Pedal Line Friday :: Sean R.

This is my monstrosity of a pedalboard. I’m a professional rig builder and guitarist in the Portland Oregon based instrumental post-rock band The Mighty Missoula. It’s a lot to explain so grab a coffee and a comfortable chair before reading my spiel. 

The signal flow here is as described below:

Guitar comes into the DI mod on the right hand side of the board. This lets us capture the raw guitar signal in case we want to re-amp it later when we are demoing, in addition to providing a nice input point for the board. From there it goes to the Rowin noise gate which is dirt cheap and perfectly suitable for my needs. Everything from there on is in the loops of the GigRig G3S. I prefer the GigRig to other switchers primarily because I can add or remove pedals from a preset without having to use a laptop. It really is clumsy when it comes to midi though. 

I have the loops setup in the order I use 80% of the time. That order is: Hologram Chroma Console, Origin Effects Cali76, Alexander Pedals Super Neo-Matic, TC Electronic Stereo Chorus Flanger+, Reuss Plasmatron, Crazy Tube Circuits Orama (I have each side wired in separately). The volume pedal shares a loop with an effects send and return on the left side of the board which I use when I am using a channel switching amp (Fryette Pitbull Ultra Lead) and jumper with a patch cable when I am using my Hiwatt DR504. After that it goes to the Boss DM-2W, the Meris LVX, Strymon Big Sky MX, and finally the Hologram Microcosm before sending the 2 outputs to the patch box on the left side of the board.

The Chroma console is really great as a catch all pedal for specific parts of songs and as a pedal that I tweak when we are working on new music. The DM-2 is in my eyes the pinnacle of delay pedals. The way it sits just beneath the dry guitar is incredibly musical. Even at extreme settings it never overtakes the dry signal. While that is my bread and butter delay, the LVX is for more sound design heavy sounds. There’s a lot of ambient work in The Mighty Missoula that the LVX is my go to tool for.

The Plasmatron is a super cool pedal. It’s an op amp big muff and a danelectro fab tone running in parallel with one another with a blend control between the two. It sounds huge but with a lot of definition and clarity. In contrast to that the Peach Fuzz side of the Orama is softer and has more of a bloom. Using the two of them really helps me control when I want to be present in the mix or sit back in it. 

The chorus is there mostly just to annoy my bandmates and satisfy the post-punk goth in my heart. It doesn’t really get used on Missoula music. The Super Neo-matic however is supremely weird. It’s based on a super rare pedal called the super Rando Matic. It’s essentially a randomized vibrato with a lofi quality to it. It’s my go to when I want to inject some weirdness or smear some pitches in a cool way.

The expression pedal connects to the switching system which sends out midi CC messages to the midi enabled pedals when I need expression control. Infrequently use it to control multiple things at the same time.

I don’t really have much to say about the big Sky. I hate reverb personally, but it is a requirement of my role in this band. I prefer to cascade a medium reverb into another instead of just one big reverb. That was the main selling point of this particular reverb. 

All of this connects back to the amp with a custom loom from Rattlesnake that just arrived the other day. Fantastic work you guys. 

Bands / Projects

The Mighty Missoula

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Submit Your Pedal Line!

About a million years ago, I used to run a blog called EffectsBay. On that blog, the most popular feature I would run was Pedal Line Friday. This is where readers of the site would send pics of their pedalboard and a short (sometimes long) write-up of routing and thoughts about specific pedals and the reasoning why they liked it, etc. Readers. loved this. It was a great way to learn about new applications or techniques regarding pedals. It also brought a little inspiration and knowledge about pedals you were not familiar with. It also brought a great sense of community - people like sharing and absorbing cool things, right? It was a super popular feature, and I loved putting them together.

All you have to do is send a pic of your pedalboard (or pedal line - it doesn't have to be on a board) along with a short (or long) write-up of the board. We want a list of pedals (manufacturer/model), routing would be great, and, most importantly, why you use those particular pedals. Also, this is a great way to promote your band or musical project - include that information as well!

You can send the pic and the write-up to pedalline@rattlesnakecables.com.