Your "no-pedals" demo at (13:30) was a GREAT example of the guitar sounds versatility that can be made from using different combinations of the guitar's volume and tone controls, the guitar's pickup selector switch, and the amp's volume. You made your guitar sound like it was going through several different pedals!
man, if complete signal integrity could be assured, i'd perform on a stage made entirely of pedals. it'd look like a hoarder's living room but just guitar pedals, all one line. 🤣
What worked for me was a medium sized board + a small multifx unit (like a Zoom G3X or a HX Stomp). Those models work like individual pedals, and you can take advantage of the enormous amount of modulations, for instance. It's super versatile and you can experiment with sounds before deciding to commit to "the real thing", if you ever decide to do that.
This is really helping. Having 6 pedals, and intention to buy another 6 pedals, and finally stop thinking and it's better to practise together to improve my guitar playing rather than wondering what pedal should be here should be there blablabla. You're the real MVP.
The nice thing I find happens when I've been practising consistently for a while is that I not only have a clearer idea of what gear I'll need but any purchases feel much more justified. Practise first, tone chasing second.
Sounds like a great minimalist setup that! Wah's and boost's don't draw much power either so you could just use trusty batteries for mess free cabling and clean isolated power.
I had a GT1 and sold it as made everything sound crap even from clean. Back to basics with pedals now and far better but yes more expensive but far easier with no menus to remember where I found something. On/Off buttons are great!
Found the same things in my adventures. Small for practice, medium for good gigs, large for studio,and a less expensive multi-fx for less secure gigs. Excellent video, so people who haven't gone through it have an understanding of where they want to go. I would always have a multi-fx for backup.
I like to turn down the neck pickup to clean and the bridge pickup to full volume on a guitar with separate volume controls. This way the pickup selector switch works like the on-off switch of an overdrive pedal.
I see about 13 pedals there in the 'Big' rig. You have convinced me that I may not have "too many pedals" to deal with after all. Hope springs eternal again! Thank You sir.
I was on a pedal buying journey. Then I hand build my own treble booster pedal an now it’s almost the only pedal I use. Always on into a slightly overdriven amp. I get almost fuzz with the guitar fully turned up and sparkling clean turned down.
Great video again, Michael!! I run 2 other options of small size boards. First option: Zoom MS 50 G (amp/cab/rvb) and Zoom MS 70 CDR (mod/dly/rvb) affordable, light, easy, going to DI box (no amp) but I can only on/off 1 setting per pedal (works fine for my trio). Fits in gtr case! Second option: 2 small boards, one at the front of the amp (sd1, ds1, fz5, tr2, mo2) and one in fx loop of amp (re2, te2, rv5, tu2, (ir2)) still light and affordable, easy to use/troubleshoot, runs with 2 daisy chains. Still able to ride on scooter to studio practice! Perfect for my bigger band. Just sharing.
Very good summary, and well balanced opinion (including making the most of the guitar/amp controls). I have a medium set up, but find myself using fewer pedals; so it might shrink down a bit. The point about complexity and distraction of too many options can be a real rabbit hole, best avoided whether it be due to too many pedals, multi effects or amps with multi effects.
I am keeping mine to 8 pedals max. I have a medium board. Rocking 7 right now. Gear is addicting...I often have to remind myself I'm not a collector but that urge to get one of everything is there. But honestly I could lower mine to just octaver, distortion, delay and looper if I really needed to. I play one man band type stuff. If I gigged a lot I'd definitely not take anything but what I needed for the setlist.
I have a small board which works quiet well for me! The signal goes so : Tuner Overdrive Fuzz UniVibe Reverb Looper I bring it everywhere I go (holidays, parties when my friends ask me to (or agree that…) bring my guitar, small concerts, etc…). I also use it for recording and it’s really functional! :)
@@MichaelBanfieldGuitar It is sweet ! And I actually found out that it forces me to be really creative, because I don’t have a lot of effects and because of that, I have to be imaginative to find the tones that I want, and I’m not overwhelmed with too much stuff, since I chose really simple pedals (I’m the kind of guitar player who might have two reverbs always on and some really weird pedals if I had the money for it). Less is more ! :)
@@MOONfacekilla it’s somewhat in between the other two (but actually closer to the OD than to the fuzz), the overdrive I personally have is a Boss OS-2, and it can do both the overdrive and the distortion, but I mainly use it to give a texture to my clean tone when needed. I don’t really use a distortion personally, but if you have a good overdrive, by pushing it hard, you can get pretty close to a distortion. What I would recommend is to take a pedal that does both the OD and the distortion (such as the OS-2). But it really depends on your needs and the tones that you are looking for :) PS: if your board is rather small (mine is a Pedaltrain Nano+) it will give you more space for other pedals if needed ;)
@@simondavid2519 great thanks for the advice! I'll look into what you mentioned about an OD that can get pretty close to distortion when I need it. Then it's no problem to hit the fuzz when I go heavier. Thanks
My chain is tuner-noise suppressor(send to)-OD-preamp(return to)-noise suppressor-EQ-delay-impulse response loader. I’m adding a chorus soon and that’s it. :)
Played in a band since late 80’s. Got four pedals on my both my boards (one is at home, one is used in my band). Both got a tuner, phaser and overdrive. Then a delay at home, and a flanger on my bands pedalboard. Don’t need anything more, I’m a “one-setting” guy, and the less I’m stepdancing during a gig, the better I play :) Btw: the OD-3 is a great pedal, feels a bit underrated.
Bought the PodGo as soon as it came out for my all in one gig solution as each patch, although the capacity is much smaller than the Helix or Stomp or GT-1000, can easily be switched between songs. However, even though that's my go to solution for gigs, I still haven't stopped collecting and buying pedals like I said I would. And I'm glad I didn't. My new setup is now using the PodGo alongside of my Wampler Tumnus. I just put the Tumnus in as my go to drive pedal in the FX loop and it opens up one more slot for mods or special fx pedals in the PodGo interface. Easy to toss into a backpack with minimal patch cables for either local gigs or fly gigs.
It took me years to realize how much I was missing as a guitar player by not taking advantage of the volume control on my guitar. It has made a huge difference in what I do now. I don't switch on and off effects pedals nearly as often as I used to. Somthing so simple yet so foreign to me for many years.
Starting out the GT-1 is great, plenty of effects and the pedal can be switched between volume and wah! Add like you got a Boss FS and you can select up to three fx to be on/off. Run this through the fx-loop of your amp and just plug your stompbox pedalboard into the amp.
So, playing bass I have 2 boards I run. 1 runs direct chain as follows( tuner/comp sust/envelope filter/octave/overdrive/fuzz/noise gate/eq). Then my effects loop runs as follows(chorus/phaser/vibrato/delay1/delay2/synth/looper). So overall running 15 pedals and grabbing a couple more. I use every single one and wondered if it was overkill. This made me feel better 👍
You can get one of those adapters that plugs into your 18v pedal that coverts the volts from 9 to 18 volts for like $15. I have one and works great with the MXR analog chorus which runs at 18.
