Effects Bay

Today’s pedal line is from Alex Wade. 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.

Hosa Modular 8 Channel Patch Bay -  Though not a pedal, this little thing makes my life a lot easier.  It’s basically just like a mini patch bay you would use in a studio.  It’s a way to have all of your in’s and out’s on the board in one location.  You can see it in the 3rd picture to the right, and how I run it is the top left 1/4 jack is the “in” to my front end chain (the chain that goes into the front end of the head) and the jack directly below it is the “out” that goes to the head.  The “in” is fed a chord that runs from my wireless in my rack case out to the board.  The jacks beside my front end jacks on the patch bay are my effects loop jacks which the top one is the send that goes to the “in” on my Line 6 POD X3 Live and the one below it is the return that goes back to the return on my head.  This keeps my board nice and clean and I can plug my 4 channel snake in all that the same place, run it back to my head, plug in everything there and be ready to rock.

Fryette Valvulator -  This is just a tube buffer/power supply.  It supplies clean power to my tuner, compressor, noise gate, and overdrive, as well as cleans up my tone a bit and gives it a nice push through my crazy chain of stuff so I don’t have any signal loss.

Boss TU-2 -  I think we all know what this is.  Just a good ol’ tuner.

Keeley 4 Knob Compressor – This is the holy grail of all compressors, or so I’ve heard.  I wouldn’t know, I just picked it up a few weeks ago and before that had never experimented with compressors.  I put it before my noise gate so I can set my noise gate tighter, but still have tons of sustain from the compressor while having the tight start/stop sound from a hard set noise gate.  Little trick I picked up from Misha the guitarist from Periphery.  Works like a charm.  It is always kept on.

ISP Decimator -  Best noise gate ever made in my opinion hands down.  One knob, set it to desired noise reduction and you’re done.  I run 2, one on my pedalboard for the front end of my head to cut feedback and another in my rack through the loop of my head to kill amp hum.

Digitech Whammy -  Cool pedal for sure, it does all kinds of things.  It can bend your note 2 octaves up, 1 octave up, 1 octave down, 2 octaves down, or even 3 octaves down (dive bomb mode).  It also has a drop tuning mode that will drop your tuning down a whole step, and it actually tracks the notes really well, it’s not all “warbly” and fake sounding.  I mainly use it for the drop tuning and dive domb settings.

Maxon OD-9 -  I couldn’t live without this thing.  Ever since I started playing my amp with an overdrive in front I have never looked back.  It really tightens up the gain structure of any amp, and gives you a more saturated and “juicy” tone.  It cuts a SLIGHT amount of bass from your tone, but in a good way, especially if you’re playing metal.  It makes all the notes just so clear and precise.  This is always left on as well.

Line 6 POD X3 Live -  I use this through the effects loop of my amp just for the effects.  I don’t use it for the amp simulation, all of my tone comes from my EVH 5150 III.  I just like it because with the stomp of a button I can go from a flanger with a lo fi EQ to a soaring lead tone with delay and reverb.  I use it for delay, reverb, lo fi (sounds like your amp is coming through a telephone), flanger, volume swells, and more.

My pedal line is as follows:

Sennheiser Wireless -> Patch Bay In -> Fryette Valvulator -> Boss TU-2 -> Keeley 4 Knob Compressor -> ISP Decimator -> Digitech Whammy -> Maxon OD-9 -> Patch Bay Out -> Front of Head

Send from effects loop -> ISP Decimator -> Patch Bay In -> Line 6 POD X3 Live -> Patch Bay Out -> Return to effects loop

My name is Alex Wade, I’m 23 and play guitar in the death metal band Whitechapel on Metal Blade Records (www.myspace.com/whitechapel).  I tour about 250-280 days out of the year all over the world, and the band is my career.  I’m obsessed with guitar tone and gear, and especially clean looking pedalboards and set ups.  I’m what some would call “OCD” hahaha.

http://www.whitechapelband.com
Twitter:  @alexchapel

Popularity: 15%

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The following is a guest post review of the Visual Sound One Spot Combo Pack by Lee Chavez. If you are interested in guest posting, please contact me!

Visual Sound has sent us yet, another great product from their line of quality products. Let me introduce you to the Visual Sound “One Spot combo pack“. A completely reliable way to power up to eight 9V guitar pedals, without the hassle of several bulky power adapters.

The “One Spot combo pack” is a combo pack indeed. Including their “Space Saver” power adapter, one “Visual Sound Multi-Plug 8 Cable”, two “Visual Sound Battery clip converter”, two “Visual Sound L6 converter” and one “Visual sound 1/8th” converter”. That’s quite a lot, and plenty to power your pedals!

Now you may read mixed reviews on this product. Some say “If you like noise and hum, get this”. Others say “It works great! I would recommend this to anyone! With that said, I’ll give you my opinion.

