Category Archives: Guitar

To Buffer or Not To Buffer…?

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That is the question. Guys that have long signal chains are starting to ask themselves this a lot more now. I used to have a Catalinbread Serrano Picoso to do the trick on my board for a while. I think it was something I just got without looking into the idea of a buffer too much. It was a great pedal for clean boost and helped with my tone, but I got rid of it when shrinking my board down and never got another buffer. What is the big idea of a buffer?

The question that all guitar players ask is does my tone sound as good running through my pedals as it would if I plugged straight in? Almost always, the answer is no. The more cable (length or amount) you add to a signal, the worse the signal strength gets. Then you add in the stompboxes and pedals and the signal just gets worse. Even high quality and “true bypass” pedals can cut signal strength, thus sucking tone, even if it’s the smallest amount.

A solution to this issue? Enter a high impedance buffer. Some pedals already have buffers in them, and buffers aren’t always a bad thing for a pedal to have in it. It’s when you get some cheaper, less quality brands that a buffer is a bad buffer, therefore it becomes a problem. JHS Pedals uses this example:

“Remember the last time you used a water hose out in the yard? Maybe the end of it didn’t have a nozzle on it, so you had to use your thumb on the end to get enough pressure to spray whatever you needed to spray. That’s what a buffer does. Without it your signal (the water) doesn’t have the pressure to make it to the amp. A good buffer will make your board come back to life and give the exact tone of your prized guitar to your amp!”

All in all, if you’re using a lot of pedals or cable from guitar to pedalboard or from pedalboard to amp, I’d suggest a buffer.

Here are a few options for purchasing a buffer:

Adding a buffer in your signal goes great at the beginning of your chain to give it a strong, clear signal. If you have a long cable going to your amp, it might be good to put one right before the cable at the end of the board.

What’s New With My Gear

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Well…nothing really.

Still running the AC15 and AC30. I’m picking between the two based on the room and how loud I can run it.

Still running my Showcase board with the looper. You can find it on my gear page here.

Still playing the Duesenberg Starplayer mostly. Using the Tele as a backup guitar.

So there you have it…nothing new in gear land for me.

Motley Customs

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I wanted to share a new online friend of mine with y’all. His name is Travis and he’s the man over at Motley Customs.

My friend Matt is a Motley Customs artist and you guys are probably familiar with James Duke (John Mark McMillan) and Jon Duke (Matt Redman, John Mark McMillan) are Motley Customs artists too.

Check out Motley Customs for your pedalboard organizational needs and parts!

Gear Talk: Matt Podesla

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In honor of Passion 2011 just ending, I thought I’d post Matt Podesla’s gear. Matt plays with Matt Redman and a few other worship leaders.

Matt just got his pedalboard done by Motley Customs. Travis from Motley Customs sent me his change. Here’s his board for Passion 2011:

  • This1sMyne Mini Buffer (mounted under the board)
  • This1sMyne True Bypass Looper [numbered below in looper]
  • [1] MXR Dyna-Comp
  • [2] EH Micro POG
  • [Send]-This1sMyne Flip Flop Switch (switches the Ernie Ball Jr. Volume pedal between being “pre” and post” the drive section of the pedalboard)
  • [3] Fulltone Fulldrive 2
  • [4] Xotic AC Booster
  • [5] RAT (stock)
  • [6] Boss DD-20 Giga Delay
  • [Return] This1sMyne Flip Flop switch
  • [7] Line 6 Echo Park
  • [8] Eventide Timefactor (controlled with a This1sMyne Eventide Switch)
  • [9] Boss RV-5
  • [10] Empress Tap Tremolo
  • This1sMyne patch bay-(mounted underneath the pedalboard running mono outputs to 2 amps)

Pedaltrain Pro
Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2
George L cables used on all pedals and loops
Lava cables used on the This1sMyne Flip Flop switch and volume pedal

He runs through at least one of these amps most of the time, but ran both of them stereo at Passion 2011:

He runs a British VOX AC-30 and a Matchless Chieftain. He mostly plays a Custom Nash Telecaster, Gretsch White Penguin and an Elliot Tonemaster.

