I’m building a pedal board from scratch and my goal is to emulate elements of my tone while I had my Marshall Valvestate 8280. That had a bi-chorus and dual channel and the chorus had an almost phaser tone to it. With it and my Tone Zone equipped Jackson I would get a fairly decent Van Halen balance tone thanks to the valve preamp.
Move forward a bunch of years and now I have my little Blackstar HT-1 head and want to build a small but usable pedal board to go with it. The shortcomings of the amp’s drive channel have come out - i.e it ain’t usable if you need to change your tone at all and the ISF is more than a little blunt.
I already have a an MXR GT-OD for gain and boost. A Mooer Ensemble King Chorus is in the post.
Clearly an MXR Phase 90 is a necessity, but to save some cash I am thinking of a Mooer Ninety Orange.
Additionally, a Boss DS-1 for the distortion.
Plus I have a Thomann gift voucher to use up so was looking at a neat little power plant to get 5 or so pedals juice. If I’m ordering form Thomann then there are seme dirt cheap knock off pedals up for grabs but I am not averse to stumping up some change either. Maybe an EQ pedal after this...
In terms of sounds, everything form a classic overdriven Marshall 70’s rock through to Alter Bridge. Pulling out the odd Alice In Chains sludge would be fun.
Thoughts?
Comments
If you want classic Marshall tones, the Catalinbread DIrty Little Secret is a really nice pedal.
So far it looks like you've got an OD, a distortion, a chorus and a phaser. If it was my board, I'd fill the last slot with a delay- for something simple, versatile and good sounding, there's a reason (three, really) why they've been making the Boss DD-3 since 1983.
Have to say it though- you don't sound very impressed with your amp. Rather than construct a "turd polishing" pedalboard around the things it can't do, should you be considering a different amp? For not a great deal more than you'd spend the stuff you've mentioned buying you could buy a Jet City head...
Don't talk politics and don't throw stones. Your royal highnesses.
FWIW, don't run 9v pedals from 18v unless you're sure they're safe.
Don't talk politics and don't throw stones. Your royal highnesses.
Don't talk politics and don't throw stones. Your royal highnesses.