Pedal Line Friday :: Paul B.

I've enjoyed your PLF posts and thought I'd throw in (because who among musicians doesn't like talking about their gear?). Here's the write up.

I'm a performing bass player; fretted, fretless, acoustic, 4-, 5-, & 6-string plus guitar; electric, acoustic 6 & 12, and assorted other strings e.g. mandos, etc. I built this board with the intention of accommodating all these instruments on a single platform I can just throw down, plug-in, and play w/o fuss. Not to mention that I sure don't have the means to make a separate board for each...

The board itself is a Rockboard Quad 4.2 (approx. 24"x13"), powered by a Voodoo Lab's PedalPower 3 Plus (12-output).

The chain starts on the lower right with Soniccake's VolWah active volume pedal. I never use the wah but often play volume swells and it's really not complicated. This pedal is small, clean, and does the job. The Fishman Platinum ProEQ is the base DI, tuner, eq, compression, boost, etc., etc. manager (which has the specific benefit of having bass and guitar modes). All the other pedals are a send/return loop to the DI.

The EBS OctaBass is an octaver designed for the low end. It will double all the way down to about the lowest A.

The J.Rockett Audio, Blue Note OD is a "blues overdrive," and all around "fatterner." It literally has a "Fat" knob which does just what it says.

Darkglass' Alpha Omicron is almost a must for any bass player; two distinct and blendable harmonic distortion modes which has much class as it has raw metal (though I'm no kind of metal player). I'm surprised how much it can enhance my fretless sound.

The Boss Waza Craft CE-2W Chorus speaks for itself. I like how it can be either wet and present or add just a bit of subtle color. I even get some milage out of its (CE-1) tremolo setting.

Neunaber's Immerse Reverberator (MK I) is next for the verb role. This pedal has a number of modes including their signature "Wet" reverb plus other modes including two ambient shimmer settings.

Line 6's HX One is tough to summarize. It's on the board to be any other effect I want but, like all Line 6 effects, is infinitely configurable. The limit of the HX One is that it only covers one effect at a time. But still, it sounds so good that it's almost always doing something for me no matter what I'm playing.

Boss' Synthesizer SY-1 again needs little summation. I'm not big on synth-guitar/bass sounds (and I held out for a long time) but gave in when necessity so demanded. It is cool that it has both guitar and bass modes.

Then TC Electronic's Flashback Delay and Looper fills the delay/echo slot but the following MimIQ Doubler is more interesting. I don't see a lot of players using this pedal and I can't imagine why. It creates a number of dubs (up to 3) with settings that regulate "tightness" or how close the dubs will sound compared to the source. It's just pure, unadulterated fat w/o any other messing around. Why not add more of what you love?

The Strymon Iridium, amp and IR cab pedal is just an awesome, intuitive, configurable way of getting that amp/cab/mic sound you can't ever seem to get otherwise. You wouldn't think this would be the most exciting box on the board but it's a close contender with the HX One.

I should say that I'm no kinda expert at all this. I just know what I like, and I string effects together as I find cool sounds I want to bring forward in my performances. I'm always open to opinions on what to do next and how I can get more out of one, easily portable rig.

Let me know if you'd like any further elaboration. And note that I'm not big on social media so no links to share. Thanks for reading. -Paul

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.