Pedal Line Friday – 8/13 – Stephen Briggs

Today’s pedal line is from Stephen Briggs. 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.

This pedalboard took many years to put together and has changed considerably and still continues to evolve as my musical style/taste changes. I play ambient, experimental, post rock. Looping phrases, reversing them, adding layers, and dropping the loop an octave whilst playing lead over the top.

Tone is where it’s at and hence I’m on the lookout for a mix of clean and dirty/heavy. The pedalboard is a tad light on the modulation front; hence a few changes are in the pipeline.
I play an American Strat loaded with Kinman Woodstock noiseless pickups.

The pedal chain goes: Korg pitchblack (tuner) into the Fat Fuzz side of the Foxrox Zim, a warm very sustainable fuzz particularly with the delay I use further up the chain, into the Buffer/Boost side of the pedal, which is on 99% of the time to boost the signal through the chain with a little extra bass added. Then to the Analogman DS-1 pro and the Boss SD-1 for a variety of distortion/overdrive tone.

The modulation begins with the EMMA DiscumBOBulator envelope filter, it makes life easier and takes less space than a Wah pedal, just press the switch and leave it to do its thing, equally good with Bass or Guitar. I use the SD-1 with this to get the right effect.

Next the Roger Mayer Voodoo vibe, my favorite pedal, so many cool sounds, I tend to use the vibe/chorus setting for a long/slow warbling effect, very deep and alive! Into the 1970’s BOSS CE-2, long dash, if that makes any difference? A touch more treble and a few decibels more volume.

Time for some delayz. BOSS DD-20, I’ve set up five useful delays in one pedal with tap tempo via the small black box with the red switch. To the Akai Head Rush, originally my looper pedal now the second tap tempo delay either digital or four head tape delay. To the BOSS PS-3, short delay at the moment to the BOSS DD-6 long delay. Setting the Delays to work together takes some effort but the sound that comes through is worth it! So, sometimes all four delays are running at the same time to get violin or organ type effects with huge gain available with the feedback.

To the BOSS RV-5 reverb set on modulation. Slightly different to the modulation on the DD-20 and the CE-2 chorus. I like having the options to experiment.

Finally to the piece de resistance – the Boomerang lll Phrase Sampler; what a superb unit from those fine gentlemen, Mike and Lee in Texas. The best looper by far in my humble opinion. Check out the website for what it can do….four loops at the same time synched or not, reverse, octave down to name but a few. Then to the amp a 1980’s Fender Dual Showman reverb, full, deep and with plenty of headroom, able to handle the sounds it receives with ease.