For the small pedal board, I'd insist on some kind of modulation pedal in place of one of the overdrives. You can make a good chorus, phaser or flanger sound like three or four different pedals if you know how to tweak them., And you can set a good amp to be pretty dang clean with the guitar's volume rolled back a little and a gentle picking style, and downright crunchy with the guitar volume on ten and a more aggressive attack. So you can still stack gain more or less the same way as using two different distortions/overdrives, even if your amp has only one channel. Different playing dynamics and using the guitar's pots/pickup selector can give you several different clean, OD and even distorted tones with the same pedal and amp settings. But modulation is very difficult to "fake."
Need? Or want? I spent many years playing with nothing but a tuner and a Boss chorus that I almost never used. And a footswitch for the amp itself. I never really felt like I didn't have enough gear to get through any gig. My 2-channel amp had plenty of gain, as well as reverb and chorus built-in. The verb stayed on all the time, but I didn't use the amp chorus very often. People might be surprised how simple of a rig you can actually get away with and still do a fine job with all sorts of tunes and styles.
Brilliant viid thanks,really insightful! As a bedroom/hobbyist guitarist for now, I'm currently in the process of building and putting together a medium sized pedalboard purely for fun and creativity purposes.Nothing high-end or boutique going on there,just well chosen essentials for their sounds and flexibility chosen using vids like this to confirm my choices (and some fun stuff too obvs..) But that said,I could never be too far away from an acoustic guitar with which to use fingers,picks,bottleneck slides etc,to create a few rather enjoyable effects of my own!
For me a big pedal board is best. I have an EOB Susteiner Strat, so I love using all sorts of wild modulation pedals to warp the sustained sounds I get with the sustainer pickup. Sometimes I end up playing the pedals while just holding simple shapes on my guitar.
Sounds like you're getting some epic soundscapes going on there, large pedalboards certainly score high in the fun department too! Thanks for commenting.
I have a 12 pedal board that's been knocked down from 16. A lot of the time I don't even hook it up. Just play straight into the amp. What helps with my setup is a AKG wireless bug system that's all battery powered going in and a 5.8 rechargeable wireless unit going to the amp. Only have 1 wire to board ; the electric cord. Makes a very movable board including on a tray to work pedal controls.
1 pro for the 3 - 5 pedal board, that it can be powered with a daisy chain and is small and prortable without having to disconnect everything when you want to move it. I feel 8 pedals is the optimum number for a single board. Start with the basics - 1 dirt, 1 modulation, delay or reverb. Once you establish your base tone, decide from there what else you want... extra dirt pedals, a compressor would be good if you play a lot of funk or country music, different modulations, maybe you want both reverb and delay. I usually leave things like wah, rotovibe and my volume pedals off the board; but I may look at seeing if I can make space to at least put the volume pedal on there as its useful all the time while I don't always want wah and rotovibe.
I've been researching starting my pedals journey... and have decided to start with a Headrush MX5, it's small and flexible, and will cost roughly as much as the tuner I would have chosen, a Ditto+ looper, and maybe 1 pedal or 2 of the cheaper options on my pedal wishlist ... then there's power and cables... I think the MX5 is small enough that later on a few specific pedals could be added to create a hybrid pedalboard...
Thanks for the great video. I like the last bit. no effects at all. Now I just got a small one-row pedalboard which limits me to the bare essentials. I prefer to play than mucking around with gadgets.
Small (4): Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner, Boss DS-1 Distortion, Boss OD-3 Overdrive, Boss DD-7 Digital Delay Medium (8): Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner, tc electronics sub n up octaver, ProCo Rat distortion, Ibanez TS808 mid-hump overdrive, catalinbread Dirty Little Secret Marshall sim, Boss BF-2 Flanger, Boss CH-1 Super Chorus, Boss DD-7 Digital Delay
Very good video, so as your others. For me as a „beginner“ very helpful. I went a step back or two with my board. For the reason to concentrate more on practice I switched to a small board. Thanks!
Excellent review and excellent RUclips channel. The review is clear, concise and straight to the point. I'm rebuilding my pedalboard and this vid fits perfectly. Greetings from Bogotá, Colombia.
I've got mine down to 10 including the tuner. Tons of versatility. I use the mod on the analog delay and a keeley seafoam or mooer elec lady flanger for modulation. The buffer is part of the friedman pedalboard buffer bay.
Very good video! Thanks a lot. As a bassist i am very happy with a small pedaltrain with 3 pedals and 1spot daisy chain power. Tuner compressor and preamp-Di. Sometimes though, even the nano stays back home and i just toss a little zoom multipedal in the gigbag and i am good to go :)
a daisy chain supply is good to have while you're figuring things out. beyond that, noise is the anti-good sound ... with that few pedals; individual wall warts, and a power strip, is the next step.
The three questions when considering pedalboard size are 1) type of music you play, 2) are you using the amp as a pedal platform or are you utilizing the amps distortion, and 3) are you using the effects loop? If you use the amps distortion (which is why you buy a good amp), you can get away with a small pedal board. If you play metal, like me, you will need to tame that amp at any volume. This will require at least a medium board because you will need to use utility pedals. You will need a gate in the loop as well as before the preamp. You will also put the time based delays in the effects loop. On my medium size board, out of 10 pedals, only about three are effects pedals. Simple to use. The rest are utility pedals that shapes tone and tames sound and noise. If I wasn’t using the amps distortion. I would need a large pedalboard because you would need about three pedals as different gain stages as well as the mighty mighty boss ls-2 to change “channels” between pedal distortions. Only these blues and country players have the option of small boards.
My board is pretty medium to large. I have 9 effect pedals, 1 footswitch for toggling modes in Turbo distortion and an ABC switch so I can change guitars without unplugging. I don´t do gigs, but I make recordings and play jams in the Ninjam network. : )
@@MichaelBanfieldGuitar Ninjam compensates the delay and makes playing real-time possible. If you use Reaper, it comes with a Ninjam client. There is also Jamtaba2, which I strongly recommend. : )
Nice one Mike great informative video, I was surprised when you popped up on my vids to watch on RUclips, I thought I definitely know that face, I’m Steve who used work at the Greenhouse few years ago when you used to rehearse there, great to see you again and glad to see you seem to be doing well. All the best Stevo
Hey Steve! It's nice to hear from you! Thanks for saying hi. Yeah, not much happening gig wise at the moment so I've taken to playing around on RUclips. Let me know if you have any video suggestions. Hope you're well!
Having seen your demo of how to get chorus like effects from the Boss flanger I'd be tempted to have that as the default modulation pedal on my minimalist board. It certainly seems abl eto kill a few birds with one stone.
I have a big board. Around 27x15. Sometimes, i change from 20x6, or 12x20. My first pedal was a multi-effects, Zoom G2.1u, then i upgraded to a Zoom G5 and now I have my main pedalboard, which are all single effects, no multi. what a journey. Great video, btw!
