ilovefuzz.com

Dear ILF,

I have felt rather uninspired with my pedalboard lately and am seeking your advice on building a pedalboard to get out of my rut.

After buying and selling some things, I am left with the following:
DOD Rubberneck
EQD Dispatch Master
EQD Life Pedal
EQD Rainbow Machine
Fairfield Accountant
Fairfield Randy's Revenge
Joe Gagan Betty Wah (need to replace the pot)
Mattoverse Bad Passenger Fuzz (on the way)
Mattoverse Tremstortion
Montreal Assembly CT5
RMA Tetanus Booster
Walrus Luminary

Just thinking out loud here, but I don't have any specific projects in mind and haven't jammed with people in ages. I might just go back to basics and put together something super simple like: Bad Passenger > Randy's > CT5 > Dispatch Master. I could do that, flip the rest, and dive deeper into eurorack! Seriously though, I'm kind of tempted to flip some of my less used pedals (Rubberneck, Luminary, Tremstortion) for something I might use a little more often (been tempted by a Shallow Water and probably some other delay...or some euro modules)

Anyways, what pedalboard would you build with the pedals above?

Wah > Randy's > Life Pedal > Rubberneck > Tetanus

Since I don't know like half of those, I'd start with a 2 fuzzes making a CT5 sandwich

Assuming you have the same Tetanus Booster as me, with two outputs, I'd use that as an always-on splitter (after the Accountant, Randy's and Life Pedal) and then divide the rest of the pedals between the two chains. Probably would be good separating/parallel-ing the Mattoverses and Rainbow Machine/CT5/Luminary as you see fit. You'd need two amps of course. Each of the delays would then go at the end of the L and R chains (or earlier), and I'd put the wah and maybe another thing in the Rubberneck's loop, 'cause I wouldn't know what to do with it otherwise, not a regular wah user.

Randy's into fuzz is good fun. Phantasmagorovich is real good at using the mix judiciously to turn it into a texture thinger rather than an out and out ring mod.
Put the accountant on an extreme setting last after delay - that can be kinda fin.
Put the rainbow machine in the loop of the rubberneck.
Get the wah out front because wahs are awesome.
Set the CT5 as a reverse delay. Make a delay sandwhich with DM - CT5 - Rubberneck, with the DM at a shorter delay time, like 1/3 of the rubberneck. That will give you your #ambientnotes, but also the possibility to fuck shit up.
Life pedal after the wah - wah into octave is fucking awesome.
Bad Passenger last as a fuckerupperer (but before the accountant, that way it can be both a limiter and an additional fuckerupperer - slam the shit out of the input of the fairfield for additional happy times). You can use this "musically" to make single note leads and stuff just go bananas (especially with delay) or you can just turn it on and ruin shit.

So after all that...
Wah>Life>DM>CT5>Rubber (rainbow loop)>accountant>Bad

Maybe throw the trem after the life if you want some movement in there.

Accountant into Tetanus

sell everything but your tetanus booster. buy an ilf driving notion clone. embrace your inner clang and rust. record more. worry less.

hashtag rust life
hashtag clang gang 4 life
hashtag this is literally my setup for most recordings no jokes

I don't think about pedals / gear that way really.. I've never been uninspired by a pedalboard.. I always have an idea or what sounds I want to achieve based on what project I am working on, who I am playing with, what I want to play and so forth.. I tend to go through a lot of pedals in the initial setting up of a board as I go through what works with what instruments I will be using and how all the pedals interact with each other.. It's all about balance. Also I don't like special effect pedals very much [like the rainbow machine] on a pedalboard unless it's going to really part of the sounds I want. Maybe really think about what your main sound should be. Then your 2nd. Then your 3rd. And keep going until you don't feel limited and don't feel caged in by too much.

Thanks for all the suggestions! I'll probably try them all out while putting my board back together. See if anything really speaks to me.

Blackened Soul wrote:

I don't think about pedals / gear that way really.. I've never been uninspired by a pedalboard.. I always have an idea or what sounds I want to achieve based on what project I am working on, who I am playing with, what I want to play and so forth.. I tend to go through a lot of pedals in the initial setting up of a board as I go through what works with what instruments I will be using and how all the pedals interact with each other.. It's all about balance. Also I don't like special effect pedals very much [like the rainbow machine] on a pedalboard unless it's going to really part of the sounds I want. Maybe really think about what your main sound should be. Then your 2nd. Then your 3rd. And keep going until you don't feel limited and don't feel caged in by too much.

Honestly, I think that's the real problem; I haven't had any projects or people to play with for some time so there has been no real goal. My pedalboard has been sitting half assembled for the past like 6 months and I haven't even switched on my amp. Any time I play music, I just reach for the acoustic

Blackened Soul wrote: I don't like special effect pedals very much [like the rainbow machine] on a pedalboard unless it's going to really part of the sounds I want.

Shut your mouth! You're sellin' that Rainbow Machine short.

(Other than that, I agree with the rest of your post. )

While i agree with what Blackened Soul says, i think it's a matter of choosing where do you want to start.

I mean, if you are not inspired, and expect your board to be an inspiring thing, then you should probably dismantle it and re-assmble in the opposite way, just to spice things up, then start to explore it and see if/what ideas come to you, and subsequentially modify the signal chain following those ideas. Another way could be to change some of the pedals you use the most with different stuff (i.e. changing the Life Pedal with a weird fuzz or else): this will probably force you to change your writing approach.

On the other hand, if you are inspired writing but don't feel like the board can add something to that, do what Blackened says, start finding a main sound that you're very satisfied with, and then think about what variations could serve your composition and add a second sound on top of it and so on.

I kinda fell in the same situation about a year ago: tons of pedals ending in a weird combination of option paralysys and constantly ending with the same sounds that got me bored, so i started downsizing the board. Once i returned to a smaller setup i decided to further force me to shift my perspective and took out of the board the whole drive section i've been using for years. Then built the smallest board i ever had. This helped me focused on writing and i'm currently trying different setups to find the balance that suits me the most in this new thing.
At the same time the downsizing thing gave me the chance to take some of the pedals left out and assemble a separate weird board wired in a totally unconvential way (to me) which is giving me a lot of fun jam time.


Also, place the CT5 first or second in chain, with just the dispatch master before it.

Choose one or two of the pedals that you know you want on there. Play around with them and see what you're missing, then add that and keep on playing around. Do this until you're satisfied.

MrNovember wrote: Honestly, I think that's the real problem; I haven't had any projects or people to play with for some time so there has been no real goal.

Yeah it is a commonly observed phenomenon isn't it. With no projects, gear becomes... just gear for its own sake. Which to me isn't as fun.

Eivind August wrote:Choose one or two of the pedals that you know you want on there. Play around with them and see what you're missing, then add that and keep on playing around. Do this until you're satisfied.

So this sounds like a good way to get in the right space. Rather than instantly wiring up a giant monster and then having option paralysis.

I’ve bought an entire new pedalboard because I keep thinking that my gear isn’t good enough. My gear is sick, I just don’t play it with people and I’m substituting that with consumerism and cork sniffery.

goroth wrote:I’ve bought an entire new pedalboard because I keep thinking that my gear isn’t good enough. My gear is sick, I just don’t play it with people and I’m substituting that with consumerism and cork sniffery.

Story of my 2020/2021.
Smaller board, tons of pedals bought anyways.