Looking to establish an effects setup...

if u want DEFINITE Juan from Mars Volta tone, 2 vintage Boss CS-2's (ebay they go for like 75-85-ish), not the cs-3 - the tone on those is kinda lacking...run both @ the same time and settings on both are: Level - maxxed, Attack - Maxxed, Sustain - 1:30

other pedals i can suggest are:
Digitech Bass Synth Wah
A good phaser (ehx small stone, roland ap-2, mxr phase 100)
delay

hope that helps

 

extra compression?

 

Juan uses 2, and ive used just one on that setting and it gets u fairly close, but adding in the 2nd one gives u a bit more compression and it sounds a bit dirtier and warmer too...using the 2nd one gives the extra something ud be missing w/ just one if u wanna emulate his style and tone...i would usually stomp one out during a song if i was headed to a REALLY clean sounding simple part of the song w/ not too much going on, but id say 90% of the time if not more, both would be on

 

Ring Mod. It does a lot for just being a freak-out effect that's over looked.

 

the Digitech synth wah is truely great, you can get some amazing auto wah out of it or just coax some uber weird sounds from it. I was on stage with one last night an I put on a huge chunk of wah to cover up for the fact that we had no sax for the solo in dancing in the moon light and people went crazy, I had groups of people coming up just to compliment that two phrase solo. Also if you put in alot of low tone wah and pull a few right hand thumb slide you get some brilliant, yet freakey, noises.

 

the sens knob doesn't affect volume but more the strength of signal that activates the effect, on the auto wah it also changes the tone of the wah slightly, i haven't found that there is a particularly noticable volume change. the only thing i have to say is ignore the instruction booklet cause it just confuses, just play around with the settings yourself and find a sound you like.

 

Hi Fig love your hair.

 

Have you thought about a Boss ME-50B or a GT-6B? The 4 pedals you're interested in are about $430 (new). Both of those units would be cheaper and you would have a lot more effects at your disposal, not to mention the ability to save presets. Just something to consider...
Good luck!

 

That's cool, and I agree with you. I just figured a multi-effects would give you more bang for the buck. Good luck with the pedal search!

 

If you're looking for a powered pedalboard, go to ebay and type in "pedalboard" in the search box. You'll see a ton of ads for this one powered pedalboard that holds about 6 pedals and comes with a gig bag. It goes for about $35 bucks. I have one and it's a pretty good deal.