How do you phase or delay? Ya that's what I thought. I love my board. I started with a Digitech RP 10. Very limiting, you can't tweak your already set sound on stage. Now my board is 12 pedals, 1 pwr unit. 3 drives, 2 delays and 3 modulations. A wah, boost/ buffer, and last on board a silent modded 10 band EQ. Hey people take a look at Caline P-1 pwr unit. Way cheaper than those brand name and big power out of 8 outs. I've ran as many as 17 pedals off this unit. Got it on Ebay for $ 32 two yrs ago. And I still use the RP-10 also. Just not as much. Remember on pedals look up the mV's of each pedal before plugging in.
@@sparkyguitar0058 personally i don't use those effects. I only use the spring reverb of my amp(not so often). I have a TSL 602, so in the concerts im plug and play guy and the sound engineers congratulate me every night 🤘
@@TwistedMind86Chern I understand. I have both a Boogie and a Twin. Right now my only gig is a worship band. Not much use for drives or the wah. And I only just to use a practice amp in church. An amp I kinda rebuilt and covered with R&R, car racing and surfing stickers. So I keep that covered on stage with a black pillow case. Fits prefect but no effects at all. Need my board for many ambient sounds in this music.
Good vid. I've collected a lot of Boss pedals over the years and I like the sound better, but for the last few years I've just used a Zoom G5N. Compat, light weight, no patch cable or power supply hassles, has all the features I want, and a built in audio interface is nice for connecting to my computer at home. The biggest drawback to me is that it sounds shitty when I turn down the volume on my guitar. It seems to get "squishy". So I end up programming the same patch several times at different output volume levels becasue I can't just turn down my guitar. I wonder if this is a common problem with digital multieffects?
@donald-parker - I have a hybrid pedal board or regular pedals plus a pedal sized Zoom MultiStomp multi-effect pedal. This gives me my preferred authentic drive sounds (Boss F(uz)Z-1w, Blues Driver, Rat and Bad Monkey followed by the Zoom MS-50g for compression, EQ, modulation and (sometimes) amp sims. The Zoom is a phenomenal little swiss army knife covering most effects you'd ever want to explore, with a huge community of patch builders behind it building patches to emulate all manner of effects that would cost many times that of the humble multistomps. You'll have a sense of this perhaps from the G5N already?
I'm always using only one tube overdrive pedal with a small tube amp, taking the sound with a microphone. If no amp can be used, I replace it with tube amp modeler pedal. When live, dry sound only. Environmental effects I apply only at recordings as postprocessing. So basically I don't even need a board for my pedals.
Question is if its to go or sit in the studio, for the studio i prefer to have all my favourite pedals connected and ready to kick in without hassle. So i have tuner, wah, compressor, several fuzz, low gain distortion, delay, reverb, other modulation.
Some other options are to get a multifx pedal that is the size of a normal pedal like the Behringer multifx. It is small, cheap, and has 6 effects that sound pretty decent in the demos I've seen. You can still have the little pedal board with a lot more flexibility. The downside? Well, they're digital effects. How many people can actually hear the difference between a digital chorus and an analog one? And once the drums are going, I think that even ceases to be a factor. Another option? There are several amps like the Boss Katana that have tons of effects and can sound like just about any amp available.
Ah yes. I always have to refer back to a piece of paper that has my favourite settings on for that one, it has a lot of controls. Very versatile. Thanks for commenting!
Good Video! Thanks a lot! The variativity of pedal combinations is what I'm really craving for and what the very few guitar videos is about (sorry for my Eng. - I'm Russian so not a native speaker). But the point I really want to hear about is How to combine small universal pedalboard which I can plug into input oif the AMP, into the send-return (after the pre-amp) and directly in (mix fx) Line. To use it as a Audio interface would be perfect! I mean The combination with the really little differences between variations! Something like Sans Amp GT-2 in the OUT of distortion or other solutions... Glad to hear view on this idea! Thanks a lot any way!
I am playing my electric guitar after years and pretty much starting from zero gearwise. Is the Boss GT 1 a good option for home practice and small venues?
Yeah I think the Boss GT 1 will do the job nicely. I'd also consider the ME-80 if usability is important as you don't have to deal with menus or anything on that one. The next step up after that is probably the GX-100. Hope you find something that works for you, have fun getting back into electric guitar!
I'm going to get more Boss pedals! Edit: Boss pedals have a buffer, right? So with a Boss pedal as first and last pedal should need no buffer pedal, or so I've heard. My pedalboard will grow beyond ten pedals. I think around 12 pedals will be all I "need".
I'm a fan of Fender blackface cleans so I like the Princeton, Deluxe and Twin Reverbs. The Princeton would be best out of those if you're just playing at home, they can be pricey if buying new though. Other amps I'd consider would be a Vox AC10, Marshall DSL20CR if you want to get nice driven tones from the amp, maybe the Fender Hot Rod Deluxe or Blues Junior. I'm afraid I don't have much experience with solid state transistor amps so I can't really advise there. Hope you find something you like!
It depends on how much power they need, check how many milliamps they each need and then make sure the power supply is rated to supply enough power for all the pedals. If it's just a handful of analog drive pedals I think you'll be fine with something more affordable. If there are some power hungry digital delay, reverb pedals and stuff like that then you'll need to make sure that you have something powerful enough. When I'm at home and in a hurry I sometimes just use a cheap Stagg 9v power supply with an added daisy chain cable and it seems to work fine. The official Boss 9v PSU is an obvious one to consider. I see a lot of people using 1-spot power supplies like this too. Hope that helps.
A BCB-60 got me by for many years and still would if they still fucking made them. I have a BCB30 for my bass rig (tu-2 bass muff geb-7) hooked into a GT1b (modulation). My old board got melted a bit so now it won't close (my old DS1 battery compartment doesn't even open up anymore cause of that) and to my dissapointment they stopped selling them and only the 90 and 30. My main gtr rig is a 6 pedals and a wah. Lately i've been swapping out a DS and OD (my old HM2 heavy metal will never leave along my mods) and now I bought a compressor. I have one spot to swap a pedal. So either I keep the old bastard and use my 30 or get a BCB-90 and use the old one for my bass rig. I'll upgrade if i snap. Running three power supplies for a rig will piss me off. I was okay with two.
I put it in buffer mode to help send a strong signal to the amp at all times. Otherwise, when all the pedals are off, there would be added capacitance (loss of treble) when going through that many true bypass pedals. Hope that helps.
So you have buffer pedal at the beginning of the chain (as usually people do) and you also put your TC Reverb in a buffer mode (switched from bypass to buffer) and have buffer at the beginning and at the end of the chain. Correct?
