GUITAR
SMALL PEDAL BOARD SOLUTIONS | Chris Rocha & Jonathan Diaz
I used to travel with bigger pedal boards but after traveling to Peru a while back and being charged over $ 500 for my equipment I started changing my mentality on big pedalboards . Lol . I think that having a small pedalboard has its advantages . I teamed up with my friend Jonathan Diaz to write this article for all of you that wanted some small pedal board solutions .
[ Jonathan ] We ’ ve all been through or are going through different phases with our pedal boards . I ’ ve had at least twelve different variations of my pedalboard setup , from small 4 pedals on a nano board to 16 pedals on a massive board . And all in the name of chasing the right worship tone . In the end we love pedals , and we love to collect , but over the last two years I ’ ve come to conclude that I don ’ t need a lot to get the kind of sounds I need and still scratch my itch for experimenting and finding new sounds . We will focus on three main effects and what I use to get all the sounds I need in a small scale .
2 – 3 OVERDRIVE / DISTORTIONS As guitarists we tend to buy more overdrives / distortions over any other pedal . I ’ ve had up to eight overdrives on my pedal board , and 14 just sitting on the shelf not being used at all . Eventually I settled to three pedals that are versatile and different enough from each other that my overdrives wouldn ’ t be a redundant repetition of each other .
The first gain stage in my chain is a heavy overdrive . I use the 1981 DRV , but the DRV is a modified Rat pedal . I like the Rat style pedals because they are full of a gain range and have excellent low end and a high cut knob that has a huge range . It can adapt to any guitar or amplifier that you use it with and stacks very well with other pedals .
The second gain I use is a “ transparent ” overdrive , a clean bright boost style pedal with little gain . I ’ m using an MCG Genesis which is based off of a Morning Glory , which is based off of a Boss Blues Driver . The idea is for the Gain stage to be clear and brighter than the pedal before to act like a solo boost . But also , be dirty enough to add a little grit to the clean sound . This could also be your “ always on ” pedal !
My third is a mid-gain pedal , currently I ’ m using a Little Green Wonder . It has a “ body control ” that has incredible range , and makes the pedal very unique , when combined with the transparent overdrive it saturates a little more and brings out some fuzz like qualities to the Little Green Wonder .
But everyone should experiment to see what three pedals works for them . If you only want two overdrives , I recommend keeping your amplifier on the slightly more dirty side so it sounds like the transparent overdrive pedal . And you can always clean that up just by bringing down your volume knob on your guitar to get the cleaner sounds .
DELAY Delays are an interesting point of conversation , some people prefer to have a lot of different delay types , and some people only have two different delays . Whatever the case may be we can all agree that tap tempo on a delay pedal is
56 May 2023 Subscribe for Free ...