Pedal Line Friday – 5/19 – Toon Daelman

Today’s Pedal Line Friday submission is from Toon Daelman. 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 – 5/19 – Toon Daelman

Hi, I’m Toon Daelman, @tinydroptest2 on twitter. Guitarist in Modern Art band.

I posted a photo of my board in the making as a response to your “mini pedal board” blog post. I was at that point thinking about creating a nice small board with all the small pedals that were lying around in my drawer, as they were not on my big board which I use in Modern Art Band (https://facebook.com/ModernArtBand). So these nice pedals were all lying around, and I came to the realization that I could make a killer board out of them, for home use. Looking back on that, it actually became a killer board for *all* use. The only things that i ordered, because i didn’t have them lying around, were the board itself (a Pedaltrain Metro 16), the new TheGigRig QMX 4 switcher, and TheGigRig modular power supply.

The Pedals

– TC Electronic Polytune 2: the pedal that makes you sound good
– Earthquaker Devices Spires: a dual fuzz which gives me A LOT of versatility in terms of fuzz. I love it. It can be harsh and it can be sweet.
– Xotic SL Drive: the sound of a Marshall Super Lead, either “crunchy” or all out monster distortion. I use it with the gain at 9 o’clock for that sweet crunchy overdrive.
– Xotic EP Boost: this must be my favorite pedal on the board. A clean boost pedal with character, as it gives you some added lower mids and bass, like the original Echoplex tape delay preamp did. I use this a lot, in conjunction with the volume knob on my guitar. This also serves as my lead sound, coming after the SL drive.
– MXR phase 95: some modulation is always nice, and this pedal gives me 4 phasers in one mini-sized box.
– Mooer Reecho: this pedal has a great tape delay sound, which i use to create huge soundscapes, or rhythmic patterns in conjuction with the Boss DD-7
– Boss DD-7: I just love the amount of functionality, and great tone, that Boss put in this pedal. It has tap tempo, tap divisions, modulation (which i use all the time), and a great analog mode. It also serves as a looper pedal. Not to mention the stereo out that i never use, but i want to try it soon!

The Signal Chain

The signal enters the board via the tuner, which I use as a mute during gigs too. It’s then routed to the QMX input. From there, I have four loops at my disposal. Loop 1 is the Spires fuzz, Loop 2 is the SL Drive. These two loops are in flip-flop mode, which means that stomping on one of the switches to activate it, will deactivate the other loop (this saves me from tap dancing, since i never have those two pedals on at the same time anyway). Loop 3 is the EP booster, and it can be activated independently of the other loops. The same goes for Loop 4, which is the Phase 95 and the Reecho. I click one of those on, depending on the song or vibe i’m going for, and then use the loop switcher as usual. From the output of the QMX I hit the DD-7, which is practically always on, with a very mild delay with some modulation. Pretty straightforward!

The Power

As I said before, I’m using TheGigRig modular power supply, which has the Generator at its heart. It delivers a huge amount of power, which is then split by the Distributor. One of the Distributor’s outputs goes to the Isolator, which delivers really clean power to those pedals who need it the most. I have all my gain (Spires, SL Drive, EP Boost) and my phaser powered by the Isolator. The other pedals and the switcher are powered from Distributor outputs. You can’t believe how quiet this board is, even with the amp cranked.

The Amps

I’m a huge fan of the Vox sound, so i’m almost exclusively playing Vox amps. At home it’s my trusty Vox Pathfinder 15R, which is actually a *great* sounding transistor amp, with a really tube-like sound. With the band it’s usually my Vox AC10C1, which is a new acquisition. Great amplifier, and for that money, you really can’t find anything similar. My pedals are totally picked to work into an amp that’s about to break up, and is just starting to compress.

The Guitar

I’m playing a telecaster exclusively. As I’m a left handed guitar player, my choices are very limited. Since I found the tele, I’ve become a huge fan of it, because is so versatile and simple at the same time. I just the fact that it can be soft and sweet, but also rock out.

Hope you like it!

Some more pictures, other than the photo’s attached in this email:
– Sputnik on top of my Pathfinder: https://twitter.com/tinydroptest2/status/805022295819423744
– My guitar and some of the pedals I’m talking about https://twitter.com/tinydroptest2/status/818915258836336640
– The tweet that started it all: https://twitter.com/tinydroptest2/status/813519144826077185