Pedal Line Friday – 7/28 – Max Van Mantgem

Today’s Pedal Line Friday submission is from Max Van Mantgem. 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 – 7/28 – Max Van Mantgem

Hi, I’m Matt, but a lot of people call me Max. So, I’m a hobby guitar player, at this stage in my life, so I’m not trying to promote anything other than great pedals.

So, this is my latest board, and I think my best board. I currently own about 70 pedals, from nearly priceless vintage pieces to cheaply purchased pedals from ebay, so each pedal on here represents a choice.

Let’s start with the board, itself- it’s a DIY I made from an old bamboo cutting board, some handles purchased at IKEA, and part of an outdoor rug. I’m pretty happy with how it looks. Power is supplied by two Truetone
Onespots feeding Moen daisy chains with ferrite for noise reduction.

Guitars run the gamut from a modded Stagg tele copy, to an Epiphone SG – I’m a lefty, so I usually go with either an SX Liquid or a Harley Benton Les Paul copy.

So, starting from the lower right- we start with a Hotone Octa to a custom pre-amp modeled after a “grey spec” DOD 250 made by Andrew at Acorn Amps  named after me- Max. From there, we go to a Mooer Hustle drive – It’s an OCD clone, but I actually prefer it to my OCD, because it sounds just a little more crisp and open, less compressed. That goes into a Walrus Audio Iron Horse distortion which goes to a Digitech Digiverb, used only for the “backwards” setting.

On the upper row, starting from the right- we have a TC Electronic Polytune Clip which while not technically a pedal, is great for affecting my tone by keeping me in tune. So, next in the chain is a Mooer Soul Shiver that shows that one man’s limitation is another man’s choice- it’s a chorus/vibe/Leslie that really sounds either like a vibe-y chorus, or a chorus-y vibe. Fortunately for me, that’s all I want for modulation. That goes into a Moen Fuzz Moo which has to be the smoothest muff-style fuzz I have ever heard.That goes into a Mooer Reecho which goes into a Hotone Tape Eko which goes to a TC Electronic T2 Trinity reverb.

For Amps, I’ll plug this into either a Vox AC15 or a Vox Valvetronix VT30,when I need to be quiet. I realize I need a new buffer though, so off to ebay with me!