Pedal Line Friday – 6/10 – Antoine Doyen

Today’s Pedal Line Friday submission is from Antoine Doyen. 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.

Also, don’t forget to enter the Lightning Boy Audio Op-2 Comp Give Away!

Hi there,

How are you doing?

I’ve been following your blog for a while, now, and I thought I’d share my board like the other guys, now that it finally looks « clean » (sort of). Attached is the image I just posted on my band’s instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BGWb7qUjaT3/

I’m Antoine, and I’m the guitar player for Moke’s. We’re based in Paris and here’s the press kit if you like <http://bit.ly/mokes-doc>.  I compose most of our materials, but the lyrics are generally written by your singer, Agnès. We’re playing Heavy rock, something between heavy metal & stoner music, taking inspiration from the 70’s as well… To sum it up, let’s just say that the first day we met, we wanted to rehearse both Queens of the Stone Age and Rage Against The Machine! (we never finished any of their songs).

And now, on to the board!

To say I dislike gear would be a great lie… but I certainly despise the so-called « Gas », and I admit that’s probably because I don’t always have much cash: most of it get into rehearsals & all… I also happen to have some back pain: given that I often go to rehearsal on the subway, etc., I wanted to have a light, yet mighty, pedalboard. It’s also way easier to transport when all you can afford to tour is a car or a van, not a truck (and all of them are way smaller in France than in the U.S. :D).

So here’s what makes my board:

– I plug into a Jim Dunlop mini-wah: nothing special, just a great wah pedal in a tiny package! It works like a charm, and it’s wayyyyy lighter than a « real » wah-wah, plus it allows to get more shit on the board!

– I only use a few different sounds on a gig, but I totally suck at tap dancing, so I’m using a Chameleo Tail loop from OneControl: it acts as a switch AND as a power distributor: it costs around $350 which is a very fair price, given how much a power distributor and a looper can cost… it’s very well made, and small enough to fit on a small board!

– Chromatic Tuner TU-3: is there anything to be said? 🙂

– Super Octave OC-3: Just wanted to have an octaver around, to try things in the studio while rehearsing… so I picked the boss one, and maybe I’ll go to a « boutique » brand when I know better!

– TC Electronic Booster: now here comes the interesting bit! Before this board, I was using a Amptweaker FatRock (disto) pedal linked to a Malekko Plus Ultra 213 (fuzz). Basically, the dist’ was for the rhythm parts, and the fuzz was dedicated to soli… Then I decided to give my amp’s distortion more of a chance! I’m playing an Orange Dual Terror. Basically, I now tend to play with (a little) less distortion (gain is around 3 o’clock), and I activate the booster to make it « meatier » (does that makes sens to you?). Since the Chameleo loopers allows to switch channel at the same time as pedals, I can make several interesting combinations!

-  Wampler Faux-Tape Echo: I haven’t tried many echo / delay pedals, but that one sure sounds great! Beautiful dynamic range… It’s probably the most expensive pedal on the board, but it’s worth every penny! the sound is beautiful, but the pedal is a bit fragile: I once broke the little switch (fixed, now) and the LED doesn’t light anymore (haven’t found a way to fix it so… I just hope for the best when playing :D).

– Holy Grails: that one was a gift from my band, as I was complaining about the lack of a verb’ on my amp… sounds terrific. Especially for the price & all!

– Ditto Looper: I’m using that one mostly during rehearsal, when jamming: this allows to play some simple rhythmic pattern the band can follow, and then I bring on riffs… and sometimes, it works 🙂

Last but not least, the board is a « New York Pedalboard » : www.nycpedalboards.com They build great-looking boards at a fair price!

On a side note, I’m thinking of ways to add another disto or fuzz on the board, though. I’ll be probably switch the Boss TU-3 with a Mooer Baby Tuner so I can have a bit more space. I’d really like to keep my board this small! If you’re curious, here’s the older version of my board (until last March): https://www.instagram.com/p/7k5w8XDaUe/

You can find my band here:

– mokesband.com
– https://www.facebook.com/MokesBand/
– https://mokes.bandcamp.com

Thanks for reading, and don’t hesitate to tell me what you think! of the band, the pedals…

cheers,

Antoine