I did it again
Yet another change/rebuild – except there was nothing rash about this change so soon after building a new board in the new year.
Once I got a new Quilter Micro Block 45 amp on the board it became obvious that the board had a major limitation. It was just too small because I wanted to house all the power supply peripherals underneath instead of having them all separate, subject to being left at home by mistake and taking up extra space and negating the idea to have a tiny all-in-one rig.
A simple reason, which was not a big deal because the design had already proven to be to my liking, so I improved on that design a little and increased the size by a couple of inches or so.
The new pedal board now measures 12.5″ wide (2.5″ wider), 8.5″ deep (0.5″ deeper) and 2.25″ high (0.25″ lower). The power supply for the Micro Block 45 fits underneath as does the new power supply system for thepedals. That new power supply is a 20,100mAh power bank with a 5v USB to 9v DC converter into a daisy chain cable.
I also modified an old power cable to increase the daisy-chain by an extra power outlet, so I have 9 pedals on this board plus a 45w amplifier.
Possible future changes:
I may replace the Donner Yellow Fall delay with a T-Rex Replay Box because I want a tap-tempo delay, which is also simple in operation. This will require me to sacrifice one other mini pedal to make this all fit.
I am considering also of collecting a few more mini modulation and pitch-based pedals to swap in and out with the chorus and phaser I already have, just so I can change the flavour of the board any time I choose.
I’m pretty happy with the gain section of the board, so the only thing I may swap out if I feel like it is one of the gain pedals with my Mooer Yellow Comp compressor.
The main philosophy I have adopted with my pedal setup is to maximize my choices of what sounds to use, but before I get to the gig, not whilst performing.
Whilst it looks like I have too many choices for the gain section, this is really not the case as I will explain:
The Quilter Micro Block 45 is a good-quality, loud amp that sounds nice by itself, but it’s in my rig as a pedal platform and for my application, really needs some tone-shaping in front of it all the time to effectively cover all the tonal changes I need to make with my pedals.
One of the gain pedals is always on. That’s the Tomsline Bluesy (Marshall Bluesbreaker Overdrive clone) and it’s set for mild breakup. It sounds pretty clean when picking single notes, but overdriven when playing chords.
Another pedal that is left on most of the time is “The Sag”: My EP Booster clone, which really makes this solid state amp sound even more tube-like. If I need pristine clean then I turn it off.
To clean up the core tone provided by the Bluesy I acticate my Donner Boost Killer (Xotic RC Booster clone). It’s set to reduce the level after the bluesy to pull back on the gain hitting the front of the amp. The EQ controls allow me to dial out any extra bottom that causes any mud and to put back some sparkle with the treble knob. Works great!
The Amp 50 right at the beginning of the chain comes straight after my pickups and cleans up nicely on the guitar’s volume control. Being a one-knob wonder I can kick up the gain with my foot easily if I need to really scream. It goes from light crunch to wailing on that one dial. I start with it at 3-4 o’clock and go from there if I need it.
The Donner Noise Killer is a great noise gate pedal. Even on the “Hard” setting it fades the note out rather than just clamping it down, which means that it really works to have a high degree of noise reduction without butchering your sustain or picking dynamics. I’m super-impressed with it.
The Eno GE7 7-band EQ is my volume boost for leads. I have the output level maxed and determined by the soundcheck I can optimise the EQ to make the lead tone as good as I can get it depending on the venue. Normally I start with the mids cranked, but sometimes I need to pull down the very top or the very bottom frequencies to avoid excessive fizz or mud.
The gain section is therefore very simple and not a headache of too many choices. I have three core sounds for any given song: Pristine clean , general clean and slightly crunchy and added to that I have a strong overdrive/distortion, which also works for lead if I want more sustain rather than volume and a main volume boost for solos. The icing is the distortion plus volume boost for when I want to shake the ground!
That leaves my flavour-enhancing pedals: Phaser (Mooer Ortange 90), chorus (Donner Tutti Love) and delay (Donner Yellow Fall).
The bonus extra with having the amp on the board is that I can easily tweak the amp for more or less gain, volume or to adjust the overall voice of the amp very easily.
This is a great rig!
When I get a chance I will make a demo video.
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