Pedal Line Friday (on Wednesday) – 9/25 – Tass

I know today is not Friday, but due to the large queue of Pedal Line Friday, I thought I do a few on Wednesdays! Today’s pedal line is from Tass. 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.

Hey there Effects Bay readers,

I’m Tass and I play guitar with The Never End. We’re an alternative rock band based out of New Haven CT. Here’s our website and Facebook page:
http://theneverend.com
https://www.facebook.com/theneverendband

We’re basically a two guitar band with one guitar player. If you check out our music you’ll probably recognize some layering for fullness of sound and texture as well as parts that should really be played by two guitars. This became quite a challenge to recreate live and a lot of thought and work went into getting the right rig together with the pedalboard at the heart of the whole setup.

The Board Requirements
Breaking down what I needed to get from the the board was pretty straight forward: various stages of overdrive, wah, modulation effects and delays along with tuner and volume control. Sounds pretty simple right? Well, if you consider that modulation means chorus, flange, tremolo, phaser etc. and the delay times were multiple and complex, it got really crowded very quickly and switching between sounds would become more of a dance act than guitar playing – and I’m not about to venture into that territory. In addition even though the rig is not cheap I’m still working within a limited budget so I need to utilize what pedals I already have as much as possible. Finally to throw in an extra twist, I play through two amps so I need a stereo stereo signal coming out of the board.

The Solution

Pedaltrain Pro frame
Solid and the frame itself is pretty light weight. Needed to do some drilling and custom mounting for a power strip and power supplies underneath.

Planet Waves Tru-Strobe pedal tuner
I plug in the guitar here. It’s wicked accurate and Planet Waves was good enough to replace it at no additional cost when the first one I had became moody and developed a mind of its own after abusing it for about a year or so.

Ernie Ball VP Jr. volume pedal
Basic, does the job and absolutely necessary because once too often during a show there simply is no time for me to take my hand away from the strings and adjust the volume on the guitar. Also allows me to do volume swells, crescendos and fade outs nicely.

Fulltone Clyde Delux wah
There are some that say the wah being a filter, logically belongs after the overdrive stage in the signal path but this never worked for me. It just doesn’t sound good in my ears in that position. I use it fairly often in and out at different parts and mostly for leads. Very flexible and has three settings for wah range as well as volume control.

Electro-harmonix Micro POG
What can one say about the POG. Ya gotta have one. I use it sparingly and set the low and high octaves to less than 50% of the dry signal which gives a kind of 12string effect. Great for some clean rhythm, picking and arpeggios but also adds great texture to a lead sound. The trick is not to over do it with the POG.

Moen GEC9 switcher/looper
I searched long and hard for a switcher and really wish it made sense for me to go all out and spend a couple of thousand bucks on one. Not in my budget. I also couldn’t find one that supports a stereo signal out of the box – what’s up with that anyway, am I the only guitar player that plays stereo? So I came across this baby that supports 9 loops, presets, one touch setup and at $300, cheap enough to experiment with. Works like a charm after I figured out how to get a stereo signal out if it. (BTW shoot me an email if you want the details). The touch switches needed a bit getting used to and wiring it ended up being a full couple of days work. The signal from the POG enters here and two individual (left, right) feeds go out to the amps. I program each of the 5 presets for each bank using a consistent pattern: clean, dry overdriven, wet (includes mod and/or  delays and may or may not be overdriven), variable, and lead for solos. This way I don’t have to memorize each individual bank preset.

GFS Greenie classic
I always prefer to use multiple overdrives rather than distortion pedals or fuzz for that matter. I feel they maintain the fullness of the amp signal much better without loosing body. This one is a copy of the tube screamer circuit with a few of the mods built in that you can switch in or out. Works great and is only $50! I got it after I already had the full drive (~$150) and they sound pretty much the same to me. Hmm, kinda makes you think huh?

Fulltone FULL-DRIVE 2
I’ve had this for about three years or so and has been my go to OD. I now use it as my second overdrive stage. Great sound but see my comments above. I had to send it in a few months ago because the volume pot stopped working. It took emailing them a few times before they responded and cost $50 to get it fixed if you include the shipping\u2026 I think I’m done with Fulltone.

Fulltone OCD
Yep, I was a Fulltone fan\u2026 Great pedal, good texture and very flexible. I kick it in as a second overdrive stage mostly for leads. I rarely, if ever, use it as a third stage but it’s there if I feel like going nuts. I’ve also found myself once in a blue moon using it stand alone for that more saturated but thiner metal distortion type sound – did I just say metal distortion!?!?!

iSP Decimator
After all this overdriving ya gotta have a noise gate! Nuf said.

Eventide MODFactor
One stop shop for modulation effects. Period. Well, unless you want flange AND tremolo\u2026and\u2026  Luckily I haven’t so far on this project but keep a few individual mod pedals handy to plug in if the need arises. Works really well and there are more params to change than worth messing with – famous last words. It has one of, if not my all-time favorite, stereo chorus sounds that comes as a preset and I use it A LOT both clean and driven. Together with two OD stages it starts approaching Dean DeLeo territory. Nice. I also like and use the tremolo a lot and the pedal comes in real handy in the studio as well.

Eventide TIMEFactor
I love this one. Two individually controlled delay pedals in one unit. A lot of flexibility and the vintage presets (echo etc.) sound great. I get really nice stereo panned delays with different time signatures and coming out of two individually mic’ed amps, the guitar sound fills a room nicely.

Well, there it is! Thanks Effects Bay for giving us the chance to share our passion for great guitar sound and get ideas from each other on how to put it all together. Keep posting and we’ll keep reading.

Rock on!
T_.