@@MK-tj5bf Correct. If I have the TC delay in true bypass mode I find that it adds a bit of treble to the sound when I turn it on, the same thing can happen with some of the other pedals that are later in the chain too. With the buffer on, the capacitance is more consistent and the issue goes away. I don't think it would be necessary on a smaller board but on a larger board like that one with lots of true bypass pedals and at gigs I run a reasonably long cable going to the amp, it makes a difference. In my opinion you only need a buffer at the end if you can hear your true bypass pedals that are later in the chain adding treble and making your signal sound brighter than you want. If you can't hear it there's not an issue.
@@MichaelBanfieldGuitar thanks a lot! I have 13 pedals in my pedalboard The first on is Volume Morley Little Alligator pedal which is buffered one. Also later I have Wah Morley pedal which is also buffered and then I have 9 more True Bypass pedals in a row including TC Reverb which can be switched to buffer mode. So I’m thinking if it’s enough those two Morley buffered pedals at the beginning or it’s better to turn on buffer on TC reverb as well.
@Max K If it were me, I would test like this; with the TC reverb set to true bypass, play with all the pedals off and listening very closely to the high end, then turn on the TC reverb and see if you can hear a significant difference in the high end. If it gets bright in any way when you turn on the TC reverb it's likely because the long cable run is adding capacitance (losing treble) from those nine pedals and the final cable run, then when you activate the TC reverb it reduces capacitance, so you hear a bit more top end. You could try this test on a few of the other pedals later in the chain too. If you don't hear any difference in the overall tone though, then that buffer on the Morley wah is keeping the signal strong all the way to the amp and there's not much need to set the TC to buffered bypass. Let us know how you get on.
Very interesting and helpful! But I’ve got one question… In medium board you put rat before TS. Why did you do this? Are there any physics things or something else?
"How many pedals you need" is dependent on so many factors that it's sort of a pointless question to ask. It's genre-dependent, situationally-dependent, and player-dependent. Some people don't need anything more than a tuner; an instrument, a good amp, and a lead will go very far, even if you are not a virtuoso player, especially if your amp offers more than one level of gain and has built-in reverb. For a small pedalboard, a tuner, an overdrive or boost, and a reverb pedal make an excellent and versatile combination. In fact, for jam sessions on guitar, where I might be bringing my guitar, and a small mono combo amp, I think that showing up with a gigantic pedalboard is kind of crass, so I have a small pedalboard built on a meat defrosting tray that's about 7" x 11", and I have boost, overdrive, and reverb, and that's it for effects. I do also use this small board for practice and songwriting, so it also has a looper and riff recorder on it, but I now keep my tuner separate from my pedalboards, so I can use the tuner on its own. For a medium sized pedalboard, I'm right now building my main guitar pedalboard to be a fly rig that fits into an underseat flight tote and still leaves room enough for a change of clothes, a quart baggie of toiletries, my personal electronics (iPad/iPhone/chargers), and an in-flight snack. That fly rig is designed to be used direct to PA or recording desk, based around the DSM & Humboldt Simplifier line of products. After that, I'm transitioning my main bass pedalboard to the same model. For a large pedalboard, the sky is the limit. My personal style of playing is shoegaze/dreampop, and that genre tends to be effects-heavy. But, while I do prefer individual effects, I've made the decision to limit myself to that fly rig board (390 mm x 290 mm, about 15.5" x 11.5"), one flat layer, so it fits a maximum of about 8 standard pedals, or possibly up to 12 if I used all mini pedals. I'm using a mix of pedal sizes, but for maximum flexibility, although I'm sticking with the Simplifier and analog drive pedals, I'm choosing to migrate my modulation/delay/reverb needs to a Boss GT-1000Core, which can also provide me with the digital multiband compression and acoustic enhancement effects I prefer to use with piezo pickups on both guitar and bass, as well. And TBPH, I *could* just use a GT-1000Core, and dump everything else, because the GT-1000 platform is that good, and the Core with just one or two external switches would be capable of meeting virtually all my needs on either guitar or bass. But, since the Core is so small, being about the size of only three standard pedals, I still have plenty of space on my board for a few other units with which I don't wish to part. The digital overdrives in the Core based on Boss' "X" series of pedals are actually really good, and if I had to compromise, I could without much in the way of regret, but the Core is small enough that I can still bring my favorite analog drives with very little size/weight/cost/complexity penalty.
The real answer is N+1
N being the number of pedals you currently own (This formula also works for guitars)
Perfect! If Einstein had played electric guitar I'm sure he'd have come to the exact same conclusion.
Bear in mind the old adage about fishing lures: they're not really designed to catch fish. They're designed to "catch" fishermen. ;)
Unfortunately, I'm all too familiar with this formula. I could fund a second degree with my N+1 behaviour 😂
@@MichaelBanfieldGuitar Now I am picturing Einstein plugging his violin into an amp...and then adding some pedals.
Your "no-pedals" demo at (13:30) was a GREAT example of the guitar sounds versatility that can be made from using different combinations of the guitar's volume and tone controls, the guitar's pickup selector switch, and the amp's volume. You made your guitar sound like it was going through several different pedals!
medium is best choice in all things , goldilocks and the three bears teaches this lesson .
Good choice!
Yes 8 to 10 pedals is the way to go.
man, if complete signal integrity could be assured, i'd perform on a stage made entirely of pedals.
it'd look like a hoarder's living room but just guitar pedals, all one line. 🤣
What worked for me was a medium sized board + a small multifx unit (like a Zoom G3X or a HX Stomp). Those models work like individual pedals, and you can take advantage of the enormous amount of modulations, for instance.
It's super versatile and you can experiment with sounds before deciding to commit to "the real thing", if you ever decide to do that.
Michael, your videos are crystal clear, no nonsense, and very valuable. Thanks for the effort. Cheers
This is really helping. Having 6 pedals, and intention to buy another 6 pedals, and finally stop thinking and it's better to practise together to improve my guitar playing rather than wondering what pedal should be here should be there blablabla. You're the real MVP.
The nice thing I find happens when I've been practising consistently for a while is that I not only have a clearer idea of what gear I'll need but any purchases feel much more justified. Practise first, tone chasing second.
@@MichaelBanfieldGuitar so true that statement! Plus it’s just nice to go straight to amp no effects. Just you and the 🎸
2 for me, boost and wah. I get my gain from the amp, reverb with amp. That's it.
Sounds like a great minimalist setup that! Wah's and boost's don't draw much power either so you could just use trusty batteries for mess free cabling and clean isolated power.
I had a GT1 and sold it as made everything sound crap even from clean. Back to basics with pedals now and far better but yes more expensive but far easier with no menus to remember where I found something. On/Off buttons are great!
Found the same things in my adventures. Small for practice, medium for good gigs, large for studio,and a less expensive multi-fx for less secure gigs. Excellent video, so people who haven't gone through it have an understanding of where they want to go. I would always have a multi-fx for backup.
I like to turn down the neck pickup to clean and the bridge pickup to full volume on a guitar with separate volume controls. This way the pickup selector switch works like the on-off switch of an overdrive pedal.
Totally agree. That's a great way to use the guitar controls for Gibson style pickup configurations
This
Title: How many pedals do you need?
