Gasalcoholics anonymous? whoever said this was a help group?

[le lambin]

the el cap is more for building up washes of psych

The dude from khruangbin is so good at using the el cap for this application- I envy his mastery of that pedal.

[dubkitty]

i love the RV-3's reverbs because of their weird artificiality. it's neither reality or an incredible simulation, it's Somewhere Else. i don't find the decay on the Soft Focus "natural" either, but it's not meant to be. i keep the EQD Ghost Echo always on as my mini-environment. it sits in an odd place between hall and plate reverbs, and like i say about some pedals it just sounds good. it's the only general-purpose reverb pedal i've ever loved.

[dubkitty]

the three boxes i ordered from the CNC Effects guy up in Maryland (Tone Bender MKIII, Buzzaround, WIIO v.2) are supposed to arrive on Tuesday. so the Great Fuzz Shootout is imminent to determine which of the thirteen potential candidates will fill the maximum of five single-width pedal spaces on my main board. i've been both eagerly awaiting and dreading this because it'll inevitably be a long, drawn-out process of plugging in 2 or 3 things and comparison-testing across their entire ranges, after which i'll have to figure out which ones make the best combination. still, it's one big step closer to having the setup reasonably complete.

when the So High So Low arrives i'll have to kick the Attack Delay's expression pedal off the front-end board because i'll need the space. i mounted it on the board for convenience of transport, but i can get away with this because the Gator hard case i bought for the PT Jr. since my former cat shredded its soft case with her claws has sufficient clearance to pack the EP inside laying on top of the lowest tier of the board. i'm getting to where i have too many treadle pedals to deal with...there's the EP for the Attack Delay, a wah if i implement it, the main volume pedal at the front of the big board, an EP for the ring modulator, a volume/pan pedal and a separate mini volume for the inputs of the 3 loopers which are mounted on the looping board, and soon yet another volume pedal to control the multi-looper fx loop box that will let me fade out individual looper outputs. i may eschew the wah and the EP for the ring mod simply because it's too much stuff to adjust on the fly with my feet over too large of a distance. i'll probably need the ring mod EP space for the looper fadeout VP so i don't have to fade from the absolute far end of the setup, and i've only ever had a wah recently so i can live without it and with my envelope filter which can do a surprisingly close version of the Hendrix wah sound if it's set just right and i pick very carefully. seriously, i've played "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" on it. the only places i have to pack treadles that aren't attached to a board is in the hard case for the Pedaltrain 1 which can hold a volume and a wah in the extra space between the board and the top wall of the case. not too helpful if i only take out the main board which has no room at the inn at all because it's an actual flight case, not a glorified suitcase like the old Pedaltrain cases. i can't even let anything overlap the edge of the board or it won't fit in the case. here's where my strategic supply of plastic milk crates comes in. i have a bunch of them that i stole from out back of the grocery store when i lived in California that have served me well for storage and transport since the 1980s. that's where the new Furman power conditioner strip and the speaker/guitar cables will also live along with the AC power cords for the amp(s) and other devices. once the crates are unpacked the speaker and head can sit on them so i can reach and hear. the present-day composer plans ahead! my intent is to have everything sorted and compartmentalized so i can pack and transport the entire setup with a minimum amount of hassle. i don't want to have to spend more than 15-20 minutes setting up and want to break down in 10 minutes or less. i should look into a collapsible wheeled cart because three pedalboards with isolated power supplies are fucking HEAVY. i'm pretty sure the smallest one weighs more than a Les Paul in their respective cases. let's just say i'm not too insecure about someone running off with one if i look away.

[moozz]

I'm a MASF junky

D4987111-F4E8-4BEF-8C22-24A7DFC91E4C.jpeg

MASF pedals rock! I have one (or two) on my "board" most of the time. Biloma is pretty much always there and I also like the Thornoscillator a lot. Recently got the Epilepsy but I haven't tested it much. Also the OSC3 tiny synth box is just up my japanoise alley.

[Paul_C]

I've spent the last 24 hours stripping my pedal set up down to a BitQuest and a Beebo and bought another Telecaster (#12), a Vintera II in Fiesta red.