As a professional, gigging guitarist, I play out a lot, and in bands. I don’t always have a lot of time to set up. I have absolutely no problems with this product, and think it is a no brainier. You would be crazy not to own one of these!

With all of that said, this is one professional, easy to use, quality product, that I would like to personally say “Thank you Visual Sound” for making it available to us!

On behalf of Effectsbay, I’m Lee Chavez, thanks for reading!

Please check out Lee Chavez at Twitter, YouTube and MySpace.

You can pick up the Visual Sound One Spot Combo Pack for $34.95 at  Musician’s Friend.

Popularity: 6%

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CONTEST IS CLOSED

This all started with a email I sent to Mark Stoddard, the owner of Lava Cable. I was curious if they would be interested in donating a kit/product for a EffectsBay.com give away.. and he agreed! But I would like to make this give away a small personal review post as well.

About two months ago, I purchased the Lava Cable Kit (mini ELC) from Musician’s Friend ($89.95) and I was really curious how it worked, since it’s a different design than traditional solderless cable kits. Someone in Twitter-land mentioned it’s a bit tricky to get the right angle cables, and noticed that with the first one. But after I got the idea (the bend) it was a piece of cake. What’s interesting about this design is the ‘sleeve’ they use which I believes grounds the shielding properly. I was impressed with the quality of the cable (low capacitance), jacks and how easy getting a working cable was. I’ve had them on my pedal board since I bought the kit, and no issues at all with shorting or cracking.. so that is a big thumbs up for me.

So here is the give away. Mark is putting up a Lava Solder Free Kit (all R/A plugs) 15′ Lave ELC cable. My kit was $90 with 10′ cable.. and this is a 15′ for FREE!

Here is the official description:

A pedalboard kit that allows you to space your pedals within 1 inch or less of each other due to Lava’s revolutionary right-angle plug.

The Lava Solder-Free Pedalboard Kit includes 15 feet of Mini ELC Cable, 10 Lava plugs, and a stripping tool.

Lava Cable DIY solder-free plugs—developed with G&H Industries—is specifically designed with tight tolerances to match the Lava Mini ELC cable. The Lava Plug is the first solder-free DIY plug on the market not to use a set screw to make the ground connection. Instead, Lava Cable plugs employ a sleeve that makes a 360° ground and outer jacket contact.

The right angle plug was introduced at Summer NAMM 2009 and it may be the smallest DIY solder-free right angle plug on the market—with a body width of .435″, for spacing between pedals of less than 1″—or less than 1/2″ when staggered.

Please check out Lave Cable’s website, since they do offer other great quality products. Browsing there, I noticed their CPS Configurable Pedal Board System… seems very cool!

Okay, now to the give away. So how do you enter yourself to potentially win  Lava Solder Free Kit (all R/A plugs) 15′ Lave ELC cable give away?

First, be sure to follow EffectsBay on Twitter and/or Facebook to keep up to date with this give-away along with new give-aways.

Second, fill out the form below, in two weeks  (April 6th) I’ll randomly pick 3 entries as finalists. I’ll email the 3 finalists and the first one out of the 3 that emails me back will be the winner.You must enter a ‘valid’ email address, bounce back emails will be rejected. One entry per person. After the winner has been notified and all is good (I’ve retrieved mailing address, etc), I’ll coordinate with Mark at Lava Cable to get the cable kit shipped to the winner.

Remember to also retweet this post and help spread the word! If we continue to have success with these give-aways, I’ll be able to offer more and more… and we all love free stuff right?

So the question…. “If you could design the look of a pedal, what color would it be?”

Popularity: 6%

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The following is a guest post review of the Marshall guv’nor plus (GV-2) by Donny. If you are interested in guest posting, please contact me!

First here a little background. My name is Donny. I am  the Worship Director for Sunshine Acres Children’s home in AZ. I have been playing guitar for somewhere around 10 years. I have been in many hard rock bands and have played lead guitar for many churches.

Ok that being said here is my review for the Marshall guv’nor plus (GV-2). I recently picked this up in a trade and I love it. I play a Gibson Les Paul Gothic with a Pearly Gates pickup in the bridge ( I highly recommend this pup), I pump that through a custom built  2×15 powered by a Marshall Valvestate.

This pedal is very versatile. It has a gain, bass, deep, treble, mid and volume knob. With the gain at 3 you get a very bluesy tone, very subtle great with a neck pickup. I use it with the gain at about 7-8, It has a lot of crunch very Guns N’ Roses sounding, scoop the mids to get more of an aggressive metal sound. Now this is a Distortion pedal and not an overdrive pedal so it sounds good plugged into anything!!

