Pedals/pedal board...seeking advise.

[snickerpuss]

Snickerpuss: Very thorough response and some great advise. I know it takes a lot of time to sit down and respond to these questions and I want you to know how much I appreciate it (yours and the others who have responded...great message board).

That G-system looks awesome...but that $1350.00 is a little out of my price range.

I have to admit, I was not aware of some of the pitfalls of running "true bypass" pedals. I just hear people rave about them and talk about signal loss etc. with the Boss or Digitech type pedals...so I guess I was just sort of caught up in the hype.

You are right...perhaps the little nuanced difference in sound I would get from individual pedals wouldn't be worth the trouble and in the end the ME-50 may work best for my situation. I think however I am going to keep the pedals I do have and continue to use them all I have my ME-50 attached to my board along with my Cry Baby, TU-2, Boss OS-2, MT-2 and Big Muff Pi. I am going to invest in a solid power unit for the single pedals and Wah and continue to run an individual power supply for the ME-50.

So I guess this begs another question...what order should I run all the pedals in? I now sure from reading the many responses and links above that I don't have things in the right order.

Traditional boards run the wah into the dirt, so if you're mainly playing covers, the traditional setup would be tuner>wah>your assorted dirt pedals and fuzzes>boss me-50. Placing the wah after the stomp boxes and other effects will give you a much more pronounced and all encompassing sweep. Now, you'll hear about fuzz boxes not sounding great after buffers and needing special placement before wahs to sound good, but fear not. When you hear about that stuff, it's pertaining to germanium transistor based fuzzboxes like red fuzz faces and fuzz factories. Your big muff uses silicon transistors and sounds good and consistent anywhere in the signal chain, but I would place it before your os-2 if you want to boost the big muff with a cleanish overdrive boost ala David Gilmour.

The voodoo lab iso 5 power supply I mentioned before will take care of your five pedals and is very affordable for the quality. You can really go with any power supply you choose, but you'll just want to look for "at least 5 separate isolated outputs" in "9 volt dc operation" as each of your pedals requires that standard 9 volt dc power.

[a.hun]

General comment. Though most pedals need a 9VDC 'centre positive' polarity power supply, there isn't a universal standard. Always be especially careful with the polarity as hitting some pedals with a reverse polarity supply can kill them.

There will always be a few oddballs which need their own supply due to different voltage, polarity, even AC instead of DC requirements.


Andy.

[Jondog]

General comment. Though most pedals need a 9VDC 'centre positive' polarity power supply, there isn't a universal standard. Always be especially careful with the polarity as hitting some pedals with a reverse polarity supply can kill them.

There will always be a few oddballs which need their own supply due to different voltage, polarity, even AC instead of DC requirements.


Andy.

centre negative

[everdrone]

go small pedalboard and dont buy any pedals that wont fit on the actual board. no one wants to lug around a giant pedalboard to small gigs/venues. it will save $ too. I am planning to downsize to a nano pedaltrain and a sanyo battery power device.

[Boy_Narf]

Back when I was in high school, I used a Zoom G7.1ut multi effects processor. I didn't realize it at the time but this pedal was actually quite good. I ended up selling it to a friend in order to buy some "proper pedals", and it has been down hill ever since hah. I have spent thousands on pedals looking for exactly the right tones with the most transparency. If I could go back? I would honestly keep the multi-effects pedal and not worry about having a "proper board". One thing I will say however, is that I had the ME-50 before the zoom unit and it was horrible. I would say if you are unsure and overwhelmed about building a pedal board why not upgrade your aftereffects board to see if that suits your needs? There are some pretty fancy Line6 POD or M series units, and the new monster from Zoom looks quite good as well.

If you do "NEED" a board, my only advice would be to plan small, go for the basics, and aim for versatility (avoid on trick pony pedals). Go for a PedalTrain 2 with flight case (awesome protection), toss a Voodoo Labs 4X4 underneath (can power pretty much anything on the market) and start planning your layout with:

http://pedalboardplanner.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I wasted quite a bit of cash on odd pedals that never made it to the board. After years of buying and selling pedals I have ended up with a fairly simple rig. Wireless --> tuner --> delay --> reverb. In all honesty I never needed more but the allure of having a massive board took control of me for a while.

Good luck

P.S. quite a few pedals have buffers in them, so unless you are planning to cram 10+ TB pedals on your board you should be fine without a dedicated unit.

[a.hun]

General comment. Though most pedals need a 9VDC 'centre positive' polarity power supply, there isn't a universal standard. Always be especially careful with the polarity as hitting some pedals with a reverse polarity supply can kill them.

