Pedal Line Friday – 4/11 – Darren Dencklau

Today’s pedal line is from Darren Dencklau. 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.

Hey there,

I’ve been following you site for a few years now and figured I would submit a photo for Pedal Line Friday!

I play in a two-piece rock/psychedelic band from Seattle called Jo Jo Jupiter (http://www.reverbnation.com/jojojupiter). Being in a duo that likes to create elements of space, we rely heavily on my effects pedals, which are constantly changing. Here’s the latest version and the board I made myself out of a metal looking suitcase I scored for five dollars at a flea market and then installed two levels of wood inside and added take-apart hinges so I can quickly set up and break down at gigs.

I power everything with a BBE Supa-Charger and generally play through my Fender ’59 Bassman LTD.

1. Boss TU-2 Tuner: It works like it should!

2. Way Huge Electronics Pork Loin: I’ve tried a lot of OD and distortion pedals and to me this one sounds as good or better than most any boutique options out there. It’s very transparent and can be used as a nice boost or quick turn of the knobs renders a classy amount of dirt; it’s a perfect compliment to the Bassman’s beautiful break up and accentuates pick attack.

3. Another Pork Loin!: Why? Because I found one used for $40 and was going to flip it to make some extra cash. However, I tried it as a compliment to the other Pork Loin and fell in love. The two stacked together pack a serious punch when I need it.

4. Earthquaker Devices Hoof: I don’t use this one a lot since I play mostly rhythm guitar in our band. It’s great for solos and has all fuzz needs covered – from old school buzzing to overloaded thundering chaos. Live, it basically melts faces when we need to emphasize things.

5. Boss BF-2 Flanger: One of our favorite influences is Monster Magnet. This pedal can give us that way out spacey feel for a few of our more psychedelic songs and when tweaked the right way provides a staggering vibrato that is similar to a Rotovibe.

6. EHX Holy Stain: I stripped the fugly brown paint and “customized” this one with red paint and a part of a Jimmy Johns sticker. This is a versatile pedal I use for the reverb settings and its tremolo. The previous owner claimed the tremolo didn’t work and sold it to me $30. Little did he know, it works great! I think he just didn’t turn the “amount” knob enough.

7. TC Electronics Alter Ego: I bought this after seeing the demos on Pro Guitar Shop’s website; I am a huge Pink Floyd fan and Andy was displaying some serious Gilmour sounds. I use the Deluxe Memory Man setting the most because it’s just beautiful sounding, but I also love the Echorec and MOD settings for leads. For delay, this pedal can almost do it all!

8. Boss DD-7: Another great delay pedal that I use a lot live, but in an unconventional way. By setting the amount of feedback at 7 o’clock on the 200ms setting I can give a quick on and off stomp to get a terrifically chaotic repeat that fades slowly while I move on to the next part of the song. It works to make us appear bigger than we are and people are usually stumped on how two people can make such a big sound. At home, I use the DD-7 as a looper and it helps provide all sorts of new material and inspiration.

Thanks for the time!