Pedal Line Friday :: It & I

Hello,
I am a weirdo one man band called It&i, and here is my write up of what's on my board:

1.) Digitech Ricochet - This guy is the first in the chain. I use it to do typical Whammy pitch bends, and high octave doodly-bobs on loops, but also to turn my guitar in a six string bass for certain songs; mainly when working with the PLL pedals...more to come on that!

2.) Boss SY-1 - This compact synth pedal does a whole bunch of stuff I sometimes fiddle around with, but, mostly I just use it for a very sawtooth synth bass sound.

3.) EHX Nano POG - So, I'm a one man band, and I need a fuller sound, thus I began messing around with octave pedals. The POG is the best, in my opinion, because the tracking is impeccable, while retaining dynamics and punchyness. My basic sound is the POG with both octaves and up pretty high, paired with a distortion. It's a very circusy kind of sound which suits my music well.

4.) Mr. Black Thunderclaw - The Thunderclaw is the best distortion pedal I think. It's so clear, yet crunchy. My standard tone for most of my material is the Thunderclaw with the distortion hardly turned up, the Nano POG, and a cheap Lucero nylon string acoustic with a Fishman pickup in the bridge. I like the acoustic, because it's so percussive, and I do alot of banging on it to make beats and whatnot.

5.) Expandora II - Next in line is this old landmine looking fella. I use this one just to push it all over the top, when I want to get crazy feed back and distortion.

6.) Madbean Tone Virus - I went through pretty much every PLL pedal in the book. As you can imagine, these untameable pedals do not pair well with a classical guitar. I do have a peanut can lid duct taped over the sound hole, but alas, it does nothing to tame these beasts. The "hack" I found is to set the Ricochet on bass mode, essentially turning your guitar into a slightly janky sounding bass, then it works just fine. The Tone Virus is basically a clone of the EQD Data Corrupter. But this specific one doesn't do those giant bass drops, which is why I wanted a PLL in the first place. This one instead does these little chirpy laserbeam drops, which turned out to be pretty cool any way. Also, this thing does this huge sharp NIN kind of wall of distortion thing I've wanted forever.

7.) Mantic Flex XS - But still, I wanted to be able to do those huge PLL bass drops, so this is why my acoustic pedalboard has two PLL pedals. This specific XS model is a somewhat rare, compact version of it, I had to get, because the addiction is real.

8.) Hotone Krush - These are the cutest tiny pedals I have found. This one is the bitchrusher. I use it on the lo-fi radio setting for a bitcrushed, slightly ring mod dynamic cutter kind of deal.

9.) Rainger FX Bleep - If you don't know already, the Bleep is a heavily gated fuzz, with an envelope filter you can move around using the pressure sensitive expression pedal called Igor that comes with it. My Igor is velcroed onto the DL4 over there.

10.) Valeton Loft Series Phaser - This is the first of my modulation pedals. The Loft Series is so rad! They're all basically mini Boss pedals. As you can tell by looking at my board, I love complex, weird mini pedals. At one point I was trying to have only mini pedals, but that didn't work out. Anyways, this one is a phaser I use for a couple loops to create some swooping texture. It's especially cool paired with the bass synth.

11.) Alexander Space Race - This is an older model of this reverb pedal, that inexplicably is done up in a Halloween themed paint job. I don't know why. I can't find any record of Alexander Pedals doing a Halloween series, other than the Castlevania one. But, here it is, and I got it. My music is kind of like a haunted house anyways, so it works. It does a bunch of awesome reverbs.

12.) Danelectro Milkshake - Cute little chorus pedal. I use it cranked pretty high up for maximum circus organ nightmare sounds. Always loved that old 90s Danelectro aesthetic, especially seeing it by the DL4 which has a similar thing going on.

13.) Bananana Effects Abracadabra - Coolest looking, most compact pedals. This one is basically several different shimmer reverbs, with a bunch of modifying controls. I mostly just use it for a certain kind of shimmery fairyland reverb.

14.) Ibanez Series 10 Modulated Delay II - I always really loved how this series looked. I think they're from the late 80s or early 90s. I found out about the modulated delay from Nick Reinhardt's Rig Rundown. Obviously, his stuff has had a huge influence on my whole set up here. But, I pretty much just use it for making little soundscapes between songs live.

15.) Mooer Tremulator - Nice little tremolo. I use it for helicopter sounds.

16.) Modtone Delay - Strange shaped mini pedal. Fits my style. I use it for a slapback thing on a bunch of songs. Only the light's burnt out, so I sometimes forget to turn it off.

17.) Line 6 DL4 - Last, but absolutely not least: this big 'ol Gal! I just use it for the looper. But, no other looper works for me as well as this one. I do many different tricks with it in my live looping act. I kind of like the limitations of it. I also play drums with my feet while operating this stuff, but the DL4 allows me to set up loops, kick them on and off, and manipulate them while doing so. It has basically become my most important pedal.

So there it is! This board has been an immense labor of love, and is my favorite place to hang out. If you want to check out what I'm all about, and how I use it, check out the links.

Thanks!
- It&i

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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.