ilovefuzz.com

Getting the moon and the stars in gear only got possible after I got older, and by which time I wasn't gigging with any regularity.

I didn't even have a "board" until that point - I don't know anybody, even in weirdo music land outside of the huge names with Bradshaw rigs and extreme family money.....who did.

I plunked a couple of pedals and a multi into the pocket of the gig bag, hauled the Space Echo and the amp(s) I was using, and called it good.

That worked for everything I needed.

Now if I needed a grab and go, I'd do somethign similar: Ye Olde Space Echo, GT-100, HM-2, and Test Pattern from Hell.

Full rig would need its own van and roadies.

Then again, disfigured cripple needs that!

fcknoise wrote:with the right big muff and reverb you only ever need one board

The right big muff...is the one that doesn't drown in a messy mix and is modded and tweaked to the point where it doesn't at all sound like a muff

Srry, I love big muffs when I'm playing alone, but I've spend too much time being frustrated with how little remains of that tone in a live/rehearsal situation

Too each their own I guess. I'm more into Superfuzz and Tonebender type fuzz

I always found it better to have a couple of boards for different projects. You can find cheap pedalboards everywhere now and you can always use a One Spot for power, especially on a small board.

Not sure what size venues you play but I never have room for big boards with a bunch of unused pedals. And then you have more patch cables to worry about failing, pedals getting knocked around, toting around extra weight, etc.

It's also nice to have an excuse to explore new pedals when assembling a second board.

frigid midget wrote:Srry, I love big muffs when I'm playing alone, but I've spend too much time being frustrated with how little remains of that tone in a live/rehearsal situation

This. For guitar, a hundred times this. They seem to do better on bass, though.

Think in a modular way. I use Stagg cases when they're cheap. Your #1 board would have your super always needed pedals. Mine would be Fuzzhugger ABSynth, Algal Bloom, Hot Tubes, Boss DD5, and Q-Tron. That's my sound get your own. Then Board #2 is a larger board with stuff you own but haven't spent time with, all the thrift store stuff, and all the the great cheap stuff from Caline et al. Stuff you don't need to bring everywhere. Board #3 could be a multi with a looper to capture all the cool stuff you're doing with boards #1 and 2. A multi fx like the M9 could be standalone as well for a different project. #4 would definitely be more fuzz, as was suggested earlier. Of course fuzz. This board could also be used to put into the fx loop of one of the pedals on your earlier board. Fun!. Board #5 is all Altoids tins with surprises inside and so many picks.

I have a guitar board that I have run synths through from time to time but I have decided to keep the two separate for now. Some pedals I would like to use on both but just not cost effective right now(Pigtronix Infinity, Deluxe memory man). I might try a different looper all together for my synth board but it will be quite a different beast with multiple paths coming from a mixer so I can blend in compression with delay and reverb, etc. My biggest problem at this point is figuring out the 4 most effective paths. Right now I use a Istomp for delay and reverb and I'll be moving a moogerfooger phaser over to my synth board as well, I just wasn't using it enough on guitar.

@Seedy right on
I like having a few specialized toolkits with deceptive versatility, as opposed to "one versatile board"

Guitar
Bass
Tabletop twiddlin
Supplemental-weird-stuff
Mixer/sampler/synth (more of a small shelf than board yet my guitar board is a shelf )

Any fluctuation in my inventory tends to leave me with 25-30 pedals, with attempts made to further streamline...but plans for an acoustic/vocal board, prob from leftovers.