Re: New Pedalboard
I'm so very glad I popped back in here to check this thread...
Stop now sweating pedals, boards and power supplies...go and get yourself an amp.
At a very quick glance you're listing $2500 give or take in pedals with no amp...if you look in the dictionary for the phrase "putting the cart before the horse" there would be a link to this thread...
I'm not trying to come down on you or bust your balls or anything but to me pedals are a weak 4th in line for getting good tone...
Step one...get a good amp.
You can play even the cheepest guitars in the world into a good amp and get a good sound. Ask yourself this, forget value, forget looks and forget getting on a forum and stroking yourself or having other stroke you about your gear but think just about tone and then ask this...what would you rather play though a 1959 Stratocaster and a Gorilla or a $99 Squire and a nice Fender or Marshall...
Step two...get the best guitar you can afford.
You do not need