Pedal Line Friday – 9/20 – Ian / Lace Sensor

Today’s pedal line is from Ian / Lace Sensor. 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

Followed your page on effectsbay and thought I would make a submission. Hope you like it. I am a long time collector and admirer of pedals, and my all time favourites are Lovetone, some of which I own, some of which I have cloned successfully.

The pedalboard is a Diago Tourman, the largest they make. The power supply solution is a strip including wall warts for the EH MicroSynth, Hog and Korg Kaoss Pad. The power supply is a Fane DCT-200; cheap version of a Pedal Power 2, and runs the rest of the board, including some fudging with a daisy chain.

The pedal chain is as follows:

EH Hog >
WH Pork Loin >
Boss Tuner >
Chorus (1983 CE clone) >
EH MicroSynth (TB modded w/ LED) >
EH Memory Man (MN3005 clone, 15v) >
WH Supa Puss >
Reverb >
Digitech XP 1000 (all models, used as Space Station) >
Boss Slicer >
EH Electric Mistress clone (MN3007, 15v) >
Line 6 DL-4 >
Kaoss Pad KP3 >
Boss RC-3 looper with homebrew patch/stop footswitch> Out

The key pedal to my sound is the Digitech Space Station. I acquired a NOS original over 15 years ago, and I still own it. I got the opportunity to buy and mod a XP-100 quite cheaply, so this is similar to the popular “XP-1000” or “All-XP” pedals out there, with the additon of an output control to balance the input gain – a very useful addition.

The HOG is used only sparely, for a blend of 1 2 3 and 4 octaves up in parralel. I dont use even 1/100th of its potential – yet!

The Pork Loin is a great overdrive pedal, and the reason I favour it is the clean blend function. I use a lot of delay and modulation, so whenever layering drive (rarely) I need something that maintains good frequency response and attack through the time based effects. I have almost the whole range of the WH reproductions via Jim Dunlop and all of them are characterful and great at what they do, with extended functionality.

The Supa Puss is the revision B, which fixes the widely reported “blend issue”. Its a nice analog tap tempo in a very small footprint. It has a very different sound to the memory man. I used to have here a homemade MK1 clone Aqua Puss with modulation controls (Mn3005) but preferred to have tap tempo.

The Line 6 DL-4 is only used for live looping and being creative during songwriting, I dont employ it for delay effects at all. The Boss RC-3 looper is used for pre-recorded loops and triggering of samples. I built my own patch / stop-start control pedal for it, for around £10 – better than the £50 boss one and much smaller.

The MicroSynth is used for filter sweeps, and layering / transition between parts and general noisiness! The original and best, in my opinion.

The Slicer is used for rhythmic parts and tap tempo tremolo. Seriously under rated pedal, and you dont see it on many boards, but I am glad of that as I feel I found a great use for it in my music and dont want everyone getting them, as they are not programmable, so you are limited to the 50 onboard patches…

Some of the pedals were built by myself. I run a small hobby business for local (and some international) people and bands, mostly UK. Some of my clients include: Bloc Party, Everything Everything, Dutch Uncles, Bombay Bicycle Club, Shes So Rad, Ladyhawke, Modern Alarms, The Alpha Machine, Faux Four.

For the home made pedals these are as follows:

EH memory man clone. This is built using a PCB from Madbean pedals, and runs the classic Panasonic MN3005 BBD chips, and is run off 9vDC that is internally doubled to ~18v, then regulated down to 15vDC. This means it retains the headroom and sound of the original. The only other change was a 330pf clock capacitor – stock vintage is 240pf that yields ~450ms of delay. The 330pf gives longer delay times at the sacrifice of some added clock noise and artefacts.

The red “1983” Chorus is a clone of the classic Boss CE-2, and again uses a Madbean PCB. It is using again the classic Panasonic vintage BBD, this time a MN3007, with a MN3101 clock. It uses the same 15v operation described above.

The EH electric mistress clone, is also the Madbean PCB, running at 15v. The design uses the Panasonic MN3007 / MN3101, rather than the obsolate and unobtainium SAD1024 chips. I have a big box 1978 first issue Deluxe EM, with the SAD1024 which sounds glorious, which I retorfitted to run off 9v DV (as above, doubled to 18v and regulated to 15v), but I just dont have the real estate.

The reverb is based on the Belton BTR-2 small brick, long reverb time. The single control is a simple mix, and it adds some nice subtle modulation at the extreme settings. This was a PCB from 1776 effects.

I have build numerous other pedals, and for those interested, you can read about the DIY process at hownotomakeapedal.blogspot.com, or refer to my hobby company website at www.gigahearts.co.uk or follow @gigahearts_fx on twitter.

Guitars – too many to mention, but the current faves are
– Fender 2009 Billy Corgan signature Stratocaster
– Fender 2013 Johnny Marr signature Jaguar
– Squier 2012 J.Mascis Jazzmaster

I play into either a Fender 1×12 Hot Rod Deluxe, or a Blackstar Artisan 15

I have played guitar since I was 13 (now 29, ouch) with various bands over the years and love to play live and record.. I am currently in a long term studio/writing project which hopes to record and play out soon.

I trust this information is enough, if you have specific questions please follow up with me.

Best regards

Ian (LaceSensor on many pedal / DIY forums)