*cough*cough* I got some pedals *cough*

[rodvonbon]

I never thought I would even consider playing through pedals before.
I started a new band and do not want a second guitar player, but find the need to have some layering for a couple of parts. Also the amp I built doesn't have a reverb on it and I need one.
What do you guys and gals think of the Boss loop pedal and the black colored reverb?
I'm kind of biased to Boss for no other reason than that's the kind of tuner I use. I might even want to pick up the tremelo too.
Are they crap?
I'm having a hard time picturing myself as a "pedal board dude" so I need ease of use and may even gut the reverb pedal and mount it inside the amp.
Please, please don't suggest others, I'm only interested in the Boss pedals.

[r40f]

i don't have an opinion on those pedals, but i strongly suggest trying out different looper pedals before banking on using one live. i find that they take a lot of practice to be used effectively (you have to worry about timing) and you also have to think about mixing another guitar signal... are you going to route to another amp or send both to the same one (rhetorical question)?

[rodvonbon]

Yeah, using it live....hmmmm the opening riff would be the one being looped and only for a coulpe of tunes. I could use a different amp, but I have based my whole playing style on simplicity, so a second amp goes against my constitution. Could I run it through the same amp?

[r40f]

well that's the problem you're going to have to think about - i don't know what your setup is like but it is possible that the sound of the loop + another signal will get too muddy. that depends on a lot of things. it might be fine. you will probably have to experiment to get a good sound.

does anyone know what Battles use? i don't like the band but they obviously know their shit about looper setups.

[rodvonbon]

Ive got a few amps to chose from, but my main one is home built. It's a basically a JCM800 jammed into a Twin Reverb. Could the loop be fed into the clean channel and the live guitar into the high gain?

[Will]

I used to use a looper with 1 amp - it can make for some very interesting interactions when you get a lot of stuff going on at high volume simultaneously. When it comes to the looper, I'd go with the larger loop station dual pedal thing. The compact one seems a little difficult to use.

[rodvonbon]

Duo, a couple of questions
What about it would be difficult?
Why does the big one have two pedals?

[stewart]

I might even want to pick up the tremelo too. Are they crap?

the boss tremolo is rubbish. there's a very noticeable volume drop when engaged. apparently it's fixable, and you seem quite electronically competent but there's not much point spending $80(?) on a pedal that you need to immediately open up and bugger about with. there are much better ones.

[rodvonbon]

I might even want to pick up the tremelo too. Are they crap?

the boss tremolo is rubbish. there's a very noticeable volume drop when engaged. apparently it's fixable, and you seem quite electronically competent but there's not much point spending $80(?) on a pedal that you need to immediately open up and bugger about with. there are much better ones.

I kind of figured for that price it wouldn't be great. The tremelo isn't something I need to have any way.
What I do need is the reverb. Anybody used it?
I know i should go the the guitar shop and try this shit out, but I'm way too lazy and it's a pain in the ass to get to G.C. and if I order the stuff I won't have to pay tax either. Chicago is currently 10% sales tax on electronics.

[Will]

Duo, a couple of questions
What about it would be difficult?
Why does the big one have two pedals?

You have to be able to negotiate a few functions: Record, play, stop, overdub, etc. It's just easier if you have one pedal for rec/overdub and another for play and stop. If you aren't using loops that much, I'm sure the single pedal would be fine. The learning curve might just be a bit steeper.

[rodvonbon]

Well I went and got the Boss Loop Station RC-2 and a Digital Reverb RV-5.
I see what you mean about using 2 amps, the sound gets kind of mushy when running through the same one. I was able to lay down a loop on my first try and it's not too bad. It quantizes the sample with it's built in metronome, so I didn't have to be 100% accurate when I stopped the record mode. I also used a on/off switch from my Twin Reverb plugged into the side of it to stop the playback. I don't really see how i could use this "on the fly" so I'm just gonna load it up with prerecorded samples and layer over them live.
I read I some reviews on the reverb pedal that weren't very favorable on the spring setting. It seemed like everything people were bitching about was exactly what I wanted. I like just a touch of verb so I don't crank it up and it sounds good to me.
I'm gonna hold off on getting a Tremolo pedal, sense I'm using two amps now and one of them has it built in.

