Pedal Line Friday – 5/22 – Phil Hartley

Today’s Pedal Line Friday submission is from Phil Hartley. 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!

I love reading the pedal line Friday submissions, so here’s mine, plus some band info:

I’ve been playing many, MANY years and have been through all manner of pedals as my tastes and style have evolved. I’ve always been a bit of a an echo/ delay junkie since I first played through a Watkins Copycat and my board reflects that. The other point of interest is that a few years ago I had a bit of an epiphany and moved over from Marshall amps to the Mesa Boogie Lonestar that I still use today. Probably 80% of what I do uses a relatively clean core tone and I play arpeggios and textures far more than power chords and screaming leads. However I DO still have a requirement for dirt and it has been a bit of a journey trying to replace real Marshall valve (hey I’m British!) overdrive with pedals. I’m still not 100% happy, but I’m getting there!

My band, Multiplier play alternative/ indie rock, but there are definite post-rock, shoegaze and ambient elements in there too. We’re releasing our debut EP on May 9th and the video to the lead track, Choice can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsKexKPJ74g. If anyone would like to contact me/ us our facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/multiplierband and our Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/multiplierband

Anyway, despite having the Lonestar set to ‘almost clean’, I still prefer my delay and reverb through the loop, so I am using the four cable method. My signal is as follows:

Guitar (mainly a Duesenberg Starplayer TV)

Korg Pitchblack tuner: It tunes! It does the job.

Xotic SP Compressor: I like the fact that it has a blend control, so that you can strike a balance between smooth compression, sustain and the original dynamics

Xotic BB Custom Shop midboost: works pretty well with both channels of the Lonestar ie with  clean and already mildly overdriven tones

JHS Charlie Brown: This was the ‘Marshall in a box’ pedal that seemed to do the best job. It is very, very good for chord work

Nine of Swords Twin Earth Fuzz: A British built Devi Ever style box of chaos. Used sparingly for noise fun!

MXR Flanger: I’ve grown up with this pedal. Got it in 1979  as I was (and still am) a massive John McGeoch (Magazine, Siouxsie & The Banshees) fan. Built like a tank. It will outlive me!

From there the  signal goes to my amp.

In the Loop:

Boss PS2 Pitch/ Shifter Delay: Another old pedal. Its main role nowadays is as a back up, but it definitely adds something to my tone- in a good way- even when not engaged

Strymon EL Capistan plus custom Favourite switch:  Probably the one pedal I simply could not do without. It is almost always on and usually set to give me a kind of background ‘halo’ effect rather than a rhythmic delay. Perfect.

Neunaber Seraphim reverb: Simply the best reverb I’ve used for long ambient textures. I have to force myself to turn it off now and again!

Boss DD20 Giga delay: I use this mainly as a second delay stacked with the El Capistan

TC Ditto Looper: Mainly a practice tool, but I have finally worked out how to use it to produce glitch free backing drones, so it’ll be switched on  a lot more in the future!

Everything other than the MXR Flanger, which is mains powered, runs off a One Spot 9v supply. Cheap patch cables. Noise and tone is absolutely fine, well within tolerable limits for a live rock band. Yes, I’m sure I could achieve an even better tone if I spent significantly on a better power supply and cables, but as I said for Real World playing, it’s fine.

Cheers,
Phil Hartley

Multiplier
Manchester, UK