Pedal Line Friday – 11/19 – Ken Stern

Today’s pedal line is from Ken Stern. 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.

I primarily play a 6-string short-scale bass. Currently using a Schecter Hellcat VI and a Burns Barracuda which are both more or less in the Fender Bass VI category. I like a vintage sound, so I focused on accumulating some vintage Boss effects. Here’s my path… Bass > Korg Pitchblack tuner > Boss PH-1r Phaser (Phasers ­ to me anyway – are more like Wah pedals than modulation as they cut or notch a frequency that is swept to electronically so I put it early in the chain) > Tech 21 VT Bass which I use primarily for OD and some distortion and tone shaping rather than pre-amping. If I was pre-amping with it I would probably put it at the end of the chain just before the looper.) > Analogman Standard Chorus which has an optional “Deep” toggle switch on it which makes it sound significantly better with a bass when it’s engaged. I also run it at 18v for more headroom. This is really the ultimate bass chorus. > Boss BF-2 Flanger (there is a bass version of this but I feel this non-bass version sounds better) > Boss DD-2 Delay which I had modded by Dan at This1smyne to have more a tape-like effect with the flick of a switch. Last on the chain is a Boss RC-2 Loop Station with a custom This1smyne duel footswitch. I have all of this mounted on a Pedaltrain Jr and powered with a TRex Fuel Tank Jr. I mounted the Fuel Tank Jr. invisibly under the board using 3M Dual-Lock. Perfect fit. I also have a rare and quite bizarre sounding Danelectro Sitar Swami which is not on the board right now. This board set-up also works just fine with my 1982 Guild D-35 acoustic which I had electrified with a K&K Sound Pure-Mini pick-up. The design of the K&K is fantastic. It does not at all degrade or impact the non-electrified acoustic sound or in any way alter the aesthetics of the guitar as it is totally invisible. The cord plug is built into the side strap button. Great tone and not at all intrusive. It is a perfect solution. Also, the “Deep Toggle” on the Analogman Chorus gives me the flexibility to adjust it with a flip of the toggle so it sounds great with the acoustic as well.

I’m not in a band. Instead, I concentrate on home-recording via a M-Audio Firewire Solo interface into a MacBook Pro i7 with GarageBand. I use a small Acoustic brand bass amp for amplification when practicing and for micing into the Firewire interface when I need it.

Ken Stern