Pedal Line Friday – 9/27 – Nigel Houghton

Today’s pedal line is from Nigel Houghton. 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.

Thought you might like to see my setup. Chain goes like this:

Guitar -> Fulltone Clyde Deluxe -> Looper

Looper:

Loop 1 – Lightning Boy Soul Drive
Loop 2 – Keeley Compressor
Loop 3 – DLS Chorus-Waves CV2
Loop 4 – Malekko Ekko 616 Analog Delay
Tuner Out – Sonic Research Turbo Tuner

After the Looper:

 Fulltone Supa-Trem -> Fulltone Catalyst -> Morley AB Pedal

Board is a PedalTrain 1, power comes from a Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2 Plus and a T-Rex Engineering Fuel Tank Junior, both mounted under the PedalTrain. Since I play in a classic rock cover band at the moment, I also use a Rocktron Banshee up front in the chain if I know I’m going to need it. I also use a Boss FS-6 foot switch to control an AirTurn unit, which is also powered from one of the units under the board. The AirTurn is used to control OnSong on my iPad (seriously can’t remember the words to all the songs these days). Everything is lit up and protected on stage using a Pedal Guard Pro from StageLitePro. I use the Looper mainly so that I don’t have to “dance” on the board, the tuner-out/mute is also quite useful.

The Catalyst and Supa-Trem sit on PedalTrain boosters so I can get to them easily and if you’re wondering how everything is fastened down, the Clyde, Looper and Supa-Trem are all screwed to the PedalTrain instead of sitting on their rubber feet. All the others use small strips of Godlyke Power Grip. Everything is connected using George L’s, I’ve tried plenty of other solder-less systems over the years and I can tell you that George L’s are by far the best, don’t bother with anything else.

From the Morley AB, the signal goes to a Fender Bassman Tweed ’59 reissue (1985 model) and a Fender Blues Junior Tweed (2011 model). For small gigs I normally just use the Blues Jr and leave the AB pedal out.

I use quite a few Fulltone pedals because they sound great and are extremely reliable. Best pedal on the board though is the Lightning Boy Soul Drive, it’s just phenomenal and I’m not sure what I’d do without it now. It’s become a must-have pedal for studio and live performance. Some folks might be wondering why the compressor comes after the Soul Drive, it’s just the way I prefer it, you should experiment for yourself with putting gain/overdrive before and after a compressor. The only thing I would say is use a really good compressor, it’s one pedal you cannot go cheap on.

The Catalyst at the end of the chain is used for a solo boost on stage, it just fattens the sound slightly and boosts it nicely. Also pushes the tubes a little more in the amps quite well.

I’ve been playing for about 38 years, professionally between the ages of 14 and 30, various different bands and styles since then. As a result I have amassed quite a bit of gear, vintage and new, over the years. So much that I don’t have any room for much of anything else in my basement these days.

Anyway, if you like this stuff, I’ll send you an overview of my practice pedal board as a follow up (you don’t think I’d hump that huge and heavy board around for practice did you?).

—
Nigel