At this point I have no plan anymore, I'm just amusing myself and changing everything on a whim

[dubkitty]

well, i'm in an interesting space today. on the positive front, my three CMC Effects fuzzes arrive today. i'm not looking forward to the Great Fuzz Shootout, but i'll be happy to have the MKIII and Buzzaround circuits back in the house after selling my EQD versions for stupid money to EQD Collector Guy, and always wanted a WIIO but couldn't afford one when they were briefly a thing. i tested the ILFSS Virus yesterday, and it's a pretty remarkable bit of kit. it does distortion from fairly quiet through irked Distortion+ to grouchy Tone Bender with the toggle in the lower-gain position, and a more ragged distortion that edges into early Neil Young territory with the Bias switch on. at about 60% gain it forced me to play "Cortez the Killer." with the mode switched to High it starts out from Tone Bender with sand in its teeth and goes to post-Velcroar territory in Low, and does the same with added grit, stutter, and unpleasantness (so to speak) with Bias activated. it wanted to do "Into The Black," but the bass box wouldn't cooperate. both high gain modes get so wack with the gain structure that they become unusable after about 2 o'clock on the gain knob because it starts feeding on itself and trying to self-oscillate which it can't quite do, resulting in loud background noise when not playing that comes and goes randomly. if i was the kind of guy who doesn't mind repeatedly resetting my boxes it could supplant at least 3 different fuzz/dirt boxes, but i don't know that i'm ready to do that, especially with the way my back is acting lately. (the whole point of the EP on the Attack Delay was so i wouldn't have to bend down to adjust it.) fuzzes that have loads of settings usually wind up retired at my house in favor of fuzzes that only do a couple of things, but do them really well. one thing i notice is that it doesn't sound as much like a Harmonic Percolator at home as it does in the Collector/Emitter demo. i'm not sure whether that's a good or a bad thing yet. maybe what i need is a Land HP-2, which are back down to a sensible $200 used. i like them, but i definitely didn't like them $800 worth.

on the Ostfront, my Attack Delay, which the entire front-end board was designed around, has developed a problem that makes it unusable and is probably unfixable unless Mike Matthews sends his angels (h/t U2). i'm dialoging with EHX now regarding sending it in for repair, which they apparently do out of warranty for a flat $25 fee. i'm seriously considering retiring it even if it's fixable...i'm starting to feel like my setup has become too complicated to be entirely practical, with treadle pedals on the FEB (expression pedal for the AD), at the start of the main board (volume and occasionally wah), at the end of the main board (EP for the Randy's Revenge), and two on the looping board (pan pedal for looper A/looper B inputs and separate volume for looper C input) with another to be associated with the loop board once Saturnworks does my switch-'n'-fade box. it's just too much stuff to operate with my feet over too large of an area while trying to control the looper(s) as well, and i'm one of those people who can pick up a pencil with their toes. so i may revamp the FEB to only include stuff i can set and forget, and which acts solely to relic and gently degrade the signal in various ways. i'm going to need to do something with it if the AD is going to be gone for weeks as one would expect; it and the accompanying EP-3 cover about 40% of the baby board. i have a So High So Low filter pedal coming in February that would be perfect there. or i could just say fuck it, kick something off the big board to fit the SHSL, and move ahead with the expedition after eating the redundant draft animals. so once again i'm faced with yet more decisions and dilemmas to resolve just when i thought things were starting to settle down. will i ever get to do anything creative, or am i doomed to dick around arranging pedals forever? maybe i'll just build a Sane Situations Board with nice fuzz, angry fuzz, crazy fuzz, envelope filter, flanger, chorus, tremolo, one delay, and the Ghost Echo and not have to think about stuff any more. this is being too way too much work and way not enough fun.

[dubkitty]

"BitQuest and Beebo" sounds like a childrens' cartoon show from 2032.

[Paul_C]

"BitQuest and Beebo" sounds like a childrens' cartoon show from 2032.

There was Bleep and Booster on UK TV when I was little (1960s)

[dubkitty]

which one is Bleep and which one is Booster? they both sound like robot names.

[Paul_C]

which one is Bleep and which one is Booster? they both sound like robot names.

"Bleep is an alien from the planet Miron/Myron with a spaceship, whilst Booster is a young human who travels with Bleep performing galactic missions for Bleep's moustached father"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleep_and_Booster

[dubkitty]

the CMC boxes arrived a little while ago. i haven't done anything with them yet other than unpack them. i decided it would be wise to test the fuzz pedals i'd relegated to the Spring Stuff Sale along with the live items so i cover every available option so between the relegated, the CMC boxes, the stuff from the board, and my back inventory of stuff i don't intend to sell i have seventeen boxes to evaluate (though a couple will probably get the two chords and i'm done reaction like certain guitars do when i test them in the store). fuck. this sort of thing could take days if i'm meticulous about it, and the board is torn up so i can't play with fx otherwise unless i plug whatever fuzz i've got on deck into the part of the board that's still intact (that being from the envelope filter on...tuner and fuzz always go first in my world, no matter what latter-day shoegazers say). the good part is that once i finish this it'll be done and by then it might be time to add the Saturnworks looper fader box to the looping board when it's finished. there's just enough room for it to fit. i'm really happy that at least i finally got the looper board right and don't have to fuck with anything else there. i haven't had to do a thing to it since it was finalized other than switch on the power supply. the ad hoc accretion of effects for the main and front-end boards has led to somewhat scrambled layouts and concepts put together on the fly rather than being thought out, especially on the FEB which was nuts before i pulled the Instant Lo-Fi Junky and rearranged it a little while ago. it looked like a bowl of spaghetti under the board. the big board has been getting messed with to fit "one more pedal" on for months.

