New band, new board -- waddya think?

Hey all,

We just had our first full band practice. The setup is two guys with a single drum kit split kick-toms-cowbell-woodblock & floor tom-snare-high hat with symbols between them, guitarist/singer and me on bass and guitar.

I had a setup I wanted to try and it works fantastically well:



[Sorry for the glary cell phone pic. Left to right pedals are RC-20xl, Ibanez Mostortion, Boss PS-3, circuit bent DOD FX-25, circuit bent MXR Blue Box, Boss DD-6]

The thing at the bottom is a 4-loop bypasser. 1st loop is the guitar input (so I can easily switch between my Michael Kelly Club Custom 5 and a Danelectro Hodad 12-string -- I hurt my left rotator cuff, so the doubleneck is way too heavy to play comfortably). At the end of the chain, the Ibanez Mostortion (really good flavor of TS) is always on, set to medium-ish distortion. The amp at the end of it is a Laney 2x12 guitar tube amp, set relatively clean, but with reverb mostly up.

This all gets a very psychedelic sound. Oh, and I'm writing the music so we genre hop and/or change feels very often. Last night was super productive, so we've got six songs on the docket already and I've got two more written.

Good times!

Clips setup goes: Michael Kelly Club Custom 5-string, plugged into setup as seen in above pic, to a Jay Turser PB-10 (POS 10 watt practice amp), mic'd with a Blue Snowball

Clips!

FX25 demo: clean, FX25, FX25 w/circuit bend engaged

Blue Box demo: clean, Blue Box, Blue Box w/circuit bend engaged

Blue Box & FX25 demo: Blue Box >> FX25 >> Ibanez Mostortion, Blue Box (bent) >> FX25 >> Mostortion, Blue Box >> FX25 (bent) >> Mostortion, Blue Box (bent) >> FX25 (bent) >> Mostortion



Anyway, how do you like the setup?

 

I'll post clips soon, but right now I'm struggling against my M-Audio device and Cakewalk...

 

Clips now posted in original post.

It's a Vestax Programable Effect Board. I've only ever seen this one and I got it for $15 at Atomic Music. It's old, beaten and half dead, but I figured out how to get it to operate consistently (I have to put its power into the DC out jack) and it works great for me. You can program in eight presets of any combo of loops, but I prefer to use it in 'write' mode and use it as a dumb bypass strip.

 

I've just wired the center pole of each pot together. I'm sure there are other bends, I just thought this was sorta interesting. One thing to keep in mind if you do this that the bend kills most of the sound if sensitivity is set past noon. You also want a pretty hot signal -- I've gotten way cooler sounds out of active basses, like the one in the clips.