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Hello and so thankful for these articles and getting to learn about everybody's pedal boards and their thoughts behind them.
Today, I am submitting this pedal board used for our group, Wing & The Flight Risk. The first thing anyone who is versed in music gear, and pedals, will notice is where most of the choices on this board are coming from. The guitar player and singer who formed this group, was first and foremost, an studio rat as not only a session guitarist, but also an audio engineer and producer. So a number of the choices on this board are because of the years at a desk, and the equipment you become comfortable with, and that become second nature, and as Mr Wing ventured out to forming a group and playing live, he wanted to keep some of that which he knows works and why it works, close to his sound.
This list is in order of the signal chain from instrument to amp:
Rattlesnake Cable Company: All the cables we use are of course made by Rattlesnake Cables, simply just for peace of mind. Not having to think about if something is going to stop working is honestly worth everything, and they never fail to come through. Easiest choice on any pedalboard ever. And even the instrument cables we run are Rattlesnake Cables, just so we KNOW that the sound is going to be as pure as it is dependable!
Peterson Strobostomp: This one is self explanatory mostly, as it's showing up on more and more boards lately. Highly dependable and even customizable, but as an engineer, having a strobe tuner at your feet feels much more accurate than shark or the standard, "just make the right light up on my pedal" thing that was common for 2 decades or more.
BBE Opto Stomp: Barcus-Berry Electronics have been around a LONG time. And as a budding engineer in the early 2000's, I fell in love with one of their analog rack units, that just so happens to appear on this board a little later (foreshadowing) but right now we are talking about another pedal that gets its inspiration in the studio analog world. We are of course talking about an optical compressor that you see in every studio around the world, and if you do any audio work you DEFINITELY have a plug version of it somewhere. The Universal Audio LA2A has been a go to compressor since most of you reading this were even born. And it truly helps the process of reigning in harsh and over dramatic sounds, and is the first step in giving you tighter control of your volume so you can decide where you want your sound to be when combined in a mix or performance with another instrument.
JHS Double Barrel: Josh Scott is one of the most knowledgeable humans on planet earth when it comes to guitar pedals on planet earth. And he also designs some of the best pedals on the market. If you have not spent endless hours watching his YouTube channel over at JHS pedals, you are cheating yourself and stop what you're doing and get right over there...NOW! But there are so many perfectly wonderful choices when it comes to boosts and overdrives for guitar. You almost can't go wrong, but when I learned that you could have a 2 stage overdrive pedal that combined two of JHS's best pedals, the Moonshine, and the Morning Glory, I knew instantly I had to have this.
This pedal can help "gain stage" single coil pickups so well, and even put a little more "mid" into some famous sounding guitar pickups that are heavily mid-scooped, to help you design a more balanced sound if you are after that. What better than a 2-for-1 deal right!?!?
Vertex Effects Steel String Supreme SRV Slight Return (SSS): This one is very straightforward as a group heavily influenced by the legends of the blues, and more so as a devout student of the teachings of Mr. Ray Vaughan, this is just another pedals desperately trying to recreate that "Dumble" sound we all dream of. And although nothing ever truly recreates it, this is a great push in the right direction to help dial in those DEEP blues tones.
BBE Sonic Maximizer: As hinted at earlier, this is a pedal that comes directly from a long time staple of many recording studios that every older engineer has run into, the BBE 882i Sonic Maximizer, that has been on countless recordings over the decades. And the funny part about this amazing piece of gear is that you never really need it if you understand what it does, but what it does is honestly more times than not, the "magic sauce"! All a sonic maximizer does is utilize a dynamic eq to boost certain higher frequencies when the incoming signal's midrange goes over a certain point. Back in the day we said it gave everything more "clarity", but honestly, it just sweetens everything up, and as an engineer, whenever a song felt flat, this thing could alway pick it right up!
GFI Systems Specular Tempus: This pedal could again be any number of reverbs or delays, but the sound scopes that can be dialed in on this pedal have help curate the atmosphere on many song while doing session work in the studio, and there was no way it was not going to the same for the live shows as well. It is one of those pieces of gear that the more time you invest into working with it and learning it, the more you get out of it.
Strymon Big Sky: Let's be honest. Strymon has found its way on most of our boards over the last 10 years, and for good reason. But the reason for this choice is not so straightforward. Don't get me wrong, it makes some of the most lush and amazing reverbs your mind can dream up, but the true reason behind its existence on this board is more fickle than that. The true reason is the main guitar in Mr. Wings life has a name, and that is "Big Jewels". And that name is actually short for the Jewel of Big Sky Country. So when there was a pedal called Big Sky, they had to be together. Super simple.
So there ya have it. That's how we define our deep blues sound emmerseed in lush reverbs and delays. Very simple, but oh so effective! Thanks for taking this journey with me!
Thank you so much for your articles and to everyone who shares what sounds define them at this given moment! I wish everyone many many years of fun times and great music!
-Jacob Wing
Lead Singer & Guitarist for Wing & The Flight Risks.
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.
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