Pedal Line Friday – 11/12 – Owen Vickers

Today’s pedal line is from Owen Vickers. 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 pedalline@nulleffectsbay.com. Every Friday I’ll showcase a pedal line submission. Make sure you include any links to your band or music page.

Hi there,

My name is Owen (www.owen.net.nz) and I play in a band called Ninja Monkey (www.ninjamonkey.co.nz or Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ninja-Monkey-band/114605419949), and here is a description and pictures of my current pedal board 🙂

After years of having pedalboards the size of small cities, I’ve recently slimmed it down to a very small Pedaltrain Jr board running the following: TC Electronics Polytune, Dunlop EVH Wah, Xotix EP Booster, MXR EVH Phase 90, Red Witch Pentavocal Trem and an Akai Headrush E2.  Also on the board is the channel switch/solo boost pedal for my amp (Splawn Street Rod head, which I run into a Mesa Boogie Recto 2×12 cabinet).  Power is supplied by a Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2+.  The Wah, Tuner and EP Booster go into the front of the amp, and the Phase, Trem and Delay go through the amp’s effects loop.

TC Electronics Polytune – A great tuner, it is fast and accurate.  The polytune mode is incredibly handy when onstage, and you just need to do a quick check to find any out-of-tune strings. Dunlop EVH Wah – Apart from the obvious good looks (yes, I am a bit of an Eddie fan, if you hadn’t noticed!), this is a fantastic sounding wah pedal.  It is very mid-focussed without the harsh top end or thin bottom end that many wah pedals seem to have.

Xotic EP Booster – The phrase “taking a blanket off my speakers” is pretty accurate for this pedal.  I tend to leave this on all the time, as it adds a nice sparkle and width to the sound on both clean and driven sounds.

MXR EVH Phase 90 – Did I mention I quite like Van Halen?  Oh yeah, I did 😉 Most people have a good idea what this pedal sounds like, and it’s the pedal that has lasted the longest on my pedal boards over the years. Beautiful lush phase sounds live in this pedal.

Red Witch Pentavocal Trem – A very versatile trem pedal, which works really well as a volume boost or even better as a trem pedal (funnily enough).  Highly recommended to check one of these out (and the rest of the Red Witch range), the sound is incredible.

Akai Headrush E2 – Probably the most under-used pedal on my board.  I only use a single repeat, quite low in the mix, to add some depth to my lead sounds (and cover the mistakes a bit!).  I’ve tried to incorporate the looper side of it into my playing, but that never seems to last very long 😉

I also have a few pedals that occasionally make an appearance back on the board when I manage to find some room for them: G2D Custom Overdrive, Cusack Screamer, Crowther Hot Cake, AMT Fatal Tube and an MXR 6-band EQ.  Although, since getting the Splawn, I haven’t found much use for my drive pedals!

Current main guitars are a 1989 Yngwie Malmsteen Strat, an Ibanez JS1200 and a Realtone Strat with Rio Grande pickups (Railgunner and Bladerunner).

Cheers,
Owen