admiralchew

Thanks (if that was meant for me)! I've spent way too long thinking about pedals over the last few years but it's nice to finally have a big board back up and running. There are a few of my favourites not included on this one but I intend to put them on another board and will add it photos here when it's done.

That’s very helpful, thanks. I like pedals a lot so it’s helpful to know about the high gain. Still very tempting though!

I’m a big fan of the Damnation Audio MBD-2 and NRG Purrer as dual switch drive pedals. The Blackstone Mofset is dual switch and has two different flavours but just isn’t the sound in my head (which is why mine is in the classifieds). JAM’s bass pedals have two switches too.

As I said on a previous post, I’ve been rejigging how I approach pedals and, as a result, I’m selling a lot of them, making boards with others, and collecting a few like a gear-hoarding magpie. I'm hoping to make several boards over the next few months but this is the latest. Since late last year, my main practice board has been disassembled. This was a big miss as it had been set up in the same form since 2020. I'm not sure what possessed me to think that moving the pedals from a flight case into their boxes for a flat move made sense. It meant that I was using only a BBA, tuner, comp and preamp for a clean signal or using pedals on a scattered ad hoc basis. I built a board of minis to help bridge the gap, then most recently a board of Broughtons, but I've been desperate to put a practice board back together. The intention is to have most types of effect on tap and to have some of my favourite pedals constantly ready to go. The signal chain is Broughton BBA (under the board at 18v) > Strobostomp > Cali76 CB (at 18v) > Octabvre > Doom 2 > Heliotropic > Parabellum v2 > MBD2 > Life v3 (with a TRS to the board for off-board expression control) > Rockboard patch bay (I have a patch cable running between two patch bay ports to I can add the JC Wah off board) > Calamity (at 18v) > XD > Empress Bass Comp > SLO (at 12v with Crux) > Element, with the SLO effects loop being Utility Knife > C4 > Echosystem > Reverb. It is ridiculously power hungry. I may also add dual lock to the space underneath to tie a couple of power cables to the underside of the board for easier transport. However, I'm not sure this will be going anywhere as it's intended for home use and weighs as much as a small moon. All of the settings are a bit out of whack because of the faff of wiring up such a heavy monster of a board but I look forward to figuring out the best settings again.

Thanks! They’ve taken a while to assemble and involved a fair amount of gear sales and classifieds scouring, although a few are new and represent career milestones. I was just trying to avoid having basses the same colour but that turned into a bit of a rainbow. How do you find the John East preamp? I’ve been curious. The only non-stock preamp I have is the fretted Fender jazz but I like tinkering. Haha, it’s probably best I don’t see that purple Wunkay. Or any other indigo/purple bass for that matter.

Amazing! I had a similar realisation recently but I’m not quite at that level; you look like you’re getting on for a double rainbow! I have a matte gold bass on the way which will be yellow if I squint and a super-faded black bass that in some lights I like to pretend is indigo. It’s not. This is as close as I get:

I’ve had a few flangers, including a few boutique-ey and renowned ones, but I re-bought a BF-3 within two weeks of selling my original. It’s a brilliant pedal.

I bought a couple of Rockboard 2.0 and 2.1s recently. The 2.0s are travel boards to be stored in the 2.1 flight case with a pair of headphones and cables. I was wondering what to do with the now homeless 2.1s and, owing to my desk now being taken over by working-from-home equipment, I found my answer. I needed a way to quickly move my usual recording set up back and forth so the 2.1s have now been put to use for a clean tone board (Broughton BBA, mini tuner, compressor and preamp), and my pedal testing board. In case anyone is wondering about the gap between the Stomp and the Element, it's to allow me to choose whether to run it as a full board or to take the cables out (which wouldn't be possible with a smaller gap) and run them to another pedal when I'm testing it.

I’ve just checked and the ones on my Rockboard 2.1 board use the 2mm wrench, which I think is the M4.

Yeah, the MXR’s great. I think there’s one in the classifieds too?

The MXR Bass Chorus Deluxe is really excellent, has a small footprint and the flanger is excellent. I used a Boss CE-5 (albeit not the bass chorus) and the MXR offered enough to justify the price different. The Ripply Fall is great but quite a bit bigger than the MXR. The best small box chorus I think is the Providence Bass Chorus (although take that with a pinch of salt as I have one in the classifieds). It’s designed for bass though and does a lovely job of shimmering chorus. At the boutique end the Iron Ether Polytope is brilliant but very rare, and the Horrothia Type One is great but perhaps a bit big if the MXR size is better for your board.

I actually really like the Anima preamp. I put one in a a jazz bass recently and it sounds fantastic. A few of my friends have played that bass too and said positive things about the preamp, so it’s a shame if there’s now negativity around it.

Oh that's interesting! I didn't know that either. These are all Teambuilt/GPS from Andertons or Bass Direct and each of the three came with one, although one was missing the wax in the new car-style pack.

Absolutely amazing! You single-handedly made me want to try the Longsword/Model FET combo. Rockboards for the win too!

Agreed. I was mildly obsessed by that bass for ages before taking the plunge. It’s the flip-flop finish so it’s a bit mad. Here are some photos from when I got it:

The Subsonic is absolutely lovely. It's extremely simple to use, sounds great and tracks well. I think the plan is to make more and I hope he does; it deserves to get a wide release and a great reception. Thanks for the kind comment! Agreed on the Roackboards; they're superb. There's even space underneath to velcro strap-tie the power cable on for easy transport. I've been selling a lot of my pedals, including some Broughton ones, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the ones I was opting to keep fitted so well on a board I already had laying about.

Thanks! Yeah, it's the 2021 Ltd Teambuilt Streamer LX with a black korina body and Pau ferro fretboard. It was my number one bass for an age and sounds fantastic. The low B is superb and I love the Bartolini soapbar pickups.

Perhaps not the best picture of my Warwicks but I got the glue gun out to add cutaway pads to my Hiscox cases and took a quick photo of the results:

Thanks! If we could just pretend I didn’t obsessively keep altering the positions for 45 minutes that would be great.

A lot of you know I’ve gone a bit mad with boutique pedals. As I head toward married life I’ve been rejigging how I approach them and, as a result, I’m selling a lot of them, making boards with others, and collecting a few like a gear-hoarding magpie. Since I moved at the start of the year, all but five or six pedals (and my minis board - currently partially deconstructed) have been in boxes waiting for a board. As part of the overall rejigging I’ve realised that nothing is so sacred I have to leave it in its box. As a result, I’ve finally built a Broughton board (and one Southampton pedal that Josh Broughton worked on). I plan on putting other boards together over the next few months but this is currently my only fully-wired up board. Signal chain is right to left bottom row, then right to left top row. Knobs do not reflect settings; I’m just clumsy when I wire up.