Here’s the pedalboard I’m using for the upcoming Catharsis shows. It’s a Pedaltrain Nano sized IKEA Gorm shelf I made a few days ago. It’s small, lightweight, and minimal. All I need.
signal chain: TC Electronic Polytune Mini Noir -> modded Boss SD-1 -> custom Suhr Riot Reloaded clone, all powered by a Pedaltrain Volto underneath.
I’m thinking about opening a guitar store in West Philadelphia that would sell new and used professional-level gear, and offer services not available at big-box stores – like pedal shootouts, gear clinics, a loud room, etc…
Guitar players, I’d love your thoughts and opinions. Please complete this short survey, and feel free to pass the link to any guitar players you know.
Thanks, I really appreciate it.
Matt from Atomium Amplification posted about a custom distortion pedal he’s building for me (along with the modded SD-1 from the previous post). Take a look:
Basic volume/tone/gain setup with selectable symmetric/asymmetric clipping (really compression). The symmetric uses germanium 1N34As, the asymmetric uses a violet LED and 1N914s. Both sets use series resistors to make them act more like a compressor. Most of the actual clipping comes from overloading the 4580 opamp, which has no diodes in its feedback loop. The diode compressors give it more of a “touchy” vibe. It’s not a great design for low-gain, since it gets gainy really fast, but for high gain it’s got massive punch and manages to get both saturation and note separation.