I have the good fortune to have recently met Chad from ChadderBox Effects. It turns out he works part-time on the same floor in the same building where I also work part-time. When I found out Chad made pedals, I naturally found myself having 30 minute conversations with the dude almost any time I’d bump into him in the hallway. When gearheads start, it’s kind of hard to stop...well, I know some of you know what I’m talking about. Everyone else has probably stopped reading this blogpost already, so we’re good.

I found myself in the position of needing to put together a new board to fill in on guitar with our friends Glacier. First I needed a distortion pedal that could pull of their heavier bits so I started to do some research. The guitarist I'm filling in for has a Proco Rat on his board so I thought I might go for something in that direction. I'd heard of Fuzzrocious and have wanted an excuse to get one of their pedals so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity. 

Sometimes just one amp isn't enough. Using multiple amps together can yield a sound that is more than the sum of it's parts. Both Corey and myself have split our singal to multiple amps. Currently Corey runs both a Fender Twin Reverb and a Savage Blitz 50 simultaneously.

Strymon does everything right with this pedal. I consider the BigSky the be-all and end-all reverb. You can get everything from the most basic ambience to a cavernous cacaphony and everything in between.

You can never have too many gain pedals right? Ever since I first heard the Voyager I knew I needed one on my board and have been trying to make room and excuses for it since. Walrus Audio makes some of the coolest pedals right now. I love the special editions they do also. It really appeals to my collector's personality. 

Once I decided on the Strymon TimeLine I started looking into MIDI controller pedals for it. Using MIDI with the Timeline enables faster access to the looper (which I need), and cool reverse and half speed modes. I love the Molten Midi 2 pedal I've got for the Whammy so I looked into the Molten Voltage OZ. I eventually decided the OZ was too big to make room for —it has a bigger footprint than the Timeline! I had almost given up on the extra control and was dealing with the controls as they are on our last tour. That was until I found Disaster Area Designs. 

A huge part of putting together a pedal board is the actual board itself! What should you make it out of? Should you buy one? What about cases? There are lots of options and no one-size-fits-all solution!

As can be seen from my last several posts I've been reorganizing my board once again. A big part of a board reorg for me is looking at other boards for ideas. Of course the Radiohead video I've linked to several times was a big one. But videos from Smashing Pumpkins and Troy Van Leeuwen are also awesome. The guys at Nice Rack Canada make some really clean setups but this one from Annie Clark knocks me out. Steph Carpenter from the Deftones often goes through rig changes in his quest, but this particular board has always been one of my favorite layouts. In fact two layouts ago I had the same three Z. Vex pedals on my board.

Another new pedal to add to the rig and this time it's a big one. The Strymon Timeline delay. Delay is such an important part of our sound and I currently have four delay pedals on my board each with a different purpose. I previously was using an Akai Headrush E2 as my final delay and looper. It was the last thing in my chain and an important part of so many songs. Recently when trying to clean things up I've noticed that the Headrush isn't as quiet as I would like it. There was always a slight white noise added to the signal. Maybe it's because I've had this pedal since 2005! I started looking for a combination digital delay and looper. I thought about the possibility of the Ditto X2 Looper, but I didn't want to give up that last clean delay.  The Timeline seemed like a natural choice. It's remarkably flexible, has tons of sounds, and 200(!) presets.

Saying our band is a big fan of Moog would be a serious understatement. We've got 7 pieces of Moog gear in our rehearsal space! So when Moog announced their new line of Minifooger pedals, I knew I had to check them out.