Al Krow

If you have one of these in vgc < 5 years old you're looking to move on, please PM me.

Hah! So just purely "theoretical" advice from you boys. In which case, I'll stick to my current set up, until these mythical feet appear that leave enough clearance both below and above. Fortunately my current set up stops me from GAS'ing for other pedals due to a strict "one on one off" requirement!

Agree with a a lot of your post, above. However I think programmable analogue effects are still very much a tiny minority of available analogue pedals so I think broadly equating "non-programmable" and "analogue" is hopefully fine for our discussion; or as you state in your final sentence about "90% right" which still gets an A*, right? 😄

Just as an aside - I agree that editing Zoom effects was indeed a bit of a pain (particularly the interface on the MS-60B); that changed for me when this US developer made his Zoom editing software freely available. https://tonelib.net/ It's made editing Zoom patches both fun and a pretty straightforward, even for someone as computer non-savvy as me!

After several years of gigging with just bass, lead, amp, cab and band, I started to get into the slippery slope of pedals 15 months or so back and wondered whether to go down the multi-fx vs dedicated pedals route. I came to the conclusion that multis, other than the really high end stuff, were not bad and a great intro into particular effects but couldn't really compete with dedicated pedals, particularly in the 'harder' emulation stuff e.g. synth, filter, dirt, polyphonic octave up but were pretty decent at some of the other 'easier' stuff e.g. delay, flange, chorus, tremolo, with compression and octave-down somewhere in between. I ended up getting a couple of the more budget Zoom multi-fxs (MS-60B and B3n) and a bunch of dedicated pedals. Then the Helix and Helix HX came along. They are hitting the 'definitely good enough' level for a lot, but not quite all yet, effects - and let's face it in a live band mix the audience is not going to notice the last 10% difference between what the Helix is doing and a dedicated analogue pedal on those effects where the Helix gets close - I know that is still not all of them. Importantly (for me anyway) the HX is also not much more than the cost of 2 or 3 decent analogue pedals. I'm now working with a couple of guitarists (one who regularly deps for us) in a function covers band. Our main guitarist has a traditional analogue pedal board & Roland Blues cube amp; the dep has a Line 6 Helix ('full fat') and a relatively cheap Alto FRFR. The overall costs of their gear are about the same. I love the ability of the dep to programme his effects and have everything 'preset' for each song and effortlessly reorder if we decide on a different set list content or order. When it comes to linking songs our 'main' guitarist will be switching pedals on and off, faffing about tweaking knobs and in terms of song 'flow' spending around a minute between songs. Might not sound like much but if you have a dance floor audience it's not what they want. One of our BC'ers posted his board recently with a Helix HX and I'm rapidly coming to think that this is very much looking like the 'future' for live music; if so is the corollary for live performance that analogue pedals have had their day?

Aha in which he definitely won't be cheaper than the guy I have got lined up (for me down in the big smoke)...

Is he based down in London, Dave?

You and your AGRO. You're as bad as Liz Taylor and Richard Burton...😂

Well I don't seem to be able to get any decent PAT testing kit (which I could get friendly sparky I know, to pop round and use and sign us off on - as he currently doesn't have his own PAT kit) for less than £125 to £150 second hand. I have managed to find a chap via Gumtree who will pop round and test all our gear next weekend for £40 to £50 (£40 for 20 items - where a powered PA and its lead count as 2 items) etc. He's also confirmed that anything < 1 year old doesn't need testing.

Interesting...what style music are you playing and what is the rest of your signal in terms of bass & amp & cab?

Guys - picking up on this previously started thread... 2Qs: 1) Anyone recommend me someone they have used in the London area for PAT Testing PA and backline etc at a reasonable price? (How much all in?) 2) Are any folk doing this on a "self test" basis - if so in terms of kit the Seward Primetest 50 PAT Tester kit seems to do the job and is around £225 (new) - anything better value I should be looking out for?

Hi - what's your budget? I'd suggest this is not a bad place to start on your synth quest and typically sell for around £50 to £70 (inc postage)

Ah to have a roadie! I'm the oldest / second oldest member of my two bands. In addition to my bass gear I have the band PA to load / unload and am about to be responsible for the lighting rig. In one band just me and the drummer have cars. But I guess I shouldn't complain...maybe I've finally worked out why I have managed to keep my place in both bands! 😂

Do you have some taller feet you can recommend that fits a Metro 24 board?

Potentially a really good thought. I'd just need to check whether it would then be too big for the case! The midi hub doesn't "need" to be on the board but it's just very convenient to have it connected up ready to usb to my computer for software editing of the two SA pedals.