radiophonic

If I get more than a bar I count myself lucky, so something moderately loud, with some distortion, from the set. It'll be in the right ballpark volume wise and they'll probably butcher the EQ whatever they get.

I'm up to a Novo 24 already! Both our guitarists have PT Classic 2 as well so there's a practical limit here. Not much room for scissor kicks on our stages! I can do MIDI from the ES5 so I'd only need the Hub in theory, but I'm eyeing up a DD500 to replace both my current delays so that will use the port and as you say, with only one SA pedal, it get's marginal.

I didn't even spot the Sweeper! When I had the BEF, I was in a covers band and I used it for finger funk. It seemed impossible to get a bad sound out of it. Once I was out of that band, I didn't have a use for it and all the filter stuff I do now is synth. I can't make my mind up about the Manta. It's a lot of pedal for the money, but it really needs MIDI to get the most out of it and that adds a hundred quid, increases the footprint and ups the power consumption and (for all its impracticality and limitations) I'd still not want to get rid of the Moog.

@Al Krow - I might have asked you this before, but what's the story with the MXR in addition to the Manta? Since you have the Hub, can't you get a similar bandpass without it? That said, the BEF is the one pedal I've sold that I wish I'd hung on to.

New year, new layout. This is the big board for working on sounds. I have a Novo 18 and a much more compact SA Manta filter for gigs, but we’re taking January off. The loop switcher allows me to run a clean blend with all the dirt pedals and to run the bitcrusher in parallel with the Okto Nojs and then all into the filter. The parallel Mastotron / Okto combo into the Moog sounds tremendous - the gating on the Mastotron is incredibly tight. I'm still getting new sounds out of the Scrutator - the sample rate reducer is really powerful, everything from almost wind like artifacts through to really atonal ring mod sounds. I got a Mosky Black Rat to save space but I’ve done the Reutz mod on the ProCo and it makes a significant difference to the low end, so I’m putting up with the inconvenience for now. The most likely change for 2019 will be the delays. A DD500 would give me MIDI control via the ES5 and it does dual delay and Echorec, which is what I aim for with the El Cap/Flashback.

I’ve raised it with Roland anyway. Hopefully they have a fix.

Best: Moog MF101 Envelope filter. Huge, impractical, noisy and unjustifiable in every way other than it's sound, which gives an indication of how much I like its sound. Worst: Source Audio Dual Expression Pedal for use with the Source Manta. I like the filter but the expression pedal was double what a Moog one costs. It's already noisy (<6 months old) and I resent having to buy a dedicated pedal due to non standard connectivity or spend an extra 100 quid on a hub. I don't trust a cable that thin either.

Depends. Delay ahead of a filter really emphasises the filter on each repeat, rather than the repeat of the single filter sweep, but both are useful. Phaser ahead of a drive sounds far more extreme than after but the latter is more common.. Fuzz into a PS6 as a Harmoniser or Scrutator after it as an Octave up, but PS6 as Octave down in front of or in parallel with the Rat or the Fuzz or the Scrutator. Plus I like a clean blend with my Rat. I use a loop switcher.

I've been using a Boss FV30L for ages. It's small, solid metal and stereo, so I can run it in separate loops and/or use it as a dual expression / volume pedal. I'm not sure what an active pedal gives you over a passive one (provided it's low impedance) other than possibly adding a buffer if you need it, but it sounds like you don't. I've used high impedance pedals too, but these have always given roll off at the frequency extremes, so definitely Lo-Z or active.

Two bass players was a bit of a post hardcore / post rock thing for a while. Rothko have been mentioned. GVSB had two. Godspeed You Black Emperor have at least two of everything and Dianogah have always been two basses and a drummer. Quite different approaches though. GSYBE is all about monolithic heaviness. Dianogah really separate the sound of the two instruments. GVSB seem to replace one of the basses with key parts now.

Out of interest - are you using the ES8 to access the 'favorite' preset on the Deco (I assume it has one)? I'm doing it on the El Capistan and although it works, there is a 2 second delay. It switches back instantly though. Others have reported the same. No idea why - it should just be a toggle.

Here we go. All cased up for recording tomorrow, so the expression pedal is elsewhere. Compressor >. ES5 > Hall Fame. All the rest are in loops, so I can run the PS6 as a detune chorus after the filter or as an octave down in front of the Rat, with clean in parallel or bitcrush in parallel with the Okto etc etc. Game changer. The only downside is needing to bench the Mastotron because the Rat is so big. A mini clone will fix this problem for about 25 quid. Sorting the patch cables won’t be cheap though. I have a bigger board waiting, but this is the practical limit for band gigs.

