Pedal Line Friday – 5/20 – Karl Ward

Today’s pedal line is from Karl Ward of Ghost Ghost. 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 pedallineateffectsbaydotcom. Every Friday I’ll showcase a pedal line submission. Make sure you include any links to your band or music page.

*History of the Space Shuttle* or the pedalboards of Karl Ward from Ghost Ghost

In 2008, I started putting together my pedalboard for live shows with Ghost Ghost. I knew several things from the very beginning, before I spent any money.  First, I knew I would need many different kinds of delay.  Second, I knew I would need many different distortion options.  Third, I knew that fast setup would be essential for live shows in NYC rock clubs, where setup time between acts is frequently 15 minutes (if that).

From these basic goals, I put together a series of increasingly more complex and versatile pedalboard configurations over the last three years–which the article describes in much more detail.  Version 1 of the pedalboard has one of the most important features of all subsequent versions, which is the dual signal path.  I built a splitter to split the guitar signal into two paths.

One path contains the Fulltone GT-500 combination overdrive/distortion, while the other path contains the Electro-Harmonix HOG analog synth and the Electro-Harmonix Tube Zipper combination envelope follower/distortion.  The two paths meet at the Electro-Harmonix Stereo Memory Man digital delay.  After that, the two paths go out to two inputs on my amp.

Later versions incorporate more effects, more and different distortion, and eventually a full two channel rig that takes advantage of the piezo saddle transducers I added to my Strat to get acoustic sounds.  I hope you enjoy the History of the Space Shuttle.
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New additions to his Version 2.3 board would include the Furman SPB-8C Stereo Pedalboard,  L.R. Baggs Venue DI Pre Amp and Fulltone Clyde Deluxe Wah. To view the complete evolution of Karl’s board(s), please check out his great and very thorough post at ghostghost.net!