Messin' With My Pedalboard - Are We There Yet?
- Thread starter László
- Start date
As with many humans, it is in my nature to try and construct order out of disorder and chaos.
This is a true story: My baby book, kept by my mother all these years, states that this, my first complete sentence, was addressed to the housekeeper who was polishing a table:
"You missed a spot over here."
The child is father to the man.
This is a true story: My baby book, kept by my mother all these years, states that this, my first complete sentence, was addressed to the housekeeper who was polishing a table:
"You missed a spot over here."
The child is father to the man.
As I sat with three companions in a diner, we watched with interest as a cute waitress in a short skirt leaned into a booth opposite us to clean a table.
As the waitress began to stand back up, I said, "You missed a spot."
This caused coffee to come out of the nose of the companion on my left.
As the waitress began to stand back up, I said, "You missed a spot."
This caused coffee to come out of the nose of the companion on my left.
alantig
Zombie Four, DFZ
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- Apr 28, 2012
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"I've got a 'ole in me bellows."
~ Keith Emerson holding a non-functioning accordion on stage at the WVU Coliseum circa 1974.
"I really can play..."
~ Keith Emerson holding a non-functioning accordion on stage at the WVU Coliseum circa 1974.
"I really can play..."
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It is my sincere hope that this particular woman was cleaning that table sans undergarments to increase your stimulation level.
But WTF. Isn't my pedalboard awesome?
No, her skirt was not that short.
Which coincidentally enough led one of the other companions to comment, "I'd sure like to see an awsome pedal board."
If I had only known then...
Which coincidentally enough led one of the other companions to comment, "I'd sure like to see an awsome pedal board."
If I had only known then...
You just gave me an awesome idea...mirrored chrome finish on all pedals. Then have the girls in skirts come up and stomp on 'em for me. :biggrin: Might have to turn up my Steve Vai-inspired floor fan, too.
aristotle
New Member
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- Apr 26, 2012
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The second law of thermodynamics states that if you're doing this with your pedal board, you're increasing the disorder elsewhere. Now I know who to blame for my messy pedal board. And I'll bet that you're also responsible for the big tangled wad of XLR cables that I have to sort out...
You haven't seen my son's hair.
sergiodeblanc
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:spitcoffee:
pac90
Helix user
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Housekeeper?
There was a housekeeper (who also cooked) and a laundress.
In 1952 you could have live-in help for about $20 a week. The postwar period brought a lot of refugees to the US who were penniless and needed work and a place to live. A lot of them became housekeepers. It's possible that many had that job back in Eastern Europe before the war.
The very first folks the Nazis killed in Poland, for example, were the professionals and the elites who might have previously employed them, and the Russians did the same thing with their half of the country. The process was repeated elsewhere.
Also, several million people were dragged out of their countries and put into forced labor. After the war, lots of folks had no homes to return to, villages were destroyed, and there was very little food or work.
I guess it was a good time to be part of the upper middle class here, if you needed domestic help.
I was a baby at the time and really don't remember much. However, I'm told that I learned to pronounce a lot of words with an Eastern European accent, which drove my mother nuts.
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So getting back to the Main Theme, namely, my awesome pedalboard, today it got its first thorough use on an ad project where I really put it through its paces for a lot of tones. So it was sort of a "shakedown cruise" for Mr. Pedalboard.
The good news is that everything sounded great, no hums or buzzes in the heat of battle, very fast to set up, tear down, and move around. My big feet were able to reach all the switches on the top row even with boots on, even when sitting down in front of the recording equipment.
As a result, I'm pretty darn happy with how everything has turned out.
The good news is that everything sounded great, no hums or buzzes in the heat of battle, very fast to set up, tear down, and move around. My big feet were able to reach all the switches on the top row even with boots on, even when sitting down in front of the recording equipment.
As a result, I'm pretty darn happy with how everything has turned out.
Something's wrong with my Fulltone?
Seriously, I love wah pedals, and I've had a few of them. My first was a 1967 Vox, bought new. At some point in the 80s it went missing. But that was my standard for how a wah ought to sound. Since then I have had a Budda, a modded Vox V847, a Teese Picture Wah, a Dunlop 535Q, a Teese RMC something or other, a Dunlop Hendrix wah, a couple of the older white Fulltones, a couple of the black Fulltones, and even a Slash wah. Each has its charms.
In terms of the sound of the wah, my favorites have been the Fulltones and the Teeses. The Budda sounded great with higher gain stuff. The rest were nice but eventually not good choices for me.