[rodvonbon]

Well......I ended up getting more than I thought I would this past week. Besides the loop and reverb I also got both a Tremolo and a Sustainer/compressor pedal used for 45 bucks each. I see what Stewart meant about the volume drop when the tremolo is on and will look for the mod he spoke of. For good measure I picked up a dd7 delay too. I have it set up to split the signal between 2 amps. I know it's all kind of boring compared to what some of you use, but for me the trick will be to mess around with all this shit to make my guitar not sound processed :]
Oh yeah, I got the Boss board too.

[Haze]

haha, thats awesome

way to go all demarco on us =)

you'll be pretty happy with all that after some personal tweeking, and the dd7 is a great delay pedal

how much was the final ticket??

[rodvonbon]

haha, thats awesome

way to go all demarco on us =)

you'll be pretty happy with all that after some personal tweeking, and the dd7 is a great delay pedal

how much was the final ticket??

Hehe..I'm not sure really. I sold a guitar this week so I had some fun money to play with.
What does everyone do with all of those cables?
The board is nice and neat, but comming off of it it's a fucking mess. I can see myself getting cought up in all these cords while playing and sending it flying. And I don't see where I'm going to plug the power in when I play live, I supose' I've never looked but most stages I've played don't have outlets that run across the front.

[Will]

I always thought some company should use those lithium ion batteries from laptops to create a rechargeable pedal board power supply. I never liked having to deal with the extra cords either - it's why I don't use pedals.

IDEA: Yr good with electronics and already have a homemade amp; here's what you do:

Get a 9v DC transformer and build it into the amp
Replace the input jack on yr amp with a stereo jack
Use the ring connection of the jack to send +9v through a stereo cable to yr pedal board (basically Phantom Power)
The stereo cable connects to a small box on yr board that sends the power to the Power In of the board

DONE.

edit: make sure you also use a voltage regulator and lots of filtering at the amp end so it's pure DC going through the cable.

[rodvonbon]

That's a great idea!
I was brainstorming earlier and I think I came up with a way to use a 5 conductor shielded midi cable to make a cord that will connect the board to the amp. It will be kind of limited to only send, return and dc power though. If I had a 7 conductor I could do send, return A, return B and dc.
I don't have to work tomorrow so I think I'm gonna work on this tonight.
Hmmmmm..........(rolling hands together).........

[Mike]

I just take an extension cord (one of those roll up wheel ones) with me.

[rodvonbon]

I just take an extension cord (one of those roll up wheel ones) with me.

I thought might have to do something like that. It all seems like a bit much running a send cord, a return cord, a power cord and plugging the guitar into the amp, so I came up with this;
Made it last night out of spare parts from various electrical tinkering projects. It's a pretty simple solution, but it works. The box on the board has two 1/4" jacks for send and return and a wire that plugs in with an on/off switch for the power. The box on the amp side is the same, but instead of a switch there is a socket to plug the transformer into. It works awesome for just throwing it together. The one thing I will change is putting 5 pin DIN (midi) connectors on either end so the cord isn't hardwired into it. If I can track down some 7 pin DIN's and 7 conductor shielded cable I'm going to make another one that will have 2 returns on it for stereo fx or to run to a second amp. With a 7 conductor there will be one open lead so I could also run a second power for different voltage.
Let me know what you guys think.


Here's some closer pics.

► Show Spoiler

The box fits the board perfectly!

Box on the pedal board side

Box on the amp side

I mounted the transformer to the back panel of the amp. The box isn't screwed down, it's just held in by the connections.

And the whole thing together. The transformer is plugged into the amp.

[Mike]

Very, Very Cool.

[rodvonbon]

Very, Very Cool.

Thanks, Mike
I know it's pretty basic stuff, but I will make some wiring diagrams incase anyone else wants to try it.