SHOW OFF YOUR PEDALBOARD!

My "Basic 80s Pre Amp" setup is almost complete.

It is designed to do two very basic things.
1. Shape and boost a medium gain amp into a high gain tight metal palm mute monster.
2. Even more boost for leads with the occasional wah.

Wah -> TU3 -> GE7 - Timmy -> 10 Band EQ.

The Boss pedals are buffered and add a tiny bit of noise even when bypassed but it is very mild.
My GE7 is modded with Monte Allums mod, it is super quiet even at extremes.
I find that the Pure Sky is a fantastic amp boost with the right settings, especially when fine tuned with the EQ before it, this spot is not permanent though, I may put a more 'standard' SD-1 here to be more period correct or something that will provide all the gain into a clean amp.
The last pedal is another EQ, the MXR 10 Band is super quiet and operates at 18v for huge headroom without clipping even if you push all the 9v pedals before it to maximum output, this EQ alone can boost and shape the amp into high gain even without an overdrive pedal or shape the sound of a high gain pedal into a clean amp.

Another very important thing I've learned, the power supply has to be of high quality, the Caline/Joyo one is not, I replaced the stock switching 18v power adapter to a linear/regulated 12v, everything is quiet now.
Inside the cheap PSU block every output has a separate regulator, filter, and protection, so it is well designed, but the supplied main 18v adapter is shite and needs to be replaced.

Yet another important thing I've learned is the Pedal Playground website everyone is using to build virtual pedal boards does not tell you how "hard" it is to route all the interconnects between the pedals and the power lines if you don't have an under-space for routing.
Consider placing everything more spaciously if the board is a plank of wood with everything on top.

pedalplayground.jpg



Hey look, it's just a plain old plank of wood.

PB.jpg



"Pedalboard"
:farley
 
My "Basic 80s Pre Amp" setup is almost complete.

It is designed to do two very basic things.
1. Shape and boost a medium gain amp into a high gain tight metal palm mute monster.
2. Even more boost for leads with the occasional wah.

Wah -> TU3 -> GE7 - Timmy -> 10 Band EQ.

The Boss pedals are buffered and add a tiny bit of noise even when bypassed but it is very mild.
My GE7 is modded with Monte Allums mod, it is super quiet even at extremes.
I find that the Pure Sky is a fantastic amp boost with the right settings, especially when fine tuned with the EQ before it, this spot is not permanent though, I may put a more 'standard' SD-1 here to be more period correct or something that will provide all the gain into a clean amp.
The last pedal is another EQ, the MXR 10 Band is super quiet and operates at 18v for huge headroom without clipping even if you push all the 9v pedals before it to maximum output, this EQ alone can boost and shape the amp into high gain even without an overdrive pedal or shape the sound of a high gain pedal into a clean amp.

Another very important thing I've learned, the power supply has to be of high quality, the Caline/Joyo one is not, I replaced the stock switching 18v power adapter to a linear/regulated 12v, everything is quiet now.
Inside the cheap PSU block every output has a separate regulator, filter, and protection, so it is well designed, but the supplied main 18v adapter is shite and needs to be replaced.

Yet another important thing I've learned is the Pedal Playground website everyone is using to build virtual pedal boards does not tell you how "hard" it is to route all the interconnects between the pedals and the power lines if you don't have an under-space for routing.
Consider placing everything more spaciously if the board is a plank of wood with everything on top.

View attachment 8641


Hey look, it's just a plain old plank of wood.

View attachment 8642


"Pedalboard"
:farley
Timmy
:grin:chef
 
Slightly better than the Timmy imo, it has reverse log pots for the Bass and Treble so they work normally, and I fixed/modified a small difference to be like the original.
The Purse Sky has more gain form the second opamp gain stage so it doesn't clean as well as the Timmy, now it does. :D
And most important, it works REALLY well as an amp boost.
 
