So I Put Together a New Pedalboard Yesterday

Re: So I Put Together a New Pedalboard Yesterday

Joel is a genius. I can only hope that at some point he comes out with a digitally controlled analog distortion or fuzz. Or both. I mean, can you imagine how amazing it would be if you had something like the fuzz factory but you could save presets on it? Or a Dr Scientist The Elements? Those super versatile pedals or ones like those would be so cool in one of Joel's enclosures with presets. Maybe use the tap footswitch to cycle through presets - instead of just 2, have like 5 or 6. Tapping the left switch would let you move up through your presets and holding it for a second would reverse the direction. I'm going to email him to rave about the wombtone and I'll also ask him if he has any plans like that.

This thing is tons of fun. I can't believe how many tones I can get out of one guitar, 4 pedals, and my Plexi clone.

First of all, I painted it metallic blue sparkle, just to make it unique. Black boards are everywhere and they're boring as hell. So I stripped the bad paint job I did a few years ago with a dremel (huge PITA by the way, just have someone sandblast your board if you want to do it, and look into getting it powdercoated while you're at it, much more durable than rattle cans) and got some rustoleum on it. It looks pretty great IMO.

I picked up some new pedals for this board - a Chase Bliss Wombtone, a Catalinbread Antichthon, a JHS Panther Cub, and an MXR Fet Driver. The Antichthon, as amazing, unpredictable, and ridiculous as it is, just isn't quite always what I need, so I will swap between it and my PTD Bone Machine. I think I'll mostly use the Bone Machine, and I'll use the Antichthon when I want crazy oscillating noise fuzz/tremolo goodness.

Unfortunately, the Fet Driver was just not as good at what I wanted it to do compared to my Rawkworks Light OD (Klon clone) so I returned that and I'm getting a tone bender for my rotating fuzz spot. I would have kept it because it's a really great pedal, but I don't have unlimited funds and if I want that tone, I can use my big board.

Now on to the fun pedals - the Panther Cub and the Wombtone. I'll start with the Panther Cub because it's way easier to understand. It's basically just an analog delay with tap tempo and modulation control. It's a very good sounding delay, but I'm not quite sure analog is quite my thing. Fortunately, I anticipated that may be the case, so I snagged a used Strymon El Capistan so I can compare the two and sell the one I like less. I loved the El Capistan I had a year ago, but I sold it when I went to a Timeline and I've missed it since. I anticipate I'll wind up selling the JHS (if you're interested PM me) but time will tell. It is a great sounding delay, no question about it, but the repeats are more percussive than I want, which is why I anticipate I'll enjoy the tape emulation of the El Capistan more.

On to the star of the show - the Wombtone. This thing is crazy. For those not on The Gear Page, Chase Bliss is a newer company that makes this pedal and the Warped Vinyl, a chorus/vibrato. Both pedals have analog signal paths with digital control. This means you have tap tempo, two presets (plus live mode, so basically three presets), and the ability to modulate any parameter via the ramp knob. Yes, I mean any paramater - you can even modulate the volume for a tremolo effect along with the phaser. Additionally, you have control of the waveform - but not just the whole wave form, both sides of it independently. That means you can set the first half of the sweep as a triangle wave, and the second half as a square wave. Or the first half as a sine wave and the second half as a triangle. Or any combination of those three wave forms. ADDITIONALLY, you have control of the symmetry of the wave form, so you can make it lean (so to speak) to either direction, emphasizing whichever wave form you prefer in any amount you want. EVEN ****ING MORE THAN THAT, you have 16 dip switches at your disposal on the back of the pedal. Joel at Chase Bliss realized that most people don't want to take the back of the pedal off to mess around with the dip switches, so he machined a hole in the back of the pedal so you can access all of the switches just by turning the pedal over. You have so many options there, but one of the coolest is that you can go from 4 to 6 stages of phasing, which opens up tons of different phase tones. Lastly, you can even control this thing via MIDI with the right cable and a midi controller that accepts 1/4 input (I believe it's controlled by CV pulses, but I could be [probably am] wrong. And to top it off, on top of all the crazy things it can do, it just sounds amazing. There are plenty of tones available between the depth and feedback controls that there's no way you could get bored with this pedal even if you never messed with the dip switches, except to maybe go from 4 to 6 stages. Oh and it's also worth noting, as I was unclear on this, that the dip switch settings do save per preset, which is just awesome. This is easily my favorite single effect pedal ever made ever.

After having a big (PT-1) to huge (PT-Pro equivalent) size board for the last few years, it's extremely liberating to have a board I can hold with my pinky. With my D'avanzo, this board, and my Egnater SW-45 I can get most of the tones I find myself wanting in a jam situation. I will keep my big board as long as it's feasible to do so, because I love having most any tone under the sun available to me, but this board is just so much damn fun. And it's ****in' adorable.

I'll confess that I felt a bit pressured to get an Eventide H9 so I'd have a tuner available to me, but honestly headstock tuners are great and more than accurate enough for most jams or gigs, so I don't even have to worry about a tuner pedal, I can just roll with my favorite dirt, mod, and delay. Nothing but the bare essentials.

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