Me: more
Me: All of them!
Yes
Guitar shop: How many pedals do you want?
Answer: How many have you got 😂.
I see about 13 pedals there in the 'Big' rig. You have convinced me that I may not have "too many pedals" to deal with after all. Hope springs eternal again! Thank You sir.
I was on a pedal buying journey. Then I hand build my own treble booster pedal an now it’s almost the only pedal I use. Always on into a slightly overdriven amp. I get almost fuzz with the guitar fully turned up and sparkling clean turned down.
Great video again, Michael!!
I run 2 other options of small size boards.
First option: Zoom MS 50 G (amp/cab/rvb) and Zoom MS 70 CDR (mod/dly/rvb) affordable, light, easy, going to DI box (no amp) but I can only on/off 1 setting per pedal (works fine for my trio). Fits in gtr case!
Second option: 2 small boards, one at the front of the amp (sd1, ds1, fz5, tr2, mo2) and one in fx loop of amp (re2, te2, rv5, tu2, (ir2)) still light and affordable, easy to use/troubleshoot, runs with 2 daisy chains. Still able to ride on scooter to studio practice! Perfect for my bigger band.
Just sharing.
Very good summary, and well balanced opinion (including making the most of the guitar/amp controls). I have a medium set up, but find myself using fewer pedals; so it might shrink down a bit. The point about complexity and distraction of too many options can be a real rabbit hole, best avoided whether it be due to too many pedals, multi effects or amps with multi effects.
Beautiful looking guitar & great demo .
I am keeping mine to 8 pedals max. I have a medium board. Rocking 7 right now. Gear is addicting...I often have to remind myself I'm not a collector but that urge to get one of everything is there. But honestly I could lower mine to just octaver, distortion, delay and looper if I really needed to. I play one man band type stuff. If I gigged a lot I'd definitely not take anything but what I needed for the setlist.
I have a small board which works quiet well for me! The signal goes so :
Tuner
Overdrive
Fuzz
UniVibe
Reverb
Looper
I bring it everywhere I go (holidays, parties when my friends ask me to (or agree that…) bring my guitar, small concerts, etc…). I also use it for recording and it’s really functional! :)
That sounds like a sweet setup. I'd like something similar to that as a practise board.
@@MichaelBanfieldGuitar It is sweet ! And I actually found out that it forces me to be really creative, because I don’t have a lot of effects and because of that, I have to be imaginative to find the tones that I want, and I’m not overwhelmed with too much stuff, since I chose really simple pedals (I’m the kind of guitar player who might have two reverbs always on and some really weird pedals if I had the money for it). Less is more ! :)
I’m looking at something similar. Is a distortion useful if I’m aiming to also get a fuzz and OD?
@@MOONfacekilla it’s somewhat in between the other two (but actually closer to the OD than to the fuzz), the overdrive I personally have is a Boss OS-2, and it can do both the overdrive and the distortion, but I mainly use it to give a texture to my clean tone when needed.
I don’t really use a distortion personally, but if you have a good overdrive, by pushing it hard, you can get pretty close to a distortion.
What I would recommend is to take a pedal that does both the OD and the distortion (such as the OS-2). But it really depends on your needs and the tones that you are looking for :)
PS: if your board is rather small (mine is a Pedaltrain Nano+) it will give you more space for other pedals if needed ;)
@@simondavid2519 great thanks for the advice! I'll look into what you mentioned about an OD that can get pretty close to distortion when I need it. Then it's no problem to hit the fuzz when I go heavier. Thanks
My chain is tuner-noise suppressor(send to)-OD-preamp(return to)-noise suppressor-EQ-delay-impulse response loader. I’m adding a chorus soon and that’s it. :)
Played in a band since late 80’s. Got four pedals on my both my boards (one is at home, one is used in my band). Both got a tuner, phaser and overdrive. Then a delay at home, and a flanger on my bands pedalboard. Don’t need anything more, I’m a “one-setting” guy, and the less I’m stepdancing during a gig, the better I play :) Btw: the OD-3 is a great pedal, feels a bit underrated.
Bought the PodGo as soon as it came out for my all in one gig solution as each patch, although the capacity is much smaller than the Helix or Stomp or GT-1000, can easily be switched between songs. However, even though that's my go to solution for gigs, I still haven't stopped collecting and buying pedals like I said I would. And I'm glad I didn't. My new setup is now using the PodGo alongside of my Wampler Tumnus. I just put the Tumnus in as my go to drive pedal in the FX loop and it opens up one more slot for mods or special fx pedals in the PodGo interface. Easy to toss into a backpack with minimal patch cables for either local gigs or fly gigs.
It took me years to realize how much I was missing as a guitar player by not taking advantage of the volume control on my guitar. It has made a huge difference in what I do now. I don't switch on and off effects pedals nearly as often as I used to. Somthing so simple yet so foreign to me for many years.
Starting out the GT-1 is great, plenty of effects and the pedal can be switched between volume and wah! Add like you got a Boss FS and you can select up to three fx to be on/off. Run this through the fx-loop of your amp and just plug your stompbox pedalboard into the amp.
Need? With digital amps today, 3. Tuner, looper & the amp's own proprietary control pedal. Most of us have more, but that's all I use 95% of the time.
So, playing bass I have 2 boards I run. 1 runs direct chain as follows( tuner/comp sust/envelope filter/octave/overdrive/fuzz/noise gate/eq). Then my effects loop runs as follows(chorus/phaser/vibrato/delay1/delay2/synth/looper). So overall running 15 pedals and grabbing a couple more. I use every single one and wondered if it was overkill. This made me feel better 👍
You can get one of those adapters that plugs into your 18v pedal that coverts the volts from 9 to 18 volts for like $15. I have one and works great with the MXR analog chorus which runs at 18.
For the small pedal board, I'd insist on some kind of modulation pedal in place of one of the overdrives. You can make a good chorus, phaser or flanger sound like three or four different pedals if you know how to tweak them., And you can set a good amp to be pretty dang clean with the guitar's volume rolled back a little and a gentle picking style, and downright crunchy with the guitar volume on ten and a more aggressive attack.
So you can still stack gain more or less the same way as using two different distortions/overdrives, even if your amp has only one channel.
Different playing dynamics and using the guitar's pots/pickup selector can give you several different clean, OD and even distorted tones with the same pedal and amp settings. But modulation is very difficult to "fake."
Need? Or want?
I spent many years playing with nothing but a tuner and a Boss chorus that I almost never used. And a footswitch for the amp itself. I never really felt like I didn't have enough gear to get through any gig.
My 2-channel amp had plenty of gain, as well as reverb and chorus built-in. The verb stayed on all the time, but I didn't use the amp chorus very often.
People might be surprised how simple of a rig you can actually get away with and still do a fine job with all sorts of tunes and styles.
