it up on eBay, sell it off and get some of my money back. Rinse and repeat for a handful of years.

Love and Hate

While I love the musical benefits that having pedals delivers, it’s the practical elements of owning pedals that turns me away from being a serial pedal collector.

The sounds and musical potential that come from tying pedals together in different orders with different settings is a very attractive thought. But the reality of the hundreds of dollars that need to be spent to be able to have the ability to make a soundscape on bass guitar plus all the additional time of setting up and packing up the pedals show to show plus the reliance on them for certain songs and critical components of a live set that emerges is now and always has been enough to turn me off from being a serious pedal owner and user.

As a result of this, I’ve noticed myself become a little bit more crafty when it comes to expressing complex, holistic musical ideas on bass guitar. The biggest of these ideas is turning to production with programs like Maschine and Apple’s Logic to create the sonic landscapes I’ve heard in my head and then EQ the live bass into the track ala Squarepusher or Thundercat.

It’s a textbook love-hate relationship I’ve created for myself over the years when it comes to pedals: the musical possibilities clash with the financial obligation and the routine maintenance and upkeep.

Conclusion

While some people aren’t at all bothered by things and maybe I’m in the minority in this mindset, it’s certainly a view that has kept creeping back up on me over the years and reeled me back in from having used pedals extensively.

I think Keith Richards said it best when asked what his guitar rig is and he replied that all he needs is his guitar and his amp.

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Mike Emiliani is a bass player, beatmaker and founder of the bass guitar blog, Smart Bass Guitar, a twice-weekly bass guitar-centered site for interviews, free downloads and learning hacks for bass players.