Had an opportunity to pick up one of the pedals I was considering before deciding upon the Weehbo JCM Drive at fantastic price. Couldn’t let the opportunity pass me as I stupidly did with the Bogner Mini Blue pedal. I chose the Mountain version (from what I’ve seen not many of this graphic on the many pedalboard threads across the web) which comes with a rather crude unfinished housing which gives it a real homemade charm and it is the V3 model. The tones are :chef I’m going to dial in some delicious different Marshall tones between these two drives. Here is a temporarily updated pic of the board. One more essential will be added to replace the TS and the shuffle begins…
IMG_0273.jpeg

IMG_0305.jpeg
 
My pedalboards are deconstructed at the moment. It's time to start over from scratch -- and incorporate my HX stomp XL into a setup that makes sense. I have 2 voodoo lab/switcher boards which are nice, but I may just build one or two myself and still utilize the switchers. Still mulling over some ideas. I'd like to play live again but don't want something too over the top either.

Here are most of my pedals, I have some others stashed away in drawers --:rofl
Way more than I need. :grin

pedals1.jpegpedals2.jpeg
 
Progress.
I have what I consider as (edit: MY) 80s essentials.
Next pedal will be a good noise suppressor, probably a Decimator G-String II clone (DemonFx Filtration II).

The SD-1 is killer btw, just the right amount of tightness.
I use it wil Volume full, tone 12:00, and Gain at 9:00 (not in the image).

80s board.jpg



My SD-1 is the new SMT version from Malaysia, it looks like this inside:

sd-1 smt.jpg
 
Last edited:
@James Freeman Woah! SD-1 Level maxed! 😵
It is boosting a crunch channel, not as the main drive sound.
Very common thing to do.

I also modified it right away, I jumpered R10 which removes the needless 3.5dB attenuation.
The 4.7k series resistor and the 10k volume pot form a useless voltage divider that cuts 3.5dB at maximum volume.
BOSS probably wanted to preserve unity volume at maximum back in 1977 when they designed the OD-1.

If you're curious, here's the mod::

SD-1 R10 Mod.jpg

R10 Schem.jpg
 
My pedalboards are deconstructed at the moment. It's time to start over from scratch -- and incorporate my HX stomp XL into a setup that makes sense. I have 2 voodoo lab/switcher boards which are nice, but I may just build one or two myself and still utilize the switchers. Still mulling over some ideas. I'd like to play live again but don't want something too over the top either.

Here are most of my pedals, I have some others stashed away in drawers --:rofl
Way more than I need. :grin

View attachment 8757View attachment 8758

I was at a jam night ran by a friend of mine a few weeks ago. One of the guys got up to do two songs and had a board that looked a lot like the top one in this post. He only used two pedals and neither of them were a tuner. He really needed to use a tuner :facepalm :chef
 
I was at a jam night ran by a friend of mine a few weeks ago. One of the guys got up to do two songs and had a board that looked a lot like the top one in this post. He only used two pedals and neither of them were a tuner. He really needed to use a tuner :facepalm :chef
I'd go crazy making that into one pedal board. most I've used at once is probably 11, 12 maybe?
 
Here's mine today, dust, dirt, cat hairs and all.

For live, I could cope with just the OD, Dist and Fuzz on the bottom row, but there's nothing else I particularly want to put in the place of the OD-2 and I like it, so it's staying there for now. The black pedal's my DIY Rat.


View attachment 7855

I think I've probably made a mistake, but I've upsized. An extra 5cm wide and 10cm tall feels a huge change, and the combined pedalboard and flightcase now weigh about as much as my ac30. What the f*ck have I done? The Orange amp switcher is just a stand in for a reverb, I wanted to see how long the cables into and out of it need to be.

PXL_20230720_140242265.jpg
 
I think I've probably made a mistake, but I've upsized. An extra 5cm wide and 10cm tall feels a huge change, and the combined pedalboard and flightcase now weigh about as much as my ac30. What the f*ck have I done? The Orange amp switcher is just a stand in for a reverb, I wanted to see how long the cables into and out of it need to be.

View attachment 9101
Plenty sounds in there! Nice board, although size and weight are probably telling you to downsize, Marie Kondo style. ;)
 
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