Pedal Line Friday – 2/26 – Matt Van Mantgem

Today’s Pedal Line Friday submission is from Matt Van Mantgem. 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. I’m Matt, sometimes called Max. Matt Van Mantgem, if you need the last name. I’m no longer in a band- not “in between”- I’m done with all that. Sometimes, I’ll sit in with friends, but that’s pretty infrequent, these days. Back in the late 1980’s and throughout the 1990’s I played in bands with varying degrees of success, but nothing ‘big”. I made a lot more money working as an audio engineer, anyway.

So, seeing as I mostly play in my living room, I don’t keep a regular pedalboard- I’ve got a couple of hand built boards, but I usually don’t haul them out. Still, I view effect pedals like a painter views paint, so I keep a pretty well stocked palette, as you can see in the photos( some show 90% of the total collection, I’ve got a couple of fuzzes, and chorus pedals, as well as tuners that aren’t shown.. Some are vintage, some are hand built, some are “boutique”, most are cheap- I really don’t see the point of getting a 300 dollar pedal, when I’m playing through a practice amp, just for my own amusement. So, the line up I was using today, for a variety of early 1990’s sounds,  goes from my vintage Epiphone SG copy (it’s a 1993 lefty Epiphone, G-300- precursor to the 310. Bolt-on mahogany neck, rosewood fingerboard, with a 3-piece alder body I’ve added Sperzal tuners, Graphtech nut and Saddles, and a Dimarzio Super distortion in the bridge) into a

Hotone Octa– while it’s no POG, it’s close enough- sounds about like the polyoctave on a Digitech Whammy.

Donner Metric Bender– that I have nicknamed “Yoda” because the phaser setting sounds warbly and somewhat backwards

Boss Combo drive– if a tubescreamer sounds like a cranked Bassman, this sounds like a cranked AC30- I use it as a gain pedal, not a modeller, though.

Boss OS-2– despite the name, it’s not both an overdrive and distortion, it’s just a DS-1 with a much better EQ. I use it as a medium gain distortion.

Modtone Buzz Boy– I think it’s meant to be a “grunge” pedal, and named after Buzz Osborne , but in practice it does that “fuzzy distortion” thing that’s popular with the sludge metal folks.

Noisemaker Effects Donner Party– crazy amounts of gain. Kevin Shields in the Holocaust section amounts of gain. A fuzz pedal? Well, kinda, but more about massive amounts of gain.

Homemade “Darmstadtium” pedal– I took the Marshall Shredmaster circuit, and put in some pots with different values to produce a low to medium gain distortion with a lower-mid boost.

Donner “Harmony” chorus pedal– I know they’re Chinese clones, but I honestly cannot figure out which chorus pedal they’re cloning here. It just sounds tasteful, and after the Donner Party, you have to tame the beast. Modtone Space Flanger- My favorite flanger.

BBE Mind Bender– supposedly a chorus/vibe, but it acts like a pitchbending tremolo, I mostly use the “vibe” setting to add a vibrating Vibrato. Donner Yellow Fall Delay- I love mini pedals, and this is one of the very best. An analog-sounding digital delay that really sounds analog, and goes up to about 650 ms. It’s a great delay, and you can pick one up for less than 50 bucks, easy.

Mooer Reecho– another fantastic mini pedal delay. I use the “tape delay” setting, for a very Edge-like ‘Memory Man” sound.

Digitech Digidelay– I know I get a lot of guff for Digitech stuff, but it’s a good delay unit, really. Sometimes you want a cold, very digital delay, and then, you want this pedal. I set it for a very long, lots of repeats delay, so it’s almost, but not quite a looper.

Mooer Spark Reverb– Mooer makes some really good room settings, and for some reason the little cube “spark series” just didn’t get much love, so I get that great Mooer Room reverb, and I got it cheap!

Digitech Digiverb– if you want a spring reverb, nothing sounds like a spring reverb, but a spring reverb. But, if you want an Alesis Quadraverb, and you don’t want a rack unit, these little digitech numbers get you pretty close, and I use the reverse reverb setting, and I can do atmospheric stuff all day long.

All of this is powered by two One Spots, using the Moen daisy chains, which have built-in ferrules for a less noisey response, and a DanElectrode Variable power for the Donner party ( for yet more “battery starvation” noisey fun)

Then, this feeds into a Vox Valvetronix AD30VT.