How low can you go?

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somanytoys
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Re: How low can you go?

Post by somanytoys » Sun Sep 08, 2019 4:08 pm

This is a great thread.

I played for so long not using pedals that I could get away with using very few if I needed to, especially depending on the amp and what it has built-in.

I’ve been doing different minimal chains somewhat with various smaller amps,

One chain I have set up is a TU-2 tuner, a TS-9, a BD-2, a Keeley 30MS and an Xotic EP booster.
The EP isn’t a necessity, but it really does make a nice difference in the sound of the solid state-ness of the amp it’s being used with, and the amp’s gain is horrific, so I need at least one good dirt box, but the TS boosts the blues driver in a really nice, fat way.

On another one I have a gray/silver box pedal chain - a Keeley Black Glass fuzz, an old Keeley compressor, either a Throback OD/B or a VFE Monarch, a Keeley Bubbletron and a Symphonic Resonance reverb.

For traveling I was using a Sonic Research tuner, a VFE Mermaid (klone), a Barber Direct Drive and a Zoom CDR (which is cheating, it has almost everything).

I think my absolute bare necessities would be a good tuner, a good reverb (if the amp doesn’t have one) and a nice fuzz or distortion. Delay and compressor would be nice, too, but they aren’t make or break. Everything else would be gravy.
-David

It's a boost booster, to boost your boost - it makes your tone much muchier.

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Re: How low can you go?

Post by Futuron » Sun Sep 08, 2019 5:14 pm

If there's no experimental moments involved then I would probably need:

Tuner, blues driver, overdrive, chorus & reverb to feel safely covered. I would want to add either another RV-6 or DC-2w for additional sound options but could survive without.



But otherwise I always want as many pedals as I can get away with.

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Re: How low can you go?

Post by fuzzjunkie » Sun Sep 08, 2019 8:44 pm

Futuron wrote:
Sun Sep 08, 2019 5:14 pm
If there's no experimental moments involved then I would probably need:

Tuner, blues driver, overdrive, chorus & reverb to feel safely covered. I would want to add either another RV-6 or DC-2w for additional sound options but could survive without.



But otherwise I always want as many pedals as I can get away with.
For experimental moments I think I could get by with just my Lovetone RingStinger? Hmm? Just one pedal? I might want a delay that can loop or do sound-on-sound type echoes too. It can do a great octave fuzz. Lots of Tremolo tones. And then all the weird blips, rayguns, and theremin sounds. No, I would still go with two, the RingStinger and an Eventide Space, then I could ambient away with the weird bits popping up here and there.

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Re: How low can you go?

Post by Shadoweclipse13 » Sun Sep 08, 2019 10:03 pm

I love the thread idea!
fuzzjunkie wrote:
Sat Sep 07, 2019 8:16 am
I could do a lot with a Fuzz Face and a Deluxe Memory Man. I really like the Tremolo, Uni-Vibe and vibrato tones I get from my Voodoo Vibe, but if I used an Eventide Timefactor in place of the Memory Man, The Tremolo Delay setting might be enough and while not an analog delay or a Uni -Vibe, I can get some cool swirling sounds from out of it.
This is something I do. I love playing some of the old Pink Floyd stuff, and where Gilmour uses a Uni-Vibe, I use a tremolo (depth a bit higher than I normally would) and delay, sometimes with a phaser on as well. It's not perfect, but based on sound itself, it gets you 95% of the way there. One of my favorite tricks.

zhivago wrote:
Sat Sep 07, 2019 11:57 pm
...of course this means that I have a stay-at-home "big" board I am currently working on, but that will be unveiled in the coming months :ph34r: 8)
Ooh! I'm looking forward to seeing that! Yannis, your boards are always glorious, but in the few years (5.5 already?!?) I've been here, I don't think I've ever seen a big(-ger) one from you.

adamrobertt wrote:
Sun Sep 08, 2019 6:50 am
It would require a lot of fiddling with the knobs between songs though and I wouldn't be satisfied :p
Dude, that's me as well. I don't mind knob-fiddling at home, but if I'm playing, I'd rather have an extra pedal or two (or five) so some can be set-and-forget.

higgsblossom wrote:
Sun Sep 08, 2019 10:57 am
The thing is that I like the TS as a boost, and I use the chorus with the Muff for „broader“ sounds.
I do the same. My TS (EQD The Dunes) is last in my overdrive/distortion chain. I got the idea from Bjorn/Gilmourish where he uses a overdrive pedal (I've seen him use different pedals for the effect) after a Muff to boost it a bit, but clean it up so it cuts through the mix. RAT > TS (with the gain set low on the TS) sounds awesome.

