A Valentine Post!

I recently purchased a pedal (with some gift cards from Christmas) that has the capability to run an expression pedal out of it (Line 6 M5).  I've seen some of those single knob expression pedals that are small and I decided to try to make one!  


Now I must confess that I enjoy a great pedal as most guitarist do!  And my wonderful wife has a special place in her heart for all my guitar gear and pedals as well :)  Lately she has been decorating the house with some special Valentine motifs (she's an awesome decorator)!  So out of my love for her I decided to compliment her creative decorating and dedicate this special pedal as a beautiful Valentine pedal!  I'm such a romantic!

I've also decided to put my tap tempo (for my delay pedal) in the same enclosure.

Pedal Placement!

So I just rearranged my current pedal board and I thought it would be a good idea to blog about what order to put your pedals in. I'm constantly switching my pedals in and out of my board. I like to use different pedals for different styles of music. So as a result it's important to keep in mind the order in which you place them. You may be asking yourself why is it important to consider which order these things go? That's a good question!

The order of your pedals can play a significant role in the shaping of your sound and tone, not to mention the feel of the guitar!  If you put a flanger pedal before your delay it will sound completely different then if you put it after your delay!  

So here are a couple of tips to help aid in the process.  These are not set in stone, they're just some rule of thumb ideas.  

- Compression and Wah before Distortion

- EQ after Distortion

- Reverb, Phaser, Flanger, and Tremolo after Delay

- Volume pedals can be useful in a few different places, in the front, at the end, or even before the delay.

Currently my pedal order is as follows:

Boss-TU2 - Keeley Compressor - Dunlop Wah (True bypass) - Fulltone OCD - Fulltone 69 - BYOC Screamer Clone - BYOC MXR Distortion + Clone - BYOC Shredder - Boss DD-20 With Tap Tempo - Cusack Tap-O-Whirl Tremolo - Xotic Effects RC Booster - BYOC MXR Phaser Clone!

Serving Him,

Jimmy!

Pedals Pedals Pedals!

For a long time now I've been wanting to post a picture of my current pedal board set-up.  The only problem is that my board doesn't always stay the same.  My pedal board is in a constant state of motion (if you will).  I change out pedals depending on the songs and sets I'm playing.  This week we are getting ready to go off to camp with a bunch of high school and middle school students!  I'm a Youth Pastor and our student band is playing all the worship for camp.  Sometimes when I travel I use a short board and only use five or six pedals.  Anyway I started piecing together the board I will use and I thought I would just take a picture of all my pedals and post it.  I have approximately 6 or 7 distortion / overdrive pedals.  The reason for this is because they all play differently and sound differently.  Each pedal can sound completely different every time you switch guitars or amps.  And when you record everything changes.  So with that said I always try to have two or three different distortion / overdrive pedals with me.  Anyway its safe to say that some of these I use more than others.  I have an envelope filter that is so cool but you can't use it all that often.  You get the idea.

I want to start a monthly / bi-monthly section in my blog called "Stompbox Spotlight"  where I demo different pedals and give their strengths and weaknesses.  But for now here are some of the boxes I use!

Serving Him,

Jimmy!