My 2011 Pedalboard

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Earlier this year, I downsized my board and knew it would just be a matter of time before I started missing certain pedals and desiring other things. With my new full-time job, I’m not playing as much as I used to, so I plan on keeping this new rig around for a while. I’ve kept a few of the other pedals that didn’t make it onto this new board (like the M9, Echo Park and Fulldrive 2) on the Pedaltrain to use from time-to-time. I’m sure some things will be switched out with the Pedaltrain, but here is what I ended up with on the Showcase:

Here’s the chain:

  • Ernie Ball Volume (with Boss Tuner) – using this to adjust gain some too.
  • Budda Wah – debated taking this off, but it’s nice to use for a few things (ironically none of them are the typical uses of a wah pedal).
  • True Bypass Looper – after the wah, my signal goes into the big white looper in the bottom left corner and each pedal is turned on and off by the looper. This is a new thing for me that my friend Dan Burgess made, but I like it so far. And the overall tone sounds significantly better. At the end of it, there are stereo jacks for running some to one or two amps. The chain in the looper goes as follows:
  • Diamond Compressor – you may or may not see it in the picture above. It’s actually not there as it’s being used in the studio on the new Alex Nifong record…get excited about that new album!
  • Micro POG – see some of my thoughts on this returning to my board here.
  • RC Booster – leaving this one on most of the time these days.
  • Divided by 13 Joyride – always heard great things about this guy and finally picked one up a few months ago. Very amp-like drive. Loving it.
  • Paul Cochrane Timmy – still my favorite drive and very amp-like. Using a little more dirty than I used to now.
  • Boss DD-5 – I’m using this one for standard 1/4 and dotted 1/8 notes delays. Got rid of a the Timefactor and DD-20 to use this guy again. My favorite digital delay sounds.
  • Cusack Tap-A-Whirl – I like tremolos and debated between a few tap trems, but ended up with this one. I had an earlier model and loved it, so it seemed like the obvious pick.
  • Boss DD-5 – part two…yes, I am running two DD-5′s and I know that’s kind of weird. But I love the DD-5 delay sounds the best and have started using a really cool setting on the reverse mode that Daniel and Loyd showed me. I use this DD-5 for the reverse sound mostly.
  • Line 6 DL4 – big green is back. This one is still working great for me, especially since I got Jack to mod it for me.
  • EH Deluxe Memory Man – picked this up from an online friend in a trade a few months back. It’s an older one with an attached 3 prong power cable and sounds great. I love a great analog delay and this one is the best. I use it add some noise or for some ambient swell type stuff.
  • Boss RV-5 – two words: modulation setting.

From there it runs into either the AC-30, Ac-15 or both.

Back on the Board: Micro POG

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My new board is still not complete and I’m waiting on a few things before I can assemble it, so in the meantime, I thought I’d start explaining why I have certain pedals on my board and why I’ve switched out others. Sometimes I have really good reasons sometimes I don’t, but I wanted to pass on what I have learned and how I feel personally about some pedals. With that said, this is my personal opinion and you may find something to be completely different. Try it for yourself.

First new pedal on the new board…the EH Micro POG. I had this pedal back when it was still cool to play the big box POGs. I got rid of it once I got a POG2, favoring the presets and cool swell tones I was getting with the POG2. A few weeks passed and I realized I really didn’t get the octave sound I once had in the Micro POG, so I started thinking about running a Micro and a 2 (crazy…I know). It didn’t really make sense to have both, so I went back and forth on what to do. Ultimately, I thought my swells and ambient stuff would be fine without the POG2 and it sounds different now, but the octave stuff helps a lot more in ways too.

Maybe someday later down the road, I’ll go back for the 2 (and I still wish I could run both, just for that sweet swell sound the 2 brings). Until then, I’ll gladly hang onto my Micro POG.

Gear Talk: Daniel Carson’s Dashboard

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I posted this under Daniel’s Gear Talk post, but thought I’d update here, as I’m not sure how many of y’all looking for it go there often. Thanks to everyone who posted comments about of found videos or pictures. You can check out a video of his setup at Frequency under videos. And check out Dashboards, soon to be coming out with a new more cost-conscient line of boards.

The only different thing is that he’s now back using two DD-5′s and a Timefactor. He said the Timefactor was something he was just going to try out and see if it was just a cool studio tool or how much he could use live. The feature we talked about most was using the stereo delays to send different timed delays to different amps.

He’s also using a Matchless SC-30 he got earlier this year for the record. He said he used one all the time at Ed Cash’s for recording and liked it so much that he found this one and grabbed it. He’s using it with the AC-30 most the time these days.

What Is Going On With My Pedalboard

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I’ve gotten a few emails from some folks that are curious as to what is going on with my board currently. Although I can’t completely tell you yet because it’s not done, I can tell you I’m going through some changes that are very different than what I’ve been doing. I’ve decided to go back to my bigger Showcase board and have some familiar pedals but some new ones on the board too.

I’ll be sure to post once all is done…