The sound is nice and full and is a very clean distortion, not fuzzy or muddy and it does not sound like a rectifier. I run on overdrive pedal after this when playing solos (full-drive 2) and boy does it scream! Now if you want a thinner sound this pedal can do that too, just turn back the deep knob, it acts kind of like a tone knob does. I keep it around 7 and it is really warm.

To sum it up, this pedal is great. The tone and versatility is amazing, my only complaint would be that it certainly is lacking when playing a strat through it. But i’m a Gibson guy so no worries there.  If you play classic rock to metal, at your local church or just in your garage this pedal is great!!

www.myspace/they_call_me_rosko
www.twitter.com/worshiprocker
www.facebook.com/roskotheworshiprocker

EffectsBay: Currently this pedal has been discontinued. You can still find it on eBay via PedalNerd.com

Popularity: 12%

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I would like to announce the winner of the pedalenclosures Prism 1 enclosure give away! The winner is Marco Antonio Mejia Lara of Mexico City, Mexico! Congratulations!

I would also like to send a special shout out to Mike of pedalenclosures for donating the enclosure and tee shirt for the give away. If you have a moment, check out pedalenclosures.com. If you know of any pedal builders, hackers or pedal tweakers, make sure you let them know about these enclosures!

Popularity: 2%

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Today’s pedal line is from Todd Bishop. 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.

Here’s my submission for pedal line Friday. I’m using a XDS-X2 wireless, Crybaby 95Q wah, TC Electronic G-System (The G-system handles all my effects and amp channel switching via the RJM Mini Amp Gizmo. All my other pedals are plugged into the G-System’s external loops  so they can be controlled through the G-System), BBE Sonic Stomp, MXR-Phase 90, Morpheus Drop Tune, TC Nova Drive (which is controlled via the G-System) and Ernie Ball Volume pedals for expression and volume control. I run it all in stereo with a 5150 III half stack and an original 5150 half stack.

You can hear Todd’s gear in action at the following links:

Facebook is: www.facebook.com/victimrocks
Myspace: www.myspace.com/toddbishopmusic
Myspace: www.myspace.com/victimrocks (band)

Popularity: 14%

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Hello All. I’ve been hearing that there have been some issues sending shirts to the PO Box I provided. If you sent me a shirt, and have not heard back from me, or had it returned to sender, please let me know. I’m talking with the Post Office today to see what the dealio is.

Thanks!
hank

Popularity: 1%

Yesterday, MMisanthropy let me know about a couple of videos showcasing a pretty insane private effect pedal collection. The person who shot the video is blondegraemey who did a great video on the various Big Muffs in the past and made a post referencing that video.

This pedal collection is pretty amazing.. here are both parts:

And part two:

Popularity: 2%

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Today, I thought I would like to talk about the Voodoo Lab Proctavia pedal. Here we have a fuzz/octave pedal that pumps out some quality *classic* tone. What really got me interested was the video by voodoolabvid which featured Tim Pierce playing the pedal back in 1997. Good stuff..

But first, here are the details of the pedal:

Voodoo Lab’s Proctavia is a fuzz/octave pedal that re-creates the unique sound heard on classic tracks like “Purple Haze.” Proctavia is an exact replica of Tycobrahe Sound Company’s Octavia pedal which creates a note an octave higher than the original. The sound of the Octavia effect can also be heard on numerous tracks by Jeff Beck, John Mayer, and Michael Landau.

Known for an aggressive, stringy sting, the original Octavia is prized by vintage stompbox collectors everywhere. Proctavia replicates the exact sound of the original and incorporates the same types of transistors, germanium diodes, and transformer-coupled output stage in its circuitry.

Voodoo Lab Proctavia Pedal Features:

* Classic fuzz/octave tones
* True bypass switching with LED
* Hand built in the U.S.A.
* Five-year warranty

You can pick up the Voodoo Lab Proctavia Pedal for $129.00 at Musician’s Friend.

Remember, if you like reading about these pedals and seeing videos reviews from others, please subscribe to the RSS feed and get notified via email when there are new postings!

Popularity: 4%

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So I was thinking about a new community question this week, but this question is definitely too large for Twitter replies. I was kinda looking at my gear the other day, and was reflecting back to the early days.. thinking about my first guitar, amp, etc. Oddly, I even have my first pedal laying around (not the amp or guitar any longer).

So here is my question to you. What was your first rig back in the day (guitar, amp and optional pedal) and what’s has become today. When I say ‘first rig’, I mean the first ‘real’ rig. I don’t want to hear about the guitar you had when you were 5, etc. But the first guitar/amp/pedals where you were thinking…”Hmmm. I should join or start a band”.

I’m curious how your gear evolution has grown. Likewise, I know some of you have 20 guitars, 10 amps and 100 pedals today, but let’s list your ‘primary’ rig set up today.  #1 guitar, #1 amp and your general pedal set up.

I’ll start.

Popularity: 4%

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