Three filters! I admire your commitment. I'll post an update when I get round to it, but I'm finding the ES5 very useful. The footprint of the ES8 was just too large for my gig board although the extra loops and the discrete volume pedal loop would have been a help. I'm also now looking at all my patch cables needing replacement. Never ending expense.

No - I'd use one bass as a reference and use the EQ to balance the other one to it. So a single EQ after the ABY. Just engage the EQ when you switch to the second bass.

On the face of it, the LS2 does seem like the solution. I bought one for this purpose a few years back. However, in practice I found it only a partial fix. I have a Jazz and a Stingray and although I could make the jazz louder, the very large EQ differences between the basses still made it very tricky to get both instruments to sit in the mix at the correct volume. In retrospect I wondered whether an active EQ pedal might have been a better solution, positioned after the ABY. Fortunately the LS2 has tuned out to be super useful for other things.

There are preset gains on the mixer over quite a wide range in +/-3dB increments. Now if I can only work out why it takes 2 sec to register a toggle command via Crtl Out to my El Capistan. I've read about this elsewhere but nobody seems to understand why it dosn't work instantly. It holds up the initiation of the whole patch while it waits too.

Those would be too 'long in the plug'. My gig board is pretty cramped. It looks like kit built is the only way to do it - Planet Wave do exactly what I need but they are really expensive and the kits don't get great reviews in terms of reliability. I've currently got EBS right angled flats with the cables pointing upwards off the board though! A bit messy but it does work and of course I don't need to touch the pedal switches very often anymore.

Not an effect per se, but what you need to run them. I just got a Boss ES5 line switcher, but the alignment with the rails on a Pedaltrain isn't too great and I've had to position it a good way back from the front of the board in order to route the right angle patch cables. Does anyone make cables with a right angle at one end and straight at the other? I mostly use EBS so assume space is tight.

I've ordered a Boss ES5. It'll do parallel loops, order switching and if I get a Neuro Hub I can use it as a midi controller for the Manta.

My trusty Boss LS2 is being pushed to the limit and I'm getting stressed out with some of the tap dancing i need to do. Does anyone use a loop system and care to make a recommendation or warn me off? I don't need stereo out but I do need parallel loop options and the ability to switch pedal order. Footprint (and price) is important, so the Boss ES8 is probably overboard. The ES5 is more ballpark and does parallel but I'm not sure if 5 loops is quit enough. I've roughed it out and I can do it with 5 provided I run all my drives and bitcrusher in a single loop, not ideal but I rarely stack drives anyway. I'll need to go up a board size, but I don't want to exceed Pedaltrain Classic 2 size (I'm using a Novo 18 now).

No analog Octave down?

Afraid so! It's just off the band board. I can't see me getting rid of it though.

A few new toys and some rearrangement. This is more of a band board so the order reflects set demands. The Scrutator has given way to a Mastotron - the low end has to be heard to be believed and I only use the bitcrusher for solo stuff. Similarly, a second delay was a luxury so the Hall of Fame has taken its place. In a away it's a pity because the Echorec style delay I have on the Flashback is probably my favourite 'effect' delay and I just can't quite get to it with the El Capistan. I need the really solid low end of the Strymon's repeats though and one had to go. I use the HoF for literally one note and TBH I'm not entirely sold on the core tone of this pedal. Not sure if it's a keeper. The Moog needs it’s own loop due to noise issues, but it just sounds better than the Manta for sweeps and I lead a whole song with it, so it stays. The BCD gets swapped in and out with a Boss Harmonist and I think on the whole, I prefer detune to chorus. The trusty Pork Loin ain't goin' nowhere. It's easily the best soft clip overdrive I've tried in a band situation. Solo'd it sounds oddly wooly and rolled off, but once the drums kick in it totally works. It also had the best switch ever. n

I'm bumping this for a few reasons. First I'm thinking about a new compressor. I have a Boss BC1-X multiband currently. There's nothing specific that I would say is wrong with it, but I fancy some variety. I run the comp at the front of my signal chain, using the amp's built in limiter to handle speaker protection in my own rig, so it can have a big effect on the overall sound of my playing. I don't typically use extreme settings and I don't fiddle much either - ratio somewhere around 3 or 4:1, I would guess and a slow enough release to give me some extra sustain, but nothing obviously effect-y. The second reason is that the Spectracomp (also digital, also multiband) is now about £65, BUT with Tore exiting TC, it's hard to know what the future support for Toneprint will be - and a detailed manual now looks very unlikely. Finally, Darkglass have issued the Hyper Luminal and it is pretty clearly aimed at the Cali76 market - with the addition of Toneprint-like additional functionality via USB. Is the Cali still worth the money? Is anyone using the Darkglass? YouTube is not too helpful alas - what with the compression.