I thought that I would post a pic of my pedal board.
It has a TC Helicon play acoustic and switch3, a mixing desk and a DR880 drum machine with associated PSU's.
As I was enviously looking through other pictures on this thread, I realised how strange my own board looked amongst the more regular assemblies of exotic and not so exotic pedals.
I then realised how very specific my own board was and how it exactly suited my needs and little else.
I wondered how many have boards with pedals that either serve no purpose, are there because you just want a full board or, you just love the idea of them?
Honesty is important here. It's another chance to post pics of your fantastic boards and to explain why the pedals are there.
Comments
I've also got a tuner on there that seems to serve no purpose I can fathom out.
http://medias.audiofanzine.com/images/normal/boss-me-50-78425.jpg
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Every pedal on my board has its use; the MC6 controls 5 of them at once, so the majority of our live set is handled by that, with just the odd addition here and there from the others for bespoke parts. There are two on here which are record pedals more than live though; I barely go near my Instant Lo Fi junky live, but it's on more or less every song we've recorded somewhere or other. The Fairfield Unpleasant surprise is the other that is more handy in studio.
Dual lock doing it's thing while I wire it up:
The last time I joined a band I built up my pedalboard from scratch, putting on stuff that I needed for that band's songs only. When I joined they'd just finished recording an album with another guitarist who was a fairly minimal effects user so I didn't need a whole lot.
As time went on I swapped out or added a few things- sometimes because I decided they worked better, sometimes because we'd written new stuff, then eventually the band split. I kept the board as it was for a while, since it had basically evolved in to something that could cover most stuff I'd want to play for fun, but I've added a few extra bits again since, so much so that I've had to move to a bigger board (mostly to accommodate two Line 6 M5s, two expression pedals and two order switcher boxes that let me put the M5s either in front of the amp or in the loop depending on what effect I'm using them for). Thinking about it, the BYOC Octaver could probably come off- it was used very sparingly in the band, but isn't really something that gets a lot of use otherwise. The M5 has a halfway decent octave fuzz and analogue octave down onboard.
I have this ongoing conflict in my brain over pedalboards- I like to have the ability to make the sounds I want to make in more open-ended contexts- jam sessions, songwriting etc.- but I find having tons of possibilities open to me more of a distraction than an inspiration. At the moment I'm filling up the memory slots on the M5s with a bunch of fairly generic, usable tones that will get me in to the ballpark of a range of sounds quickly.
Don't talk politics and don't throw stones. Your royal highnesses.
As for the pedals at home....
So I use everything, less is more. Only using the say a chorus effect on the verse of two songs is better than drenching everything in it. I've gone much more set and forget with the effects where I resist the temptation to fine tune any effect for a specific song, it's either on or off. Other than me I'm convinced nobody else knows the subtleties.
I've got strong "oooh shiny! Let's have MORE!" tendencies toward pedals (and many things in life) but the board has evolved, i.e been trimmed down, to what I really like as opposed to what I think I should like. Everything gets used a lot.
There's a Cry Baby from Hell at the start of the signal chain (not in the pic obviously).
The Wampler Ego ended my search for a compressor. Boss was too squishy (and I really like squishy); Marshall was fine but the controls were no good on stage; others somehow lost the feel of playing. The Ego keeps a perceived evenness of volumes as I go from clean to dirty, evens out clean strumming / picking, makes clean lines clearer.
The CE-2 is my concession to modulation. Previous boards were awash with modulation, most of the pedals barely used in a gig. The CE-2 nails the sound of the 80s when required, and can add quick spots of sparkle to other stuff.
Nobels ODR-1 is such a good overdrive. Like many of us I've gone through a lot of OD pedals and after you AB them you're kind of left wondering, "Does it really matter?" but if a pedal always leaves you feeling it's doing the right thing and the thing right then it's a keeper. This pedal hasn't moved since I got it.
Wampler Velvet Fuzz -- is it really a fuzz or a very gutsy distortion? Both I reckon. I thought this particular pedal had died the other week and I swapped in a few alternatives I've got and quickly decided I needed another VF (they're not cheap unfortunately). Was really happy that it hadn't died at all.
Two echoes and a reverb -- wtf?
This is what I mean about what I really like vs a belief I had that no one needs two echoes and a reverb. (Says who? What law of the universe says I can't put whatever the hell I want on my board!)
Catalinbread Belle Epoch -- I use it for two sounds: (1) is that 70s lead guitar almost-slapback thing. It's all over the classic rock music from that period regardless of whether or not a real Echoplex was used. (2) is the 310ms-380ms ambiance which sounds awesome from this pedal cos of the insane amount of modulation available. How the hell it actually works is beyond me but it does.
Catalinbread Echorec -- I first got into music listening to early Floyd so although this is a bit of a speciality echo I simply love it and feel very at home with it. I've got several parameters memorised and use them throughout a gig. I think this is definitely one where I feel in my happy place with rather than anyone else actually noticing. But who knows.
Strymon Flint -- the tremolo is on all the time but dialled right back so it's very subtle. That's mostly because the pedal adds a bit of volume as you kick it in so if it's on all the time then you don't get that problem. The reverbs are superb but most of the time I'm on the spring setting. I'll have it on and off all through the gig. Sometimes subtle; other times as a swampy effect. I occasionally use the 70s setting.
Haha, War & Peace for a pedal board!
I can totally see your point, but in the realms of great, distinctive players, for every Brian May who uses one kind of guitar and one kind of amp forever, there's a Hendrix or a Gilmour or a Stevie Ray Vaughan who used a whole ton of different gear and managed to sound like himself the whole time.
Don't talk politics and don't throw stones. Your royal highnesses.
I could get by with the broadcast and the wah, but I use the delay on one song, the Lyre fuzz for a sitar sound on another, the vibe sounds amazing and I try to use it whenever I think it works, the one knob fuzz face sounds better than the high-gain mode on the broadcast but isn't functionally different. Amp has reverb/trem which I like but aren't necessary.
Here's mine.
The stuff I have kept after a big cull all have their specific purposes and get plenty of use.
Polytune....for tuning
Amp (Mesa F50) is set quite dirty but will clean up enough with the volume control and pickup selection (gtrs, Fender Richie Kotzen Tele, Fender USA Tele, Gibson LP Studio 50's Trubute, GSP LP Jnr)
Maxon OD808 is pretty much my go to lead boost.
Fuzz Face is for all the songs that require fuzz! Which is about half our set.
The killswitch on the end is to completely mute the signal as my tuner gives off a bit of digital noise due to the power supply being a bit naff. Th killswithc will be removed once I've bought a new isolated power supply.
I also have a wah from time to time. And I have the option of the amp footswitch if I want to go between dirty and really clean.