Pedal Line Friday – 9/14 – Ryan Lynch

Today’s pedal line is from Ryan Lynch. 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.

Hello Effects Bay, my Name is Ryan Lynch and I’m a Sound/Recording Artist, Manager of Scrapbook Sound Studio + musician guy who can’t sit still. I’m currently playing for Ambient/Lounge 2-Piece Lords of Leisure and doing the occasional solo show.

My main amp is a 100w Blackheart Hothead, which is simultaneously a short-tempered wall of crunchy chocolate fuzz and an articulate, well mannered gentleman with 10,000 leagues of sparkly clean depth. It’s basically bipolar and I like that a lot.

My main guitar was once a SX smj62 but I took it upon myself to replace everything except the body to make it to my own liking. My other electric is an Epiphone g-400 deluxe which I’ve had for ages and has many scars and stories. It still plays and sounds beautifully.

If you’d like to hear some of these beasts pictured below in action check out my website at www.scrapbooksoundstudio.com – there’s a lot of awesome music available from there too and we’re soon to be official Australian distributors of Tonebutcher pedals as well!

Find & like us on Facebook as well – we let our Facebook friends in on some hearty deals and other cool things. We won’t spam you on a daily basis either.

The pedal board is a Scrapbook Sound Palette – I can make you one too if you like!

Ok so, here’s the path:

1. Tonebutcher RL Melter Machine

Also referred to as the Doublepus (or Dopplepus), this pedal is a custom Tonebutcher creation that Todd made for me. If you haven’t already, go to Tonebutcher and give them all your money so they can continue to be amazing. This is a dual pedal featuring the Pocketpus and Octave Pus circuits with expression-like control of the feedback, with the ability to have either effect or both engaged. It also has a ‘crazy switch’ which makes it go even more mental. It’s a one off concoction of nasty-ass fuzz, pulsating backwards filtered devastation and crazy pterodactyl squeals. Perfect.

2. Robert Keeley True Bypass Looper
(The next few devices are within the loop ’til I say stop)

This little guy is really handy for switching from a completely clean signal to ALL PEDALS ON KKKKKSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHFFWWWWWWGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH. It also cuts out a lot of signal noise from the path – the Sovtek obviously being the main offender – not that I really care about ‘true bypass’ that much but it makes using this board in the studio a lot easier.

3. Boss TU-2 Tuner

We all know how good these are. Before this I had a Seiko shitty plastic tuner thing, couldn’t believe the difference it made! I mean, you can have all the crazy effects in the world but if you’re not in tune properly, you suck.

3. Boss ODB-3 Bass Overdrive

Bought this off my friend who didn’t want it for $50. I used to use it for a sludgy drive as it accommodates for low tunings nicely, but now I dial all the distortion off and use it as a low/clean boost – I love using it this way, it can push clean passages into the ocean floor or make thick ass fuzz that little bit meatier.

4. EHX Octave Multiplexer

This is a brilliant octave unit with solid tracking and lots of low. Which you NEED. It crackles and spits and is good on bass & vocals too. I like to use the way it can’t handle chords (it’s monophonic) to generate some oppressive thunder sounds.

5. Black Arts Toneworks Black Forest

This summoner of black magic recently took over from my Boss Dyna Drive. It’s got a really nice gritty kick to it, the EQ on this thing is some heavy machinery too. Oh and it’s got a ‘girth’ control. I mostly use this in those in-between moments, building from clean to dirty etc., just to kick things up a notch. It’s got great touch sensitivity which I use to play around in all the space between ultra-cleanliness and uber-filth. I also stack it with my Sovtek muff for when I need MOAR.

6. Sovtek Big Muff (Black Russian v2)
(Last thing in the loop)

I bought this ultra-rare beauty off some n00b for $100. What a score! When you play one of these, you instantly understand what everyone is on about. It’s just perfect. Creamy goodness on guitar, brutality on bass. Sure, it may not have true bypass or a 9v plug but what it does have, is a calibre of fuzz that will invade your country, erect statues of itself around the township and force you to succumb to its communist regime or face public execution.

7. Jim Dunlop 2 in 1 Volume/Wah

I don’t think these are still in production but they should be. I use the Wah sparingly because I’m not into the whole mega-fast-small-genitals-compensation guitar solo thing. It also has a little red button for a pretty enormous boosting.

8. Tonebutcher Adverb/Reverb

This is a prototype version of Tonebutcher’s little box of big spaces – soon to be made available to the masses. I have it set to a ghostly hall style reverb that has a smoky haze to it like peated scotch being poured over hot rocks in a sauna. The Adverb doesn’t stop at reverb either, all its other features give me lots of little tricks up my sleeve.

9. Boss DD-3 Digital Delay

A classic unit employed for the delivery of subtle delay mechanics. I mostly use it for smokey-swell-scapes with the feedback control at 8ish and back it off for more standard delay use in the 800ms area. I’ve got the ‘delay time’ knob marked out for the exact spot where I like it to be – which is pretty much dead on 120bpm – now I don’t get angry when people move it because it doesn’t take me hours to find it again.

10. Boss RC-2 Loop Station

Loopers have got to be snappy. I like this one because it’s not as bulky as many of its competitors, the ‘auto’ function is good for ambience and it’s very comprehensive in a very Boss kind of way. It makes for a good practise tool too, but outside of this the drum tracks are pretty useless. As a heads up, you’ll need an additional foot switch of some sort to be able to use this thing properly, it’s got way too much going on for 3 knobs and a stomp. Hence, the FS-6.

11. Tonebutcher Soapbox

This is another one-off concoction from Tonebutcher. The button on the left switches the channels on the amplifier and the switch on the right engages the tube-driven effects loop which when you don’t have anything in it (which I don’t) can be used as a boost. Yes. More boost. Because more, is more.

The Bench:

1. Boss XT-2 Xtortion

I bought this when I was about 14, this is a very high school pedal. Apparently the Xtortion was brought out to replace the Metal Zone and lasted about 3 months before being scrapped. This is a good reminder to us gear whores that just because something is hard to come by, doesn’t mean it’s any good. It’s not totally useless though, you can get some good honky frogs butthole type distortions out of it and it’s not bad for dirty vocals either.

2. Boss DN-2 Dyna Drive

This is basically a touch responsive version of the very popular and very safe DS-1. It’s great for a mid-boosted damnation of drive and I used to rely on it solely. This is a solid pedal and has only recently been super-seeded by the Black Forest for its more powerful shaping controls and more complex dynamic response.

Thanks for reading. Please direct any feedback to info@nullscrapbooksoundstudio.com