Brilliant viid thanks,really insightful! As a bedroom/hobbyist guitarist for now, I'm currently in the process of building and putting together a medium sized pedalboard purely for fun and creativity purposes.Nothing high-end or boutique going on there,just well chosen essentials for their sounds and flexibility chosen using vids like this to confirm my choices (and some fun stuff too obvs..) But that said,I could never be too far away from an acoustic guitar
with which to use fingers,picks,bottleneck slides etc,to create a few rather enjoyable effects of my own!
I’m so happy I discovered this channel! Awesome content!
For me a big pedal board is best. I have an EOB Susteiner Strat, so I love using all sorts of wild modulation pedals to warp the sustained sounds I get with the sustainer pickup. Sometimes I end up playing the pedals while just holding simple shapes on my guitar.
Sounds like you're getting some epic soundscapes going on there, large pedalboards certainly score high in the fun department too! Thanks for commenting.
I have a 12 pedal board that's been knocked down from 16. A lot of the time I don't even hook it up. Just play straight into the amp. What helps with my setup is a AKG wireless bug system that's all battery powered going in and a 5.8 rechargeable wireless unit going to the amp. Only have 1 wire to board ; the electric cord. Makes a very movable board including on a tray to work pedal controls.
1 pro for the 3 - 5 pedal board, that it can be powered with a daisy chain and is small and prortable without having to disconnect everything when you want to move it.
I feel 8 pedals is the optimum number for a single board. Start with the basics - 1 dirt, 1 modulation, delay or reverb. Once you establish your base tone, decide from there what else you want... extra dirt pedals, a compressor would be good if you play a lot of funk or country music, different modulations, maybe you want both reverb and delay. I usually leave things like wah, rotovibe and my volume pedals off the board; but I may look at seeing if I can make space to at least put the volume pedal on there as its useful all the time while I don't always want wah and rotovibe.
I've been researching starting my pedals journey... and have decided to start with a Headrush MX5, it's small and flexible, and will cost roughly as much as the tuner I would have chosen, a Ditto+ looper, and maybe 1 pedal or 2 of the cheaper options on my pedal wishlist ... then there's power and cables...
I think the MX5 is small enough that later on a few specific pedals could be added to create a hybrid pedalboard...
Thanks for the great video. I like the last bit. no effects at all. Now I just got a small one-row pedalboard which limits me to the bare essentials. I prefer to play than mucking around with gadgets.
Small (4): Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner, Boss DS-1 Distortion, Boss OD-3 Overdrive, Boss DD-7 Digital Delay
Medium (8): Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner, tc electronics sub n up octaver, ProCo Rat distortion, Ibanez TS808 mid-hump overdrive, catalinbread Dirty Little Secret Marshall sim, Boss BF-2 Flanger, Boss CH-1 Super Chorus, Boss DD-7 Digital Delay
Very nice presentation mate…. Great job.
Very good video, so as your others. For me as a „beginner“ very helpful. I went a step back or two with my board. For the reason to concentrate more on practice I switched to a small board. Thanks!
Excellent review and excellent RUclips channel. The review is clear, concise and straight to the point. I'm rebuilding my pedalboard and this vid fits perfectly.
Greetings from Bogotá, Colombia.
Great to hear you found it useful, thanks for commenting!
I've got mine down to 10 including the tuner. Tons of versatility. I use the mod on the analog delay and a keeley seafoam or mooer elec lady flanger for modulation. The buffer is part of the friedman pedalboard buffer bay.
ur small pedals sound is terrific .. thx 4 the informations 🙏👍
Very good video! Thanks a lot. As a bassist i am very happy with a small pedaltrain with 3 pedals and 1spot daisy chain power. Tuner compressor and preamp-Di. Sometimes though, even the nano stays back home and i just toss a little zoom multipedal in the gigbag and i am good to go :)
a daisy chain supply is good to have while you're figuring things out.
beyond that,
noise is the anti-good sound ... with that few pedals; individual wall warts, and a power strip, is the next step.
The three questions when considering pedalboard size are 1) type of music you play, 2) are you using the amp as a pedal platform or are you utilizing the amps distortion, and 3) are you using the effects loop? If you use the amps distortion (which is why you buy a good amp), you can get away with a small pedal board. If you play metal, like me, you will need to tame that amp at any volume. This will require at least a medium board because you will need to use utility pedals. You will need a gate in the loop as well as before the preamp. You will also put the time based delays in the effects loop. On my medium size board, out of 10 pedals, only about three are effects pedals. Simple to use. The rest are utility pedals that shapes tone and tames sound and noise. If I wasn’t using the amps distortion. I would need a large pedalboard because you would need about three pedals as different gain stages as well as the mighty mighty boss ls-2 to change “channels” between pedal distortions. Only these blues and country players have the option of small boards.
Great video. All the info you need, and none that you don’t to help you make the right choice for you
I went from 12+8 pedals, on a pair of boards to 3 pedals… including the tuner…
Honestly so much happier.
Trebleboost, Timmyt 2 flavours of fuzz, Tape echo and wah..That's all I need..Reverb and Trem from amp.
Sounds like a great setup. I must get a Timmy to try!
My board is pretty medium to large. I have 9 effect pedals, 1 footswitch for toggling modes in Turbo distortion and an ABC switch so I can change guitars without unplugging. I don´t do gigs, but I make recordings and play jams in the Ninjam network. : )
Sounds like a sweet setup. I'm not familiar with the Ninjam network, how close is it to being like a jam in person?
@@MichaelBanfieldGuitar Ninjam compensates the delay and makes playing real-time possible. If you use Reaper, it comes with a Ninjam client. There is also Jamtaba2, which I strongly recommend. : )
@@marcellofreitas7356 Thanks! The more I learn about Ninjam the more I want to try it. I use Logic Pro so I'll try it with that first.
Love the video Michael! You can NEVER have enough pedals :D
You got that right!
Great clip Michael, I too own the Nautila and wanted to ask your thoughts on that pedal, thx !!
Nice one Mike great informative video, I was surprised when you popped up on my vids to watch on RUclips, I thought I definitely know that face, I’m Steve who used work at the Greenhouse few years ago when you used to rehearse there, great to see you again and glad to see you seem to be doing well. All the best Stevo
Hey Steve! It's nice to hear from you! Thanks for saying hi. Yeah, not much happening gig wise at the moment so I've taken to playing around on RUclips. Let me know if you have any video suggestions. Hope you're well!
Excellent video to the point. Thank you Michael.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Having seen your demo of how to get chorus like effects from the Boss flanger I'd be tempted to have that as the default modulation pedal on my minimalist board. It certainly seems abl eto kill a few birds with one stone.
I have a big board. Around 27x15. Sometimes, i change from 20x6, or 12x20. My first pedal was a multi-effects, Zoom G2.1u, then i upgraded to a Zoom G5 and now I have my main pedalboard, which are all single effects, no multi. what a journey. Great video, btw!
Thanks very much for this - great video!
wow that is a beautiful guitar, very nice demo as well thank you.
