Pedal Line Friday – 1/29 – Peter Berki

Today’s pedal line is from Peter Berki (@PeterBerki). 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.

My design philosophy is simple: keep whatever works. In order to find out what works, I spend a few weeks (if not months) with my pedal line without weeding out any unnecessary pedals. I’ll tweak them to perfection, then move on to bringing in a new toy. If after those few weeks I still can’t get it to work to my advantage, I discard it. This has been the process of several pedals; including the Boss Ch-1, Boss DS-1, Boss Metal Zone, Digitech DigiDelay, Ibanez TC7, and several others. I’ve employed this philosophy for many years now and it has brought me to these four pedals. All of these pedals have suited my needs wherever they may be placed. I have many more to try out, so my pedal line is still pretty young with room to grow. So what are we looking at?

(1) Korg Pitchblack
This is a great little tuner that is very simple to use: plug in, turn on, and tune. It works great even in low lighting. It has a Big, Clear Digital screen which is easy to see fifteen feet away. I actually place this at the back of my line (kind of rushed my pictures)

(2) Coffin Blood Drive
I was actually taken back by this pedal. I bought it solely because EffectsBay advertised it at its great price(43 total with shipping). Upon opening it, I immediately thought to myself “I hope this isn’t going to be a dumbed down Metal Zone”. After plugging it in, I found it’s capable of everything from smooth, creamy fuzz to aggressive, fierce distortion. I use this pedal for my bluesy tunes. Surprisingly, its well suited for blues and rock distortion, while lacking in the metal area.

(3) Electro-Harmonix #1 Echo
I immediately fell in love with this pedal. This is my one man band pedal. I use it to sweeten my solos and create melody lines. Outside of the band, I plug it in and crank up the delay time. If you get the timing right, you can create some amazing harmonies reminiscent of Iron Maiden. Its great at creating a wall of sound while using “single string” melodies.

(4) Dunlop Classic Crybaby w/ Fasel Inductor
This is a recent addition to my pedal line. I used a Morley Classic Wah prior to buying this. The problem with the Morley pedal was I could never find a use for it. It didn’t work for my solos; It wasn’t working for rhythm parts. I eventually found this bad boy. This works great when blazing the solo trail. On rhythm parts, it gives a clean, wide wah sound without piercing the ears with unwanted noise. It can be played in anything from blues to heavy metal. If you’re looking to play multiple genres, I suggest picking one of these up.

(5) BBE Sonic Maximizer
This is the only effect I use that is truly necessary (tuner’s not an effect). This makes any guitar sound like it’s being played through a Marshall. Some guitarists consider a Sonic Maximizer as cheating, but if you don’t have 1500 to spend on an amp, it is necessary. It manipulates your frequencies to push out a clean, balanced sound. I call it my guitar rigs “balls” because it gives my guitar the edge to play harder tunes. I know my Sonic Maximizer is not a pedal, but it does come in pedal form. I recommend the BBE Sonic Maximizer Stomp Box to anyone who is serious about their tone.

So what is it all plugged into? My guitar rig is pretty simple. All power goes into my Furman power conditioner, which plugs into the wall. My BBE plugs into the effects loop of my Carvin X100b. My X100b is connected to a 4×12 loaded with Rocket 50s. From my X100b it goes; Blood Drive, #1 Echo, Wah, and then tuner. All of this plugs into my Carvin Bolt guitar, equipped with a Carvin C22 (similar to Seymour Duncan JB).

Bio: My name is Peter Berki. I’m 23 years old. I’ve been playing guitar for about 8 years. I started playing acoustic then eventually graduated to electric. Currently I play in my band “Agents of Superstition”. We play a blend of music; including Progressive, Punk, Metal, and Alternative. I started getting into effects about 3 years ago. Prior to that, I just used an Ibanez Flanger for looks. I’m always looking for new effects to try, so I’m always willing to take suggestions.