Pedal Line Friday – 7/13 – Adam Lunt

Today’s pedal line is from Adam Lunt. If you have a pedal line (doesn’t have to be in a board) for your rig, please email me a photo, bio, description of pedals and routing to pedalline@nulleffectsbay.com. Every Friday I’ll showcase a pedal line submission. Make sure you include any links to your band or music page.

Hi my name is Adam Lunt and I am from Stoke-on-Trent, UK.I have been playing guitar for nearly 10 years and I have played live and in the studio for a few local bands for the last few years. I am hoping to start my own project/band soon. I have a tendency to go into guitar shops for strings and come out with pedals… yeah like that’s a bad thing?

I use a £200 Squier Standard Telecaster, which I have modified to suit my style of playing. I have installed a neck humbucker and a (bright green) Dimarzio ToneZone in the bridge. The volume and tone pots are also Dimarzio 500k, giving some brightness to the humbuckers. I have owned around 20 electric guitars through my years as a player and this tele was the one that felt right to me, and I have been unable to get rid of it. I use cheap guitars these-days because when I play live my instruments take some abuse.

I use an Orange AD30 head into a 1×12 Marshall cabinet. I’d use a bigger cabinet but as I don’t have a car, I can’t justify getting a 4×12.The Orange is a 30 watt valve amp with two separate single channel amplifier sections, and each channel has its own characteristics. The first channel can achieve anything from a Blackface-style shimmering clean tone to a cranked 70s Sunn-style stoner/doom sound, and the second channel can achieve a biting Vox-style clean sound to a vintage Marshall-esque rhythm tone. It has 4 12AX7s and 4 EL84s with a GZ34 rectifier tube and two transformers, making it a weighty head.
For the last few years I have been buying effects pedals to give me more flavours and colours to play with. I have been unable to play without effects since I got my first multi-fx. I decided to use stompboxes instead, because if one breaks, I can remove it from the chain, something you can’t do with a multi-fx.

Pedals in order:
Digitech Whammy IV The Whammy comes first in my chain for optimal tracking. I know people who have theirs later in the chain and they have problems with tracking. I aim to get a compressor soon which I will run before the Whammy to aid the tracking. I mainly use it for the octave up/down harmony setting, detune settings and obviously the 2 octave pitch shifter!

Dunlop DVP-1 This is a volume pedal that was on offer so I bought it. I use this for volume swells and to drop the levels for tuning. It is built like a tank and is very reliable.

TC Electronic PolyTune This tuner is the most accurate I’ve come across in stompbox format. It can do polyphonic tuning but I use it monophonically to tune each string with precision. This pedal isn’t strictly in the chain because it is connected to the volume pedal’s “tuner” output, allowing me to keep it turned on while playing.

T-Rex Mudhoney This is a vintage sounding distortion pedal with a boost switch that gives more of a Big Muff sound. I use this for a thick fuzz sound reminiscent of the Russian Green Muff.

ProCo RAT2 This is another distortion pedal that I use for a basic heavy distortion sound. I have used it in the past as a booster for other distortions but lately I have been using it with the Mudhoney for over the top feedbacking fuzz sounds that can be a crowd pleaser.

Boss BF3 Flanger This is my favourite flanger pedal at the moment. I have used it before my distortions in the past and this has given me a warbling analogue sounding flange, but lately I have been using it after for a more conventional sound. Its Ultra mode is useful for crazy effects when used with both distortions, and the Gate/Pan mode gives me a stuttering tremolo-flange (I’m using it in mono) that I haven’t seen any other pedal do.

Danelectro FAB Chorus I bought this as a joke but it sounds great so it has stayed on my board. It is made of plastic and has a suspicious on/off switch. I will probably rehouse this in a metal case at some point. I use it with the speed all the way down and the depth turned up for more thickness without sounding out of tune.

Boss DD6 I bought this (now discontinued) pedal for its looper. When you press the pedal it starts recording and when you release the pedal it stops. So press it for a few milliseconds and you get stuttering glitchy sound effects. I sometimes use it with my other delay for multi-tap delay sounds, which are great for making soundscapes.

Line 6 DL4 The best delay pedal ever! It can do pretty much anything and it has a looper. This is the first serious delay pedal I ever bought and (touch wood) it hasn’t broken yet! I have three saved presets, a MemoryMan, SpaceEcho and a volume swell. This is a great tool for layering guitar parts together when noodling or coming up with new ideas.

TC Electronic Hall of Fame I am blown away with the new TC pedals. Their toneprint concept is genius. This pedal is as versatile as some far more expensive reverbs I’ve tried. I use the modulated reverb setting mostly, which makes me sound like a VHS tape.

All pedals apart from the Whammy are powered using a Diago Powerstation. The Whammy has its own power supply.

The board itself is a flightcase by a company called SwanFlight. It has two levels for easy access to pedals at the back of the board. It is very heavy but at least I know my pedals are safe. I used to have a £20 pedalboard which was single-layered, which was a problem because I used to kick knobs and switches when trying to get to my reverb.