I think the last choice is the best. Play with your guitar's knobs and pickups and your hand's dynamics.
Well said. It certainly encourages you to refine the fundamentals of getting a good guitar tone. Thanks for commenting!
How do you phase or delay? Ya that's what I thought. I love my board. I started with a Digitech RP 10. Very limiting, you can't tweak your already set sound on stage. Now my board is 12 pedals, 1 pwr unit. 3 drives, 2 delays and 3 modulations. A wah, boost/ buffer, and last on board a silent modded 10 band EQ. Hey people take a look at Caline P-1 pwr unit. Way cheaper than those brand name and big power out of 8 outs. I've ran as many as 17 pedals off this unit. Got it on Ebay for $ 32 two yrs ago. And I still use the RP-10 also. Just not as much. Remember on pedals look up the mV's of each pedal before plugging in.
@@sparkyguitar0058 personally i don't use those effects. I only use the spring reverb of my amp(not so often). I have a TSL 602, so in the concerts im plug and play guy and the sound engineers congratulate me every night 🤘
@@TwistedMind86Chern I understand. I have both a Boogie and a Twin. Right now my only gig is a worship band. Not much use for drives or the wah. And I only just to use a practice amp in church. An amp I kinda rebuilt and covered with R&R, car racing and surfing stickers. So I keep that covered on stage with a black pillow case. Fits prefect but no effects at all. Need my board for many ambient sounds in this music.
Great channel, great video !!
Keep sharing, sir..
Thank you!
I use a small to medium pedal board. The large pedal board and the multi-fx is way above my head.
Good vid. I've collected a lot of Boss pedals over the years and I like the sound better, but for the last few years I've just used a Zoom G5N. Compat, light weight, no patch cable or power supply hassles, has all the features I want, and a built in audio interface is nice for connecting to my computer at home. The biggest drawback to me is that it sounds shitty when I turn down the volume on my guitar. It seems to get "squishy". So I end up programming the same patch several times at different output volume levels becasue I can't just turn down my guitar. I wonder if this is a common problem with digital multieffects?
Interesting....!
@donald-parker - I have a hybrid pedal board or regular pedals plus a pedal sized Zoom MultiStomp multi-effect pedal. This gives me my preferred authentic drive sounds (Boss F(uz)Z-1w, Blues Driver, Rat and Bad Monkey followed by the Zoom MS-50g for compression, EQ, modulation and (sometimes) amp sims. The Zoom is a phenomenal little swiss army knife covering most effects you'd ever want to explore, with a huge community of patch builders behind it building patches to emulate all manner of effects that would cost many times that of the humble multistomps. You'll have a sense of this perhaps from the G5N already?
Wonderful lessons! Thanks A LOT!
Thanks! Very useful and interesting video!
Glad it was helpful!
I'm always using only one tube overdrive pedal with a small tube amp, taking the sound with a microphone. If no amp can be used, I replace it with tube amp modeler pedal. When live, dry sound only. Environmental effects I apply only at recordings as postprocessing.
So basically I don't even need a board for my pedals.
Great informative video
Hi - super Video! What beautiful guitar - which is it?
VG from LA(ndshut) 😄 near Munich
Question is if its to go or sit in the studio, for the studio i prefer to have all my favourite pedals connected and ready to kick in without hassle. So i have tuner, wah, compressor, several fuzz, low gain distortion, delay, reverb, other modulation.
Some other options are to get a multifx pedal that is the size of a normal pedal like the Behringer multifx. It is small, cheap, and has 6 effects that sound pretty decent in the demos I've seen. You can still have the little pedal board with a lot more flexibility. The downside? Well, they're digital effects. How many people can actually hear the difference between a digital chorus and an analog one? And once the drums are going, I think that even ceases to be a factor.
Another option? There are several amps like the Boss Katana that have tons of effects and can sound like just about any amp available.
Good shout. I agree those small multi effects pedals are great when trying to get a small pedalboard to be more versatile. Thanks for commenting
@@MichaelBanfieldGuitar Hey, thanks for the video!
I just have 1 pedal, The Boss Os-2 and the Digital Amp the Boss Katana
hey man i love my nautila and you’re the first guy i’ve seen with one on his board, it’s my essential pedal
Ah yes. I always have to refer back to a piece of paper that has my favourite settings on for that one, it has a lot of controls. Very versatile. Thanks for commenting!
All of the pedals.
What Prince used is the perfect pedal board hehe
Hey Michael, I always wondered what brand that Les Paul-style guitar is. Please tell!
Great video btw.
Good looking shoes
Thanks Chris! You can't go wrong with trusty desert boots...
Good Video! Thanks a lot! The variativity of pedal combinations is what I'm really craving for and what the very few guitar videos is about (sorry for my Eng. - I'm Russian so not a native speaker). But the point I really want to hear about is How to combine small universal pedalboard which I can plug into input oif the AMP, into the send-return (after the pre-amp) and directly in (mix fx) Line. To use it as a Audio interface would be perfect! I mean The combination with the really little differences between variations! Something like Sans Amp GT-2 in the OUT of distortion or other solutions... Glad to hear view on this idea! Thanks a lot any way!
beautiful guitar
Hey thanks!
I am playing my electric guitar after years and pretty much starting from zero gearwise. Is the Boss GT 1 a good option for home practice and small venues?
Yeah I think the Boss GT 1 will do the job nicely. I'd also consider the ME-80 if usability is important as you don't have to deal with menus or anything on that one. The next step up after that is probably the GX-100. Hope you find something that works for you, have fun getting back into electric guitar!
I'm going to get more Boss pedals! Edit: Boss pedals have a buffer, right? So with a Boss pedal as first and last pedal should need no buffer pedal, or so I've heard. My pedalboard will grow beyond ten pedals. I think around 12 pedals will be all I "need".
Boss is best!
@@MichaelBanfieldGuitar Hard to argue about that. They've had the same, winning concept since the 70's. And they're not extremely expensive either!
Hi, what amp do you recommend for me to play at home and use with pedals? What transistor amplifiers can work for me? Thank you
I'm a fan of Fender blackface cleans so I like the Princeton, Deluxe and Twin Reverbs. The Princeton would be best out of those if you're just playing at home, they can be pricey if buying new though. Other amps I'd consider would be a Vox AC10, Marshall DSL20CR if you want to get nice driven tones from the amp, maybe the Fender Hot Rod Deluxe or Blues Junior. I'm afraid I don't have much experience with solid state transistor amps so I can't really advise there. Hope you find something you like!
great video! :)
Hi.
Which daisy chain do you recommend for a small pedalboard of boss pedals?
Thanks.
It depends on how much power they need, check how many milliamps they each need and then make sure the power supply is rated to supply enough power for all the pedals. If it's just a handful of analog drive pedals I think you'll be fine with something more affordable. If there are some power hungry digital delay, reverb pedals and stuff like that then you'll need to make sure that you have something powerful enough. When I'm at home and in a hurry I sometimes just use a cheap Stagg 9v power supply with an added daisy chain cable and it seems to work fine. The official Boss 9v PSU is an obvious one to consider. I see a lot of people using 1-spot power supplies like this too. Hope that helps.
