Pedal Line Friday – 5/27 – Hannes Lattacher

Today’s Pedal Line Friday submission is from Hannes Lattacher. 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.

Hey there,

I would like to apply to be featured in your Pedal Line Friday. I have been following this section for a while and have some great pictures of my board. When I am not teaching English and Gym, I am at home with my wife awaiting the birth of our son. The maintenance of my pedal board has become a great way to relieve stress and build creativity.

Therefore, I will start with saying that my main guitar at the moment is a 1968 Carlo Robelli Les Paul. I play it because it has a lot of sentimental value. I got it from my father-in-law, a consummate musician himself, and I love the way it sounds with my current setup. The other guitars I use for this setup are a Gibson Les Paul Studio from 1998 and a Michael Kelly Phoenix.I am using a Mesa Boogie Roadster Head played through an Orange PPC412. I am using the second Channel in ‘Fat Mode’ as my clean signal and the third channel in ‘Vintage Mode’ as my distortion.

I am a very happy owner and love the Temple Audio Duo 36 design. Their mounting system is works really well and I have had no problems with the adhesive on any of my pedals. It is very easy to work with.

The signal then goes into the TC Electronic Polytune 2 Blacklight. I really like this tune as it adjust its brightness to where you play and I like how quickly it starts working. I hate nothing more than having to wait for the tuner for a few seconds to come on.

After that, the signal is sent into the Earthquaker Devices Warden Compressor. It took me a long time find a compressor that I like. I used an old Aphex Punch Factory for a while and was satisfied, but the Warden gives me all features I wanted and more. It takes a while to get used to all options, but if you take your time, the Warden is one of the best compressors for guitars on the market.

Then the signal goes into my Carl Martin Octa-Switch MK2. In the first loop, I have the most important pedal on my board. The Walrus Audio Voyager is the essential part of my signal chain. I am not using it as an Overdrive. I use the Voyager as a Preamp to add a little bite to my clean signal. I barely turn on the gain so that the Voyager is just adding the special bite I was looking for. Besides my Distortion sound, the Voyager is the only pedal besides my compressor that is always on.

I recently added the Rainger FX Echo-X Delay. I wanted to have a Delay before my Overdrive, because I think that it gave me a lot more options and Delay is very important in my band and my personal sound. The Echo-X is an awesome pedal to do some crazy stuff, but it also is offering very good delay sounds when used clean. Their funky Igor expression pedal gives you the options to do real crazy stuff and I really dig it.

Then I have the Earthquaker Palisades in the Octa-Switch and it basically covers all my overdrive needs. I can get everything from smooth OD to almost Fuzz-like sounds out of it. I especially like the Boost button that allows me to kick in a little more gain and volume when I need it. The pedal is extremely versatile and improved my OD sound massively. I personally like the sound of the Palisades when the Gain is set under 9 o’clock.

For Fuzz sounds, I am a huge fan of the Wampler Velvet Fuzz. I think it is definitely not a traditional Fuzz pedal, but I use it for my Lead Sounds only and I think you can get fantastic lead sounds out of this pedal. However, I have to admit that I am struggling with it a little bit. For whatever reason I always have to adjust the Volume of the pedal as I go but once I found the correct volume the pedal sounds wonderful.

The Boss PH-2 is also on my board, but I am not using it often. I use it for intros and some ambient interludes but the phaser is barely used on any songs. I think it sounds decent, but if I would need to use a phaser more I would look into other options.

For my current band, the Eventide Timefactor is a very important pedal. I am using the Timefactor on many songs and it is key in the way I and my band sounds. I have been using the Timefactor for a long time and I am still astonished by the possibilities this pedal offers, especially since the last update the Looper is working much better. It is such a well made and sounding delay that this is probably the pedal, I will take into my grave. 😉 I added the Barn3 OX Pedal to enhance the Timefactor. I really like the ‘Repeat’ function and moved this on the OX. Furthermore, I moved the ‘Bank-Down’ to the OX so that it is easier to switch.

The Digitech RV-7 is one of the oldest pedals on this board. I use this for most of my clean sounds as a standard reverb and I think it does a fantastic job. I am using it on the ‘Hall Mode’. I think that the HardWire Series of Digitech is generally a little underrated and should get a lot more attention.

In the last loop of the Octa-Switch, I have the Walrus Audio Descent. I am using it to create drone sounds, swells sounds and long reverbs. The shimmer mode is out of this world and can make your guitar sound like an orchestra. I love that you can save three presets on it. However, one thing that is a little annoying is that you cannot see in which mode (Shimmer, Reverse or Hall) you are in. That would improve the usage live a lot as some of the knobs change their function in the different modes.

Finally, I would like to talk about the Octa-Switch. I have been using this Looper/Switcher for a long time. I personally like that you can switch the amp and create presets. I am aware that there are better and especially smaller loopers around, but I am still sticking to the Octa-Switch.

I power all pedals with the Walrus Audio Phoenix. I have had absolutely no issues and I have played in very small locations with questionable power sources. I used the Lava Cable Tight Rope cables on my board besides that I am using Klotz Cables.

Now about some music. My band is called ‘Black Oak’ and we are located in Graz (Austria). We released our first single ‘Breaking Point’ in April 2016 and are releasing our EP called ‘Spektrum’ this fall. In May, we qualified for the finals of the largest and most prestigious band competitions in Austria.

Link to the Video of ‘Breaking Point’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Cwa3WEE3dM

Link to our Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blackoakrock

Link to our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/black_oak_music/