well, i set up all 3 boards (front-end board, main board, looping board) together yesterday for the first time. as noted above the looper board is still unfinished and might not get done for a little while. i may start putting it on a end table so it's up where i can operate the Loop Level controls to fade in/out though that would make it difficult to operate the pan pedal. i'm still not entirely happy with the loop board control options and need to figure out what i need in addition to what it already can do. i could get two of Saturnworks' passive micro box volume controls and just control the 3d looper's in/outs with knobs which would be much easier if the board is elevated. but how do i work them (and fade the Dittos in/out) without having to bend double to adjust the big knobs?
i'm now close to the point where i'll be done with buying pedals for a bit. when i look at the product categories on Sweetwater or Axe And You Shall Receive i can't think of anything else i really need other than the stuff to complete the loop board. if i get the hots to go all Vini Reilly on the neighbors' asses i have the Headrush E2. with three reverbs that can go from intimate to impossibly large i feel like i'm largely set for reverb. i can't do the endless Neil Halstead reverb, but i don't really need that and don't want to buy two of the huge Eventide units. i have a Jerry Cantrell wah pedal, but seldom use it; it goes before the volume pedal. i may add a Hotone acoustic simulator to the front-end board if i can figure out where to put it; for it to work properly it'd probably have to go way at the front between the Octave Multiplexer and the Attack Delay and that board already has really weird routing relative to the position of the pedals. the only way it could go in front would be to get a smaller expression pedal, but i really appreciate the broad, consistent sweep of the Moog EP particularly because i use it to control the fade-in time on the Attack Delay so accuracy really matters. obviously if it reacts consistently with volume swells it could go in the AD effects loop with the other processors which might be a bit easier to fit. i think i'm out of 9V outputs on the power supply though. the Hotone still needs a bunch of tweaking to dial in the faux acoustic sounds; i got one reasonably convincing preset sorted yesterday but there are 12 other presets i originally did a couple of years ago that need adjustment because they're way too bassy. have i mentioned how much i hate scrolling parameters on the tiny screen of a digital pedal lately?
at this point most of the main board should be settled for awhile; the flanger is hella obsolete but i love its sound more than any other flanger i've heard, and the bumblebee fuzz slot currently occupied by the germanium Fuzzrite has been rotating for years and can always change if i hear something even buzzier. anyway, here's the near-culmination of about 15 years of altering setups.
front-end board signal path (left): EXH Octave Multiplexer (for bass parts)->EHX Attack Delay with Moog expression pedal->effects loop of Attack Delay->Fairfield Circuitry Shallow Water modulator->Ibanez LF7 Lo Fi->Zvex Instant Lo-Fi Junky->loop return to Attack Delay->Attack Delay output with envelope when engaged->Boss RV-3 reverb/delay.
main board signal path (center): [Ernie Ball VP Jr->]TC Electronics Polytune v.1->1978 MXR Distortion+ (center tier, far left in photo)->FuzzHugger 3-knob Great Wall (bottom tier, next to tuner)->Catalinbread germanium Fuzzrite->EMMA Discumbobulator v.1 envelope filter->MojoHand FX Villanova optical Uni-vibe->Fairfield Circuitry Randy's Revenge v.1 ring modulator->TC Electronics SCF chorus/flanger/pitch modulator (center tier, far right)(always in flanger mode)->Boss CH-1 Chorus Ensemble (top tier on left of photo)->Ibanez PM7 Phase Modulator->Fender MTG Tube Tremolo->TC Electronics Flashback v.1 multi-delay (center tier, next to the Distortion+)->EHX Canyon multi-delay (center tier, next to the Flashback)->Catalinbread Soft Focus reverb (top tier, second from right)->Earthquaker Ghost Echo reverb.
looper board signal path: see above.
i notice that i have a lot of "v.1" pedals...i generally prefer the original versions of most boxes to their "upgraded" versions which often lose the things i like about the originals and become more predictable e.g. the revised Randy's Revenge is clangier and less warm than the OG. i'm also not into replacing stuff just because it's old when the old stuff is more than adequate.

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