Right now, mine is an overdrive, flanger, analog delay and an EQ
It depends on the Gig or rehearsal..jams small..small short gigs medium.or small...2hours or more Big medium..
great video 😃👍 ( i notice you are also a Catalinbread fan too 🙊🙊🙊 )
Your guitar is super sick 🤘
Hey thanks! It's got stripes!
A BCB-60 got me by for many years and still would if they still fucking made them. I have a BCB30 for my bass rig (tu-2 bass muff geb-7) hooked into a GT1b (modulation). My old board got melted a bit so now it won't close (my old DS1 battery compartment doesn't even open up anymore cause of that) and to my dissapointment they stopped selling them and only the 90 and 30. My main gtr rig is a 6 pedals and a wah. Lately i've been swapping out a DS and OD (my old HM2 heavy metal will never leave along my mods) and now I bought a compressor. I have one spot to swap a pedal. So either I keep the old bastard and use my 30 or get a BCB-90 and use the old one for my bass rig. I'll upgrade if i snap. Running three power supplies for a rig will piss me off. I was okay with two.
distortion/OD, Delay, and Chorus for me. Oh and Tuner pedal if im doing live shit. but that's all
Small board. Just add zoom multi stomp (MS-70 or 50) for other efx
How many pedals that daisy chain can powered?
Depends how many milliamps the power supply provides and the current draw of each pedal. Hope that helps
YES
How Many Pedals Do You Need?
As much as You can buy/use/fit on the board :D
Did you put your Flashback delay at the end of the chain to the buffer mode or it’s still true bypass?
Thanks.
I put it in buffer mode to help send a strong signal to the amp at all times. Otherwise, when all the pedals are off, there would be added capacitance (loss of treble) when going through that many true bypass pedals. Hope that helps.
So you have buffer pedal at the beginning of the chain (as usually people do) and you also put your TC Reverb in a buffer mode (switched from bypass to buffer) and have buffer at the beginning and at the end of the chain. Correct?
@@MK-tj5bf Correct. If I have the TC delay in true bypass mode I find that it adds a bit of treble to the sound when I turn it on, the same thing can happen with some of the other pedals that are later in the chain too. With the buffer on, the capacitance is more consistent and the issue goes away. I don't think it would be necessary on a smaller board but on a larger board like that one with lots of true bypass pedals and at gigs I run a reasonably long cable going to the amp, it makes a difference. In my opinion you only need a buffer at the end if you can hear your true bypass pedals that are later in the chain adding treble and making your signal sound brighter than you want. If you can't hear it there's not an issue.
@@MichaelBanfieldGuitar thanks a lot!
I have 13 pedals in my pedalboard
The first on is Volume Morley Little Alligator pedal which is buffered one.
Also later I have Wah Morley pedal which is also buffered and then I have 9 more True Bypass pedals in a row including TC Reverb which can be switched to buffer mode.
So I’m thinking if it’s enough those two Morley buffered pedals at the beginning or it’s better to turn on buffer on TC reverb as well.
@Max K If it were me, I would test like this; with the TC reverb set to true bypass, play with all the pedals off and listening very closely to the high end, then turn on the TC reverb and see if you can hear a significant difference in the high end. If it gets bright in any way when you turn on the TC reverb it's likely because the long cable run is adding capacitance (losing treble) from those nine pedals and the final cable run, then when you activate the TC reverb it reduces capacitance, so you hear a bit more top end. You could try this test on a few of the other pedals later in the chain too. If you don't hear any difference in the overall tone though, then that buffer on the Morley wah is keeping the signal strong all the way to the amp and there's not much need to set the TC to buffered bypass. Let us know how you get on.
Nice ... you are going all the way and even include multi-FX n' load box!
Thanks a lot for sharing!
I have over 30 stompboxes... I like having one of each effect just to play with!
I like your thinking!
Very interesting and helpful! But I’ve got one question… In medium board you put rat before TS. Why did you do this? Are there any physics things or something else?
Tuner, wah, OD, fuzz, modulation, delay and delay thru a Fender amp will get one thru most gigs.
Actually, I liked the sound of only the amp the most 😊
Regardless how big your board, there is no reverb pedal on there. May I know why?
"How many pedals you need" is dependent on so many factors that it's sort of a pointless question to ask. It's genre-dependent, situationally-dependent, and player-dependent. Some people don't need anything more than a tuner; an instrument, a good amp, and a lead will go very far, even if you are not a virtuoso player, especially if your amp offers more than one level of gain and has built-in reverb.
For a small pedalboard, a tuner, an overdrive or boost, and a reverb pedal make an excellent and versatile combination. In fact, for jam sessions on guitar, where I might be bringing my guitar, and a small mono combo amp, I think that showing up with a gigantic pedalboard is kind of crass, so I have a small pedalboard built on a meat defrosting tray that's about 7" x 11", and I have boost, overdrive, and reverb, and that's it for effects. I do also use this small board for practice and songwriting, so it also has a looper and riff recorder on it, but I now keep my tuner separate from my pedalboards, so I can use the tuner on its own.
For a medium sized pedalboard, I'm right now building my main guitar pedalboard to be a fly rig that fits into an underseat flight tote and still leaves room enough for a change of clothes, a quart baggie of toiletries, my personal electronics (iPad/iPhone/chargers), and an in-flight snack. That fly rig is designed to be used direct to PA or recording desk, based around the DSM & Humboldt Simplifier line of products. After that, I'm transitioning my main bass pedalboard to the same model.
For a large pedalboard, the sky is the limit. My personal style of playing is shoegaze/dreampop, and that genre tends to be effects-heavy. But, while I do prefer individual effects, I've made the decision to limit myself to that fly rig board (390 mm x 290 mm, about 15.5" x 11.5"), one flat layer, so it fits a maximum of about 8 standard pedals, or possibly up to 12 if I used all mini pedals. I'm using a mix of pedal sizes, but for maximum flexibility, although I'm sticking with the Simplifier and analog drive pedals, I'm choosing to migrate my modulation/delay/reverb needs to a Boss GT-1000Core, which can also provide me with the digital multiband compression and acoustic enhancement effects I prefer to use with piezo pickups on both guitar and bass, as well.
And TBPH, I *could* just use a GT-1000Core, and dump everything else, because the GT-1000 platform is that good, and the Core with just one or two external switches would be capable of meeting virtually all my needs on either guitar or bass. But, since the Core is so small, being about the size of only three standard pedals, I still have plenty of space on my board for a few other units with which I don't wish to part. The digital overdrives in the Core based on Boss' "X" series of pedals are actually really good, and if I had to compromise, I could without much in the way of regret, but the Core is small enough that I can still bring my favorite analog drives with very little size/weight/cost/complexity penalty.
True.
All of them.
Good choice!