The smallest I'd want to go is: phaser (EQD Grand Orbiter V2), treble booster (Catalinbread Naga Viper), overdrive (EQD The Dunes), tremolo (Caroline Parabola), and Delay (Catalinbread Echorec and Caroline Kilobyte).

The smallest I could go is: overdrive (EQD The Dunes), tremolo (Caroline Parabola), and delay (Caroline Kilobyte). Though, with an amp that can break up on its own a little, I might swap out The Dunes for the Naga Viper...

I sometimes think about doing 2 small boards instead of my big board at home, and running them in parallel (one to one amp, one to another). I think having a "big board" that's actually 2 small ones would be really cool. And the idea of 2 different overdrives/distortions/fuzzes running into 2 different amps would be really fun.
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Re: How low can you go?

Post by zhivago » Sun Sep 08, 2019 10:17 pm

Shadoweclipse13 wrote:
Sun Sep 08, 2019 10:03 pm
zhivago wrote:
Sat Sep 07, 2019 11:57 pm
...of course this means that I have a stay-at-home "big" board I am currently working on, but that will be unveiled in the coming months :ph34r: 8)
Ooh! I'm looking forward to seeing that! Yannis, your boards are always glorious, but in the few years (5.5 already?!?) I've been here, I don't think I've ever seen a big(-ger) one from you.
Hey thanks! :)

It'll be a throwback to my Harmony Central days, I guess where I rocked a few more pedals (still not gigantic, just "more") :)

...stay tuned, it'll be a fun thread...I hope to have it completed soon 8)
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Re: How low can you go?

Post by MayTheFuzzBeWithYou » Sun Sep 08, 2019 10:43 pm

Singlebladepickup wrote:
Sun Sep 08, 2019 4:02 pm

Did you build the surfy duo yourself? I need one of those but I'm never going to have the time to build one
Yes, I did - I also designed the enclosure and bent it myself with a little help from my father and his sculptor-tools! Adding the transfer foil to a pedal of that size was the trickiest part! ;)
The wiring wasn‘t that hard as their pcbs come already populated - you only have to add the voltage, the jacks and the switches and in my case I also added a positioning switch (to choose what comes first).

But they don‘t offer the tremolo diy kit anymore! So you would have to add another circuit!
Image
Besides an annoying volume drop (by design) it‘s absolutely awesome! The spring (45cm, but a smaller one would have been sufficient) is mounted on the underside of my board and you have to try really hard to provoke a „splash“ by kicking against the board - which was my biggest concern at first!

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Re: How low can you go?

Post by Jaguar018 » Mon Sep 09, 2019 6:20 am

Aside from a tuner, which most guitar playing mortals need, I could get by with just a Rat pedal.

Most of my college/post college slacker era was just with Guitar, amp, & Rat. Generally played clean and then had the Rat for the solos and loud stuff.

Part of that was practicality, but some of it was inexperience. I tried to get into pedals back then, but I didn't know what I was doing.

These days I would be happy to add my Moogerfooger 104M Delay or maybe a MXR Phaser. I have a number of other pedals, but in my heart of hearts, I don't really need them-- I just like them too much for my own good.

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Re: How low can you go?

Post by Telliot » Mon Sep 09, 2019 6:40 am

Jaguar018 wrote:
Mon Sep 09, 2019 6:20 am
...Moogerfooger 104M Delay...
Man, I checked the used prices on these the other day and couldn’t believe how insanely expensive the are! Have they always been so high and I just wasn’t paying attention, or have they gone up in value for some reason?
The cool thing about fretless is you can hit a note...and then renegotiate.

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Re: How low can you go?

Post by Jaguar018 » Mon Sep 09, 2019 7:20 am

Telliot wrote:
Mon Sep 09, 2019 6:40 am
Man, I checked the used prices on these the other day and couldn’t believe how insanely expensive the are! Have they always been so high and I just wasn’t paying attention, or have they gone up in value for some reason?
They started off as being Moog's priciest Moogerfooger pedal. (aside from the 104M SD). I suppose because they aren't being made anymore? Apparently the Moog factory will make small batches here and there that are only available at the factory for a limited time until they sell out. Whenever I see the prices like that for gear I own I get pretty excited fantasizing about what I could do if I got top-dollar, but I have never been able to sell my gear for that peak price.

Anyway, I don't think there is an analog delay pedal that can do all the stuff that Moog's can do in one unit. It's pretty impressive. There are a lot of really good analog delay pedals, some have tap tempo, some good modulation, some can have their repeats modded... but not all in the same (big) enclosure. Of course at the price they are going for now you could get three or four nice delays that will get you all that-- yet they would not have that Moog look. :ph34r:

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Re: How low can you go?

Post by Maggieo » Mon Sep 09, 2019 7:56 am

Are we counting reverb and trem that's part of the amp? Because I use those all the time.
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Re: How low can you go?

Post by Tafarel » Mon Sep 09, 2019 8:04 am

None of my amps have reverb or trem; I am about as minimal as I can be and still be considered in a shoegaze band.

Crowther Hotcake --> Repeater trem --> Keeley Mag Echo --> Mantic Proverb --> Strymon Deco -->
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Re: How low can you go?

Post by somanytoys » Mon Sep 09, 2019 9:16 am

Shadoweclipse13 wrote:
Sun Sep 08, 2019 10:03 pm
I love the thread idea!

I sometimes think about doing 2 small boards instead of my big board at home, and running them in parallel (one to one amp, one to another). I think having a "big board" that's actually 2 small ones would be really cool. And the idea of 2 different overdrives/distortions/fuzzes running into 2 different amps would be really fun.
That’s what I do, 1 smaller board (PT classic 2) and 1 very large board, both with 2 chains to drive 2 amps (each board’s chains are sharing a Polymoon and a DC-2w or a Fromel Seraph).

It will put a huge shit-eating grin on your face that will be hard to remove.

Surgeon General’s warning: it’s very addictive, but does not cause cancer.
Last edited by somanytoys on Mon Sep 09, 2019 9:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
-David

It's a boost booster, to boost your boost - it makes your tone much muchier.

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Re: How low can you go?

Post by somanytoys » Mon Sep 09, 2019 9:24 am

Maggieo wrote:
Mon Sep 09, 2019 7:56 am
Are we counting reverb and trem that's part of the amp? Because I use those all the time.
I guess it depends on what you have in your amps/what amps you’d be using. Some of my amps have reverb, but only the AC15 has reverb and tremolo. It’s delicious.

Now I wish I’d have spent the extra money to get the tremolo option when I bought my 2nd Frenzel, but the Supatrems are nice.

I kind of went at it with the mentality of using a dry amp, to be sure I covered all my bases.
-David

It's a boost booster, to boost your boost - it makes your tone much muchier.

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Re: How low can you go?

Post by fuzzjunkie » Mon Sep 09, 2019 9:43 am

Maggieo wrote:
Mon Sep 09, 2019 7:56 am
Are we counting reverb and trem that's part of the amp? Because I use those all the time.
You can Maggie! I didn’t, but others have.

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Re: How low can you go?

Post by fuzzjunkie » Mon Sep 09, 2019 9:46 am

somanytoys wrote:
Mon Sep 09, 2019 9:16 am
Shadoweclipse13 wrote:
Sun Sep 08, 2019 10:03 pm
I love the thread idea!

I sometimes think about doing 2 small boards instead of my big board at home, and running them in parallel (one to one amp, one to another). I think having a "big board" that's actually 2 small ones would be really cool. And the idea of 2 different overdrives/distortions/fuzzes running into 2 different amps would be really fun.
That’s what I do, 1 smaller board (PT classic 2) and 1 very large board, both with 2 chains to drive 2 amps (each board’s chains are sharing a Polymoon and a DC-2w or a Fromel Seraph).

It will put a huge shit-eating grin on your face that will be hard to remove.

Surgeon General’s warning: it’s very addictive, but does not cause cancer.
I have a removable 2nd tier on my main/big board. It also holds my power supply, so I can unbolt it and use it as a small board with a tuner and 3 pedals.

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