My Spartan Pedal Board

The other day a Facebook memory came down my feed. It was a photo from a tour one of my old bands did in the very early 2000s. It was a shot of me futzing with my pedals on stage at Hotel Utah in San Francisco. It was a nice warm fuzzy memory as I remember that show went swimmingly and we received some great press from a local music rag.

One thing that struck me about that photo was my pedal chain was nearly identical to my current setup. Of the pedals pictured, half are still on my board and the other half have since been replaced by pedals that are nearly identical. My chain then was:

Tuner (BOSS TU-12) > Compressor (BOSS CS-2) > Tubescreamer (early 90s reissue) > Graphic E.Q. (GE-7) and Analogue Delay (80s Aria Pro II)

Nearly twenty years later my setup as of this moment is:

Tuner (BOSS TU-3 ) > Compressor (BOSS CS-2) > Tubescreamer (early 90s reissue) > Analogue Delay (BOSS DM-2) > Graphic E.Q. (GE-7b).

In the time between those two moments a number of pedals have come and gone from my board. There are 2 in particular that keep finding their way back. One is the Danelectro Tuna Melt tremolo and the other either a 1970s MXR Phase 45 or a 90s reissue Electro Harmonics Small Stone. In fact as I write this I am considering working the Dano and the Phase 45 back into to the chain.

I love to watch Rig Rundowns. Listening to guitarists I dig (and some that I don’t ) discuss their pedalboards is quite inspiring. You can learn a lot about a guitarist by listening to them discuss their chain. These rundowns nearly always leave me feeling a little self-conscious about my own completely unimpressive board. The thing is I do love pedals. I have a modest collection of vintage pedals that I use for recording and dicking around and while I find them very useful and inspiring, I really don’t have much use for them in my live setup.

Below are some notes on my staple pedals that might explain why they never left my board after 20 years:

BOSS TU-3 Tuner – Got to have a tuner. For many years I used a TU-12 and plugged into it before a set, tuned and unplugged. I dealt with any tuning issues that arose during a performance by ear. I replaced that with a TU-3 a couple of years ago.

BOSS CS-2 – This is my favorite comp for a Telecaster. I ran this nearly always on when my Tele was my only guitar. I also own an Orange Squeezer and a vintage MXR Dynacomp.

Tubescreamer – Always on. This pedal is key in prepping my signal. It shaves off some bass and little high end and hits the amp with a little more heat. I keep the gain all the way down with Gibsons and at about 7:00 with Fenders. Couldn’t live without it.

BOSS DM-2 – My favorite slapback in a compact pedal. I know they make tons of modern delay pedals that people dig but this is the one that adds the prefect amount of warm “murk” that I absolutely love.

BOSS GE-7b – I used a Taiwan-made GE7 as a clean boost as far back as ’98. Since then I’ve tried a number of other preamps and boosts but none did what I wanted as well as the GE. This GE-7b is optimized for bass but still gives me the light tone shaping and boost/cut I need. I pulled this particular pedal out of the trash at our rehearsal space. It was broken but easily fixed. It’s made in Japan.

On standby:

Danelectro Tuna Melt – I can’t believe how great this tremolo sounds. Especially when you factor in how cheap they are. I got this for about 20.00. I know it’s cheap and plastic but I’ve used it for 10+ years without any hiccups. Beautiful sounding trem.

1970s MXR Phase 45 – I have better sounding phase shifters but this one has a subtleness to it that makes it very usable. It’s one of the few phasers I’ve heard that remains musical with the speed maxed. Very organ-like.

For powering my board I use the lowly One Spot. I know guitar players who recoil in horror at the thought of using a One Spot but I’ve found them to be more than enough to handle my handful of pedals on stage or in the studio. Cheap, cheerful and apparently fairly rugged (mine’s at least 10 years old and still tickin’).

So there you have it. My extremely modest pedalboard that looks like it fell out of 1989. It works for me though so here’s to another 20 years!