i'm leaning hard towards putting the Attack Delay away and going back to only a manual volume pedal (which i've still been using, but not for Great Big Swells which the AD is arguably better at). one thing about the AD is that it only has a certain amount of flexibility in how the attack and decay functions work...you have a choice of linear, log, or s-shaped curves for each function with no ability to edit them. this makes it really consistent, but perhaps too consistent. also, when i play with the AD the swells don't feel or sound as natural as the manual VP does when i listen to my old loops. not that they sound bad, but there's something subtly off about it. this is a constant theme in my interactions with digital pedals...they get almost there, or almost sound natural. i like when it works consistently sometimes,though...i can't symmetrically fade in a sequence of four chords with my foot with each envelope the same like the AD does when i play "Varðeldur."

so i think simplifying the FEB is going to be a thing. i can't be all over the setup adjusting things constantly, so it probably needs to be passive i.e. nothing changes unless i turn knobs and i don't have to interact with it other than stepping on switches. i'm finding myself overwhelmed by how much i have to do in order to get a result. minding the loopers is hard enough without having to do mirror-image shit on the opposite side. it's tempting to retire the FEB altogether, but i need somewhere for the Octron to live because it's too big for the main board and i don't want it just sliding around on the floor. it's a tough motherfucker with a stamped steel case, but why take chances? i'm also really fond of the Shallow Water as part of making things into watercolors and it likewise can't fit the big board. so there'll probably be some iteration of pre-processing. just what form that will take is totally unclear to me other than that it'll be simpler and different, likely will not feature an expression pedal, will probably include the So High So Low when it arrives, and that the effects there will be used like spices, occasionally thrown in to change or enhance the flavor in small doses. the EP for the Randy's Revenge will also probably go...i'll need that space for the VP that works with the looper fader.

i'm going to respond to EHX tomorrow, who will give me a return authorization for the Attack Delay. when it comes back i don't think i'll use it regularly, though...i don't quite trust it after its latest shenanigans. i'm also casting a leery eye on my Canyon, the other digital EHX pedal i use. it's very unusual for pedals to just die on me...the only time i can recall was when my Randy's Revenge went out. apparently a power surge or daisy chain-related fault fried its charge pump. other than that it's been delightfully monotonous reliability other than having to change the switch on the Distortion+. i want to get back to that. i didn't realize just how deep my disinterest in digital FX goes until i looked stuff up and found that the only digital things on all three boards are the tuner, the delays, the Soft Focus reverb, and the loopers. and it wasn't any sort of dad-rock "analog only, maaaaaaan" thing. i just buy stuff that makes sounds i enjoy hearing and that feel right. i honestly thought the Ghost Echo was digital.

i have this line from an Ian Ball song stuck in my head: "do you ever miss being bored?"

[dubkitty]

i also didn't know that now they're selling the Ghost Echo as a "spring reverb pedal," which it really isn't. you can dial in a very Fender reverb-like response with the Dwell and Pre-Delay--it just struck me yesterday that i'd essentially done that unintentionally via trial-and-error tweaking until it sounded good to me--but it really doesn't sound like a spring reverb to me at all. there's a distinct lack of boing in its sound. i'd have gotten bored with it years ago if it did.

[dubkitty]

Bleep is an alien from the planet Miron/Myron with a spaceship

i'll bet a fiver there was someone on the crew or writing staff named Myron LOL.

[Paul_C]

The middle one arrived today

[Tall Walls]

With all of your different Telecasters, do you notice any differences from the different positions of the string trees? The string tree on the left is slightly farther out than it is on the one in the middle, and the paisley one doesn't seem to have a string tree at all. I was checking out a bunch of teles at a local shop and noticed that the string trees seemed to be in all kinds of different positions. Sometimes it seemed to just be based on where the Fender logo decal was. And some models have two string trees.

I have a Peavey tele-style guitar with a string tree on the two high strings, but the middle two strings are always really sproingy and sometimes I wonder if they'd be more stable if I added another string tree.