Pedal board 2006

Another trip in the Ade Phazy Gear Time Machine. This time, my former pedal board used in January 2006. Note: the text has been copied over from an old blog, hence it is written in present tense. This pedalboard was dismantled some years later and the PedalPad disposed of.

The FX are mounted in a Pedal Pad MPS-9 pedalboard, which is the model without a built in power supply or signal router, purchased from Leadmusic in Geneva.

A Voodoo Labs PSU plus a mains strip is located in the cavity beneath the metal plates.

The FX pedals are organised into 2 separate FX loops, one loop for FX placed between the guitar and the amp front end, the other for the FX placed in the amp’s FX loop.

Loop 1 (Front End):

• Boss LS-2 Line Selector
• Crybaby wah
• MXR Dyna Comp compressor
• EMMA ReezaFRATzitz distortion

Loop 2 (Amp FX Loop):

• Roger Mayer Voodoo Vibe
• Carl Martin Trem’O’Vibe
• Trex Replica delay
• MXR Micro Amp

Pedals are mounted with Velcro to the aluminium mounting plates of the Pedal Pad case. The two Loooper boxes are screwed to the mounting plates for extra rigidity and, in the case of the 4-way Loooper, to withstand constant plugging and unplugging of guitar leads.

George L’s solderless connectors and cable are used throughout. The Pedal Pad’s clever design means that most of the cabling is out of sight which gives a nice clean look to the whole board.

Front end Loop

The righthand side of the board houses the 4-way Loooper Paatcher box (top right) and the pedals routed into Loop 1:

• Boss LS-2 Line Selector
• Crybaby wah
• MXR Dyna Comp compressor
• EMMA ReezaFRATzitz distortion (bottom left, not quite visible in photo)

The Boss LS-2 is set up as a simple A-B switch feeding either Loop 1 or the Korg tuner for silent tuning. Effectively this gives me a global “mute” switch.

The Micro Loooper, mounted below the Dyna Comp, acts as a true bypass loop for the Crybaby. This was probably the best $40 I spent on the board, given the improvement in tone resulting from bypassing the Crybaby. Yes, it adds a touch of additional complexity to the wiring but also makes switching the wah on and off much easier too.

Amp FX Loop

Carl Martin Trem’O’Vibe

I am a fan of this Carl Martin pedal. It is not particularly pretty to look at but the sound of the Vibe is great. I use this effect a lot, particularly with clean picked parts.

This is placed in Loop 2 (Amp’s FX loop) after the Voodoo Vibe in the signal chain. The Voodoo Vibe has a a high quality buffered input, so this is placed first in the Loop 2 chain.

It is actually a dual function pedal, switchable between Vibe or Trem. I never use the Trem.

EMMA ReezaFratZitz distortion pedal

No, I have no idea of the significance of the name! Great pedal though. I use this in Loop 1 as an alternative to channel switching the amp.

Pedalboard interface

This is the connection / routing interface for the pedal board. Built by the wonderful Dave Boggs of www.loooper.com.

The Loooper Paatcher comprises 4 in-out loops which are utilised as follows:

• Guitar in – Loop 1 send
• Loop 1 return – Out to Amp input
• Amp FX loop Send in – Loop 2 send
• Loop 2 return – Amp FX loop Return out

This creates 2 independent loops, one for FX placed between guitar and amp input, the other for FX placed in the Amp’s FX loop. It also means that the guitar plugs straight into the Paatcher which keeps things neater on stage.

Micro Loooper

Close up of the Micro Loooper, used to “convert” the Crybaby to true bypass. Because the unit is so small, and I couldn’t get a satisfactorily secure mounting with Velcro, I ended up screwing it to the Pedal Pad aluminium mounting plate.

I have never been a fan of the toe-down method of switching on traditional wah pedals, and much prefer controlling the on-off with a positive, easy to see switch.

Update 2012

Of course I can’t remember now, but I think I kept this configuration for about 3 years or so, perhaps longer. Certainly, it was decommissioned in late 2009 or early 2010.

The PedalPad board, though a great idea, is a big, bulky and heavy beast and I think I then switched back to a PedalTrain (the original PT-2 model).

The BOSS LS-2 is a great piece of kit and I continued to use it (and the Korg tuner) on later pedalboards. The Loooper Paatcher also remained in use until very recently.