Pedal Line Friday – 2/17 – Jay Walsh

Today’s Pedal Line Friday submission is from Jay Walsh. 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.

Pedal Line Friday – 2/17 – Jay Walsh

Hey gang – really appreciate the existence of this blog and everyone sharing their pedalboards. The advice is always gratefully received.

Finally finished my board and wanted to show you what and why I did what I did.

Quick background… I saw a Pete Thorn video where he talked about how Eddie Van Halen got his delay sound on “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love.” If you think about when it was written, Eddie ran his signal into a flanger, then into an Echoplex and then into his distorted amp… i.e., distortion/overdrive AFTER the Echoplex.

That got me thinking… what if you consider your amp as the PA and your foundation pedals as the amp(s)? Thus the layout of my board.

The amp is a Fender Bassbreaker 15, set to MED on the Structure switch. Gain is turned to “just before clipping, bass at 10 o’clock, midrange at noon and treble at 3 o’clock… Bright switch on. That establishes my “PA/Main” sound.

My two Foundation pedals are the Boss BC-2 Combo Drive (for a Vox-like tone) and the Emerson Paramount Transparent Overdrive to act as the second channel to either the Bassbreaker or the Combo Drive.

The pedal chain goes as follows:

Guitar signal goes into the TC Electronic Polytune 2 tuner.

Then the Digitech Mosaic (for the twelve-string effect).

Then the Ibanez Mini Tube Screamer.

Then the Alexander Waveland pedal (which I use for either chorus or phaser).

This then goes into my makeshift Echoplex: Xotic Effects EP Booster into the TC Electronic Alter Ego Digital Delay (set to 300 ms and the EP1 setting).

Imagine a 12-string guitar into a distortion, then chorus, then Echoplex.

The signal then runs into my Boss BC-2 Combo Drive set just at clipping (jangly tone).

This runs into the Emerson Paramount Transparent Overdrive for channel two options – FYI, they stack magnificently together.

Finally, to the Mooer Noise Killer with its threshold set to -40 db.

This then runs into the front of my Fender Bassbreaker 15 via a BBE Sonic Stomp that sits on top of the amp.

For reverb and tremolo, I use both the Strymon Flint Tremolo/Reverb and the Alexander Golden Summer Reverb pedals run through the effects loop of my amp.

Pedalboard is a Pedaltrain Classic Jr. with the additional 7″ and 10″ risers.

Power provided by Truetone 1 Spot Pro CS12 Isolated Power Supply.

Guitar cable is a 21′ Monster Classic Coiled Instrument Cable.

You can catch my podcast, Campground Pirate Radio, at http://campgroundpirateradio.com

Writing this also got me thinking about a possible pedal swap… replace the Alexander Waveland with an Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress?

Hmmm…