There will always be a few oddballs which need their own supply due to different voltage, polarity, even AC instead of DC requirements.


Andy.

centre negative

OOPS!!!

You're dead right, centre negative. Thanks for catching that one!


Andy.

[hitgar]

(Haven't read all other posts so excuse me if I repeat what someone else said)

I use to have the ME-50 and one thing that might help is to put it on a single bypass loop. I noticed that it really sucked the tone out of my other pedals. I'm not down talking buffers because I believe in using them but I just think that Boss missed the mark with this one. By using the bypass loop you can turn it on when you need it and keep it away from your other pedals when you don't.

That said, its an awesome pedal for the money. Its handy to take around to practice or for a tight and messy stages. I think the new ME-80 is definitely a step up but nothing wrong with the ME-50. The Boss OD/Dist isn't that bad but the others are a little more cold than the originals, which is expected I guess.

(I'm sure this is an echo) I used it more to see what pedals I really wanted to invest in and which pedals I just liked toying with....... and then I got addicted and have not stopped buying pedals since. Have fun with it. And there is no right way or wrong way to order your pedals or power them (so long as it is safe). If you like the sound and there isn't enough noise to bother you then your good.

One thing you could do is decide what your going for with your pedals and then set them up that way. For example, putting a booster before a drive will add more distortion to the drive but putting it after will give it more volume and the characteristics of the boost will shine through. Same with modulation, I like my phaser before my drive so I distort a phased signal (sounds smoother) rather than phasing a distorted signal (more pronounced and can get harsh). Like I said, have fun with it and see what inspires you. That's the best part.

[husker tim]

And again...thanks to everyone for the advise.

So based on the information I got from all of your responses this is what I am going to do:

I am going to get a good power supply. I am also going to keep my Boss ME-50. For what I do, I think the advantages outweigh the negatives. I am also going to keep a series of individual pedals that I can switch off and on to get a variety of sounds (for those times when I want a different chorus, distortion or delay than what is on the ME-50). I am only going to add a delay and chorus and I am not going to get too hung up on the "true bypass" pedals that I hear so much about. I am also going to get a loop station that will allow me to go through the Boss ME-50 or the other individual pedals or bypass all of it and go straight into the amp (where I can also use my channel selector between the "Fat" channel and the "Tiny Terror" channel.

I didn't mention it above, but I also have a American Deluxe Strat that has a switch that allows me to run the pick-ups in series and in and out of phase. So that gives me other varieties of sounds. I think the bypass loop (now that I checked it out) is going to be what I was really looking for when I started this thread.

However, I learned so much from you guys here and got some great ideas...so there are going to be some things I tweak a little in my set-up that will give me some better sounds and give me a LOT of flexibility. I hope in my description of what I am going to do you will see how much influence all of your input had.

This board is great...thanks again to everyone who answered this post. I appreciate all the responses.

[hitgar]

And again...thanks to everyone for the advise.

So based on the information I got from all of your responses this is what I am going to do:

I am going to get a good power supply. I am also going to keep my Boss ME-50. For what I do, I think the advantages outweigh the negatives. I am also going to keep a series of individual pedals that I can switch off and on to get a variety of sounds (for those times when I want a different chorus, distortion or delay than what is on the ME-50). I am only going to add a delay and chorus and I am not going to get too hung up on the "true bypass" pedals that I hear so much about. I am also going to get a loop station that will allow me to go through the Boss ME-50 or the other individual pedals or bypass all of it and go straight into the amp (where I can also use my channel selector between the "Fat" channel and the "Tiny Terror" channel.

I didn't mention it above, but I also have a American Deluxe Strat that has a switch that allows me to run the pick-ups in series and in and out of phase. So that gives me other varieties of sounds. I think the bypass loop (now that I checked it out) is going to be what I was really looking for when I started this thread.

However, I learned so much from you guys here and got some great ideas...so there are going to be some things I tweak a little in my set-up that will give me some better sounds and give me a LOT of flexibility. I hope in my description of what I am going to do you will see how much influence all of your input had.

This board is great...thanks again to everyone who answered this post. I appreciate all the responses.

Please report back when you work everything out and let us know how we did. I always wonder how much these forums actually help with subjective information. Don't get me wrong, there are people here who know their stuff inside and out when it comes to technical problems, but when it comes to subjective material there is really no right and wrong. I can say that this forum is more helpful than others though and there is such a variety of players here that someone is bound to be helpful.