Pedal Line Friday – 4/12 – Frédérick Gagnon

Today’s pedal line is from Frédérick Gagnon. 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.

I really enjoy your blog and thought I would send a photo of my pedalboard so it can be shown in the “Pedal Line Friday” section.

First, it might be worth saying that I have been playing guitar since 1992.  I have had a few bands.  Right now, I play and sing in a band called “Lucy Loves Lenin”.  Check it out if you feel like it.  We are releasing our first album in Feb. 2013.  Here is a song from the album: https://soundcloud.com/a-billion-records/lucy-loves-lenin-the-walk-of

And here is my pedalboard (see attached photo).

Pedal description:

– Korg Pitchblack Tuner: A great tuner (And I have a confession to make: this is my first tuner ever and I bought it a year ago – after almost 20 years of playing.  What a shame!

– MXR Dyna Comp: last pedal I got.  I like it a lot.  Great for clean tones but also gives different colours to Fuzz and dirt boxes

– Way Huge Swollen Pickle: this Fuzz is great!!!  It’s very FAT and versatile.  I use it mainly for rhythms.  It reminds me of the tone Weezer produced on their Blue Album (though I think Cuomo didn’t use effects at all on the Blue Album)

– EHX Little Big Muff: This belongs to my drummer.  I took it with his permission and put it on my board.  I don’t use it as often as the Pickle but it’s great for leads, especially when coupled with the Phase 90 (very Pink Floyd-ish)

– Boss DS-1: Like many, I got this because Nirvana (Kurt Cobain) used it early in his career and because I wanted to see how it would sound with my stuff But this pedal will get a makeover soon: I just ordered a Keeley Ultra-Mod kit on ebay and will perform my first mod ever on this pedal in a few weeks Just for fun.  If I don’t like the mod I’ll just buy another stock DS-1.  Not the best pedal but fun to have in there.

– Maxon Overdrive: Classic overdrive; very transparent.  It sounds great through my VOX AC30, especially with single coils

– MXR Micro Amp: Great boost that gives more beef to the Maxon Overdrive and Fuzzes

– Small Clone: again, Nirvana’s influence here.  Cobain had it and I have always liked that kind of Chorus.  I got it used for almost nothing and I use it on a couple of songs

– MXR Phase 90: A classic Phaser that I use on a couple of songs with my band.  I got it a few weeks ago and I must admit I was disappointed at first.  As you probably know, this pedal tends to boost your signal a little when you use it.  It can also distort the sound a little, which is not very good when you were expecting a transparent Phaser. Surfing the web, however, I came across a page that explains how to mod the Phase 90 so it sounds a little more vintage/transparent.  It’s often called the R28 mod (or script mod).  Here is the link to the webpage I am talking about: http://www.erikhansen.net/mxrphase90mods.php  So, I did the mod a few days ago and I would definitely recommend it!!  Removing the “R28” part in the pedal really helped to reduce the boost I was talking about earlier.  Now I like the Phase 90 a lot.  It’s perfect.

– MXR Carbon Copy: I know you guys did a review of this pedal on this website.  Great review by the way!  I think the Carbon Copy is a great analog delay, maybe the best out there for the price.  Also, the pedal is small, which is great for small pedalboards like mine

Two more things:

1- The board itself was made by me with a GORM IKEA shelf.  I had seen people doing this online and thought it was a good way to go.

2- I also have (not shown on the picture) a vintage Roland Chorus Echo Re-301 tape echo that was given to me by my uncle.  Thank you Syl!  It is fully functional and for those of you who have tape echoes, I definitely recommend checking out this website if you ever need new tape, new parts, etc.: http://www.echofix.com  The guy that runs the website is the nicest guy and was really helpful when I had questions about calibrating this great machine

So here it is!
Thanks for reading!

Frederick Gagnon
Montreal, Canada