If you’ve ever taken a look around this website you would have noticed a lack of colour. It’s something I decided to do a few years ago because the majority of my guitars are black and/or white. It’s how I like things. So imagine my delight when I discovered the new PolyTune 2 Mini (and PolyTune 2 Noir). They’re black and white and tiny enough to fit into the corner of my packed pedalboard. Handy!
I recently had too much time on my hands and wasted it by putting together a small Instagram storyline that featured three Lego men I decided to call Steve, Dave and Jim. Not one to dwell on that wasted time, I wasted more time and wrote a Blog article about it all and put together a downloadable PDF booklet of the story. If you’re going to waste time, do it properly I say.
Well, because I do say that, I went ahead and did it all over again. So here is Steve, Dave and Jim Issue 2: Pedalboard planning … Steve, Dave and Jim return (with some pedalboard planning)
Have you ever gone to YouTube with the intention of watching a video about a guitar pedal you’re considering buying only to be distracted by non-guitar related videos and/or videos not related to the actual pedal you went to YouTube for in the first place? I know I have. It can be annoying. If only there was a way to view YouTube videos that were guaranteed to only be about guitar pedals. Oh wait … with Pedal Check there is.
Well that’s handy. … Pedal Check—YouTube guitar pedal videos ranked by users
Today Singular Sound released BeatBuddy—the world’s first guitar pedal drum machine. This pedal may just change the way you look at small venue performances, gigging, rehearsing or song writing. Simply put, this guitar pedal allows you to manipulate prerecorded drum tracks with the ease of many guitarists’ favourite tool—a foot switch. … BeatBuddy—world’s first guitar pedal drum machine
If you’re a guitarist who likes to use non-guitar introductions (such as keyboard tracks) in your song writing/performing, then you may very well be interested in the BakTrak pedal. The BakTrak pedal is a three-in-one background music device that you can use while practicing at home, or while performing live on stage. From what I can determine, it’s a pretty sturdy little unit. … BakTrak—The ultimate MP3 backing track pedal
Recently I wrote about the Skumstortion pedal I purchased from Pro Tone Pedals. It’s a wicked sounding (and looking) pedal. I knew that. I’d written about it. I just hadn’t been able to share the auditory coolness with people … Until now. I bring you terrible video footage of my favourite Pro Tone Pedals Skumstortion settings.
Now I have the power of video. View (and listen) to the awesome sounds of my Skumstortion pedal! … My Pro Tone Pedals Skumstortion settings
Recently Pro Tone Pedals had a Flash Sale of the Skumstortion pedal which allowed me to pick it up for just $50.00 plus postage. I’d been watching Pro Tone Pedals for a while on the likes of Twitter and YouTube and always liked the look (and sound) of what I’d seen so I jumped at the opportunity. Having now received my pedal in the mail, I’m glad I did. This pedal rocks.
I might try to make my own video one day soon—this would be a first for me on this kind of thing—so you can see and hear the tonal varieties this pedal has to offer. For now, check out what I got in the mail. … Skumstortion by Pro Tone Pedals
When I say I’m not a carpenter, I mean it (I did make that claim in my previous post). That’s part of the reason it’s taken me so long to add anything to this website. Even though I found a truly awesome online resource for the creation of your own pedal board (using some preassembled IKEA components) it has taken me months to build my own pedal board. But I like my Gorm Pedal board (Gorm is the name of the shelf unit I needed to buy from IKEA) and I had a great time building it.
Taking months also allowed me to slowly build upon my pedal collection. My wife assures me my collection is now complete. I’m sure she’s right. Let’s see what my pedal board—and collection—looks like now.
I did take an entire series of photos during the process, but they’re pretty much along the lines of those in the original post I was referencing above. Completed, my pedal board looks like the image in this post’s intro—because that is my pedalboard.
If you like colour—I’m trying to keep colour off this particular website—you can see this photo on my photography website. It’s sturdy, matches the colour scheme of my guitar room and has two power packs under it to power all of the pedals at once. No batteries here!
Here’s a quick rundown of my new pedal collection. Top-left going clockwise.
Lucky 11. When I started building the pedal board I didn’t have the Artec Wah or any of the Joyo pedals. I started buying them on eBay for very little money. Almost all of them are new and the most I spent on one pedal was $40.00. The last four pedals I got for $100.00. I was very pleased with that purchase. I believe outside of the Boss pedals everything else on the pedal board is true bypass.
So there you have it. It took me months, but I now have hours of entertainment at my feet. I’m really impressed with the new pedals actually. I might write a bit about them individually. I know when I was researching the Joyo pedals I found it difficult to find much in the way of useful information. I’ll try and add to that collection of not useful information.
For many years I would replace the 9 volt batteries in each of the Boss guitar pedals I owned—of which there were three—each time the little red lights began to fade. As I’ve never been in a band or put my pedals through any kind of hard-core torture, batteries used to last me for quite some time. Then my wife and I started a family and I momentarily lost track of my guitar infatuation.
When I came back to the obsession, my Boss DS-1 distortion pedal decided to punish me for the time apart. It used the acid from its battery to commit a form of suicide. I felt bad. But like the evil scientist who refuses to let the dead be, I made the decision to use electricity to power my pedals.
Sadly for me, my budget didn’t allow me to purchase anything new. So I did not go out and get myself several Boss power packs. Nor did I get myself a pedal board (for my huge three guitar pedal collection). Nope. I made the decision to rob a few of my own household appliances of their power packs when it was time to play guitar. That worked quite fine. But you needed a power board to plug the power packs into as each power pack was so bulky.
And for many years I got by like that. I was happy to have come up with a solution that involved spending no money. I had accepted the lazy solution to my initial problem. Until recently when I decided to get myself some of the technology that others had been using for probably as many years as I’ve been alive. Perhaps not that long, but a long time none-the-less!
It’s messy—with more pedals today than I had back then—but it fills me with joy. Today I plugged in my favourite pedals just so I could stare in wonder at all their pretty lights. The pretty lights you can’t make out because I like to strip all images of colour on this website. But it was cool! The order was all wrong and the sound would have been terrible, but I had the power—pun intended—to use all of my pedals at once with just one power pack thanks to my 5 to 1 power cable. All for under $10 thanks to my love of eBay.
One cable that allows my one Boss power pack to power all of my guitar pedal units! Awesome.
Why I’ve had so much fun I might even get myself some new pedal connection cables and build a custom pedal board for my own pedal collection. If I should attempt this project it also would be messy—I’m no carpenter—but I’d like to think it would also be cool.
Stay tuned. Or not.