The Fulltones are hands down the least susceptible to induced hums, buzzes and noise, probably because instead of being made of cast zinc like most wahs, they're steel with steel bottom plates. I can put them near wall warts, power supplies, etc., and nothing fazes them. The switches are big, which means I can grab them easily for changes. I think they sound superb, but most important to me is the fact that they're the least noisy of any wah I've tried. Also the switches are not noisy.
As most wah fans know, the problem with most wahs is that most inductors and pots are susceptible to hum and noise. Add in the usual traditional wah housing that doesn't shield them very well, and put the wah in a modern setting with noise inducing stuff everywhere, and you have a good recipe for the noises most of us associate with wahs.
I hate noise. I like music.
The Teese wahs probably sound a little closer to my vintage Vox, but were a little bit too throaty -- what some call that "vomit sound." That is the sound of the old Italian wahs, to a degree, but the ones I had went a little too far in that direction for my taste. Still, I'm splitting hairs here, they're great wahs. Again, they're more susceptible to induced hums and buzzes than the Fulltones.
All of my Dunlop wahs made loud popping noises when switched. That was disappointing, though they sounded fine. But they also were noisier than my Fulltones.
The V847 I had was a very authentic mod done by Pedalworx in Texas. Sounded great, a lot like the Fulltone, actually, but maybe a little closer to my original Vox. I'd have kept it but on my old two tier pedalboard, I had a wall wart for my old Mesa V Twin pedal plugged into an outlet that was near the wah, and the wall wart induced a buzz into the wah. That was when I learned how well the Fulltones reject noise.
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I assure you Les It is awesome and very very neat looking
roud:PS: consider checking the range of Wahs made by Wilson they are very flexible with a buffer built in
and can be tuned to a very specific frequency and we all know how much you love tweaking that stuff
I guess I forgot about the Fulltone. My bad. The Fulltone is a really good sounding and quiet wah, no doubt. There are as many wahs out there as Carter's got pills, so everyone has a fav and an opinion. So, how have you felt about the others, especially the multi-mode versions with different inductors/circuits and voicings? I'm partial to vocal qualities to make me sound almost like I have a Heil talk box going, sort of like how Satriani does it. In fact, his signature Vox wah is what I have now. Have you tried the CAE or Mission Engineering products?
And sorry about baiting the last response. I wanted to breathe a little life into the thread.
I assure you Les It is awesome and very very neat looking
PS: consider checking the range of Wahs made by Wilson they are very flexible with a buffer built in
and can be tuned to a very specific frequency and we all know how much you love tweaking that stuff
The Fulltone is tweakable and has a buffer also. But mainly, I'm really happy with the tone of the Fulltones, have been for more than a decade. If it's not broken, I'm not fixing it.
I almost bought an Xotic wah with the little controls on the outside of the case, to mess around with. But then I decided I'm happy with the wah I have, so I figured, why bother? Also, little teeny tiny knobs on a pedal that at my age I have difficulty bending down to adjust on the pedalboard, no. Not going there.
Yeah, it's good to inject some life!
The Fulltone on my board has 3 different voicings, and I switch them on rare occasions. But I mostly play in the "Jimi" mode. The others are like the old Colorsound wahs from the late 60s, and the quacky Crybaby sound that would indeed be very useful if I took your suggestion and did porn tracks!
Like you, I prefer a vocal sound. Actually, the way I play a wah isn't "wacka-wacka," it's more slowly, to modulate the tone along with the melody. I never use a wah clean, only with an overdriven amp. So a lot of the tones people like in certain wahs aren't useful to my playing style.
I didn't find the 535Q or the Slash wahs fit my style at all, though they were impressive in the store and actually sounded quite good. But once I got home and used them on my own tracks, I wound up putting them on the shelf and going back to the Fulltone. Eventually I sold them. My ad for the 535Q on TGP was titled something like, "I Hate This Wah, So Buy It." I did want to have a little fun. The loud pop the 535Q and Slash wahs made when being switched on really bugged me as well. In fact, this is something I've encountered in every Dunlop wah I've tried.
Because I have found Dunlop wahs so unsuitable for my purposes, I haven't tried the CAE. Honestly, I've been pretty happy with the Fulltone stuff, and as I said above, it isn't broken, so I'm not fixin' it!
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This another one of your good threads. Don't want it to stall.
Lets see...we've talked about ODs, ad nauseum, boosts, modulation, wahs, power supplies, fuzzes, cables, and boards themselves. Have we talked about reverb/trem? I've lost track. Otherwise, I think we've covered just about everything about a board.
