Anyone ever gone back to tap dancing?

colourofsound

I've been running a rig with a loop switcher for the past 6 months or so, first an ES-5 and now a Musicom EFX LE.

Had a jam with a new band last week and the way programmable switchers work just seems to go against a more dynamic workflow when jamming and writing. Couple this with multi-fx that only shine when you know your set and you recall presets by Midi - suddenly your amazing do-it-all rig seems quite restrictive.

So I pulled my switcher off the board, reunited the orphaned pedals back to my board and had a wonderful time. Apparently the Cali76 and Neunaber Slate buffers are excellent; because I couldn't really tell if my tone was effected by running pedals in series again.

Anyone else had a similar experience? Anyone running a more hybrid setup, like a Morningside MC6 + underboard loop switcher like their ML5 or Voodoo Labs NEX?

(I'll be keeping an eye out for smart arse remarks about ballet or dancing )

Teetonetal

I like individual pedals for jamming and writing in a band. Switcher for live. You, clearly need a 2nd board!

ICBM

Yes, a long time ago. I will never go back to programmed patches, even though I've now returned to using a multi-FX - it just doesn't work with the way I want to use sounds live. The multi-FX is used in manual mode with a footswitch for each effect.

stickyfiddle

I’ve never gone full-switcheroo for exactly that reason. I like having the added flexibility. 

Though iirc from his rig rundown that Jason Isabell has a neat setup. A couple of one-tap
preset sounds (different for each guitar) but then he has maybe 4 or 6 extra switches that add specific pedals into those presets. So you’d start with a “crunch” preset, then add a delay with a single button, then kick in some more dirt with another, then hit your preset “crunch” button to reset to just your klon or whatever that default setting happens to be. 

Not sure how feasible that is without one of the very expensive high end switchers, but it sounds a much better solution than having a rigid 6 preset siunds and no flexibility 

meltedbuzzbox

Can you not just have a bank for simple on off operation with the es-5 for each pedal?

colourofsound

Teetonetal said:

I like individual pedals for jamming and writing in a band. Switcher for live. You, clearly need a 2nd board!

Haha, well in an ideal world...

I do have a little nano+ that the orphaned pedals were on but it never got used.

I might get a second board that the switcher lives on and just wire it up when I know a bunch of gigs are coming up...

colourofsound

meltedbuzzbox said:

Can you not just have a bank for simple on off operation with the es-5 for each pedal?

Yeah you can - it's not as fluid with the Musicom as it is the Boss - and if you do call presets from your multi fx normally than that's sort of neutered in a normal pedal board situation. I use Zoom MS50G for all my modulation and octaves/harmonies - great when I know when I need those effects but when jamming you don't, and that pedal is not easy to change on the fly!

I wonder about getting an MS-3 for gigs instead...

Sporky

I had a VG-88 in my last band. It took me all of twenty or thirty seconds to build a working patch for a new song. Maybe two minutes if I was doing something complicated with the controllers, during which the others would work out their bits.

I don't recall it ever getting in the way.

colourofsound

Sporky said:

I had a VG-88 in my last band. It took me all of twenty or thirty seconds to build a working patch for a new song. Maybe two minutes if I was doing something complicated with the controllers, during which the others would work out their bits.

I don't recall it ever getting in the way.

I'm talking programmable true-bypass loop switchers though, rather than all-in-one multi-fx behemoths

meltedbuzzbox

colourofsound said:

meltedbuzzbox said:

Can you not just have a bank for simple on off operation with the es-5 for each pedal?

Yeah you can - it's not as fluid with the Musicom as it is the Boss - and if you do call presets from your multi fx normally than that's sort of neutered in a normal pedal board situation. I use Zoom MS50G for all my modulation and octaves/harmonies - great when I know when I need those effects but when jamming you don't, and that pedal is not easy to change on the fly!

I wonder about getting an MS-3 for gigs instead...

I'd try before you buy

Trude

My rule is:

Physical knobs for anything gain/level related (drive pedals, boosts, compressors)
MFX with patches are okay for modulation, delay, reverb and weird spacey noises.

So right now I'm using a handful of stomps alongside a Line6 M9.  I've never managed to get along with having drives, boosts or compressors in presets.  Every time I try, I find they need too much tweaking at different gigs that I give up and go back to stomps.

Bork

Cue: Obligatory sink joke.

ICBM

Trude said:

My rule is:

Physical knobs for anything gain/level related (drive pedals, boosts, compressors)
MFX with patches are okay for modulation, delay, reverb and weird spacey noises.

So right now I'm using a handful of stomps alongside a Line6 M9.  I've never managed to get along with having drives, boosts or compressors in presets.  Every time I try, I find they need too much tweaking at different gigs that I give up and go back to stomps.

That’s why I have a Boss ME-50 and I’m currently thinking about looking for a GT-8... the ME-50 has knobs for everything, and the GT-8 for the overdrive/distortion and preamp sections, and a couple of other things you're likely to want to adjust quickly.

Bork

My pedalboard is hybrid. For gain and eq I have an Amptweaker Tight Rock, an Effectrode PC2A compressor, a Joyo JF14 American Sound, Empress Parametric Eq and an Xotic wah.  After that is a Nux Core Chorus for tri chorus and then a Zoom G3X  where one main patch on the G3 does delays and hall reverb.  If that doesn't suit, I have a Lexicon MPXG2 for higher quality stuff but it's rack based.