Utility or Futility? your favourite fixing problems pedals

[moid]

Hello everyone

I was wondering about those pedals that most of us own that might not be sound generators in their own rights, but enable us to create more interesting music than we could normally achieve without them. This is a thread for those unsung heroes of the pedal board; the utility pedals! Tell us which ones you use and why you love them as much as an oscillating gated fuzz glitch stutter delay

Here are my two favourites:


The EHX Silencer is fantastic for making two of my other pedals usable again. I have a Boss BF2 and a Ibanez Phase Modulator and both of them are noisy as fuck. Even when you're not playing they both channel irritating electronic hiss (the BF2 is flanging the hiss while the PM7 clicks like crazy), and the Silencer can kill their unwanted contribution to a any track. I've also paired it with a step flanger and a gated fuzz to make some very odd glitchy noises. It has an effects loop that actually works as a splitter so I can get two outputs from one input. You can put multiple noisy pedals in it;s effects loop and it will kill the hiss from all of them at the same time (this doesn't always work perfectly if one pedal is worse than the rest, but hey, it's amazing for what it does)

The other pedal is the first one I ever built - a simple buffer / splitter kit from Musikding. It worked first time I built it (that's almost never happened to any other build I've made since) and I've used it almost every track I've recorded at some point so I could make a stereo path or run completely different effects paths or keep a dry signal in the recording for use with re amping later. It's great - no switches or controls; it just works

Tell us your favourites!

[gnomethrone]

Vid: I never thought about how useful those are beyond just noise. As for me I have a couple trve bypass loop pedals I like a lot for when I need to go from dirt straight to my amp to all the reverb pedals at once. One has a momentary feedback footswitch for going "SKROOOONK" which I also like.

[Chankgeez]

I don't think I have any pedals like that.

[PeteeBee]

Tuner? Also incoming is a little Behringer micro mixer that’s pedal sized. 4 in’s, 1 out. That’ll be good fun!

[ibarakishi]

i have wanted a pladask matrise for a loooong time. i always seem to buy other things instead though. really should fix that. i always hope to see one show up on BST for a decent price, but never do

[blakestree]

Patchulator 8000

[goroth]

Patchulator 8000

I've never understood the point of these.
Matris is awesome, especially the way Vid uses it, but the parchulator just looks like something for someone who can't decide on a sensible order for their pedalboard. Or am I missing something?

[frodog]

Guess I'd have to say my Zvex loop gate, combined with an ABY switch. Describing what they do is difficult without dragging other pedals into the explanation, but put simply it's a similar utility to the Silencer mentioned in the OP. Allows me to split, recombine, have an aux (B) or dual (A+B) input to the board, and chop/gate at least one side of the signal path (the other "side" is split by a stereo out pedal before the loop gate's return).

[rustywire]

Parametric mid-EQ -- in my stash it's a Fromel Shape.
Sweeping midrange 8dB+/- is useful for finding and taming or goosing the resonant frequency giving you fits or fever sweats.

Patchulator 8000

I've never understood the point of these.
Matris is awesome, especially the way Vid uses it, but the parchulator just looks like something for someone who can't decide on a sensible order for their pedalboard. Or am I missing something?

8 routable, balanced aux sends & returns wired to link 1/4" and 1/8" TRS or TS connections.
Also means to connect multiple instruments or amps. Quite a bit of value for the cost of admission.
Seems like a must for users who quickly grow restless and seek to rearrange their rig every week.

Also, hypothetically, maybe a sensible order becomes impractical for a specific/selection of purposes. Say, 3 out of 12 songs in your set venture into a 'gaze haze and you want your reverb and delay up front in the signal chain, but the rest of your stuff has them at the end/sandwiched in the middle. You can nondestructively make it happen by plugging/unplugging...a sequence of what, 4 patch cables to do/undo it? Super practical with practice, and some planning.

[dandy13]

These are the utility peds I use
I've been on a kick lately exploring some of the deeper possibilities of certain effects by using expression pedals

[baremountain]

8 routable, balanced aux sends & returns wired to link 1/4" and 1/8" TRS or TS connections.
Also means to connect multiple instruments or amps. Quite a bit of value for the cost of admission.
Seems like a must for users who quickly grow restless and seek to rearrange their rig every week.

Also, hypothetically, maybe a sensible order becomes impractical for a specific/selection of purposes. Say, 3 out of 12 songs in your set venture into a 'gaze haze and you want your reverb and delay up front in the signal chain, but the rest of your stuff has them at the end/sandwiched in the middle. You can nondestructively make it happen by plugging/unplugging...a sequence of what, 4 patch cables to do/undo it? Super practical with practice, and some planning.

+1 for this. When I got my Patchulator I was playing 3 different types of sets with 5 different instruments: noise with a saxophone & organelle, freak folk with acoustic guitar/vocals (broke my board into 2 sub-boards for this), and electric guitar in an emo band. The patchulator enabled me to swap between those 3 things within 10-15 seconds, only unplugging/replugging 1/8" cables on the patchbay & swapping inputs to the Patchulator. Total lifesaver if you wanna take the time to set it up.
Now I sit it on my synth bench where it's hooked to my FX sends & I occasionally use it instead of 1/8" to 1/4" conversion cables.

Otherwise a big ass power supply with plenty of >100mA outputs is honestly the best purchase I made while I was buying lots of (digital) pedals.

[ognoy]

Exp-pedal, currently using it for master volumeon the Rang III.
Volume pedal. Need this. Always. Either for swells or just choking the signal.

I'm also going to build a EP-boost/signal-splitter(3 output-jack) box.
Have all the parts, just need to stop being lazy.
Might put a amp/RE-201 switch om there as well.

[Ghost Hip]

Patchulator 8000

I've never understood the point of these.
Matris is awesome, especially the way Vid uses it, but the parchulator just looks like something for someone who can't decide on a sensible order for their pedalboard. Or am I missing something?

8 routable, balanced aux sends & returns wired to link 1/4" and 1/8" TRS or TS connections.
Also means to connect multiple instruments or amps. Quite a bit of value for the cost of admission.
Seems like a must for users who quickly grow restless and seek to rearrange their rig every week.

Also, hypothetically, maybe a sensible order becomes impractical for a specific/selection of purposes. Say, 3 out of 12 songs in your set venture into a 'gaze haze and you want your reverb and delay up front in the signal chain, but the rest of your stuff has them at the end/sandwiched in the middle. You can nondestructively make it happen by plugging/unplugging...a sequence of what, 4 patch cables to do/undo it? Super practical with practice, and some planning.

Yeah, I always saw it as a great tool for a recording set up personally. I personally wouldn't prefer playing a live set with one, I'd rather get to the next song as fast as possible and keep people moving. (shoot, if you have a tabletop rig, that may not be an issue) But when I am recording I am constantly rearranging and plugging new shit in line to try different parts/textures/melodies etc. and the patchulator sounds like a great way to speed up that process without fucking up velcro/making a mess.

[fcknoise]

Patchulator 8000

I've never understood the point of these.
Matris is awesome, especially the way Vid uses it, but the parchulator just looks like something for someone who can't decide on a sensible order for their pedalboard. Or am I missing something?

As someone who uses looping a lot I feel like it makes sense to use it for moving stuff before and after the looping. Or if you have multiple loopers being able to move them after eachother so they don't record eachothers loops on the other one. Idk

I have a two channel true bypass looper which I really enjoy. Used it for BILF 2017 to use my tape recorder as a fuzz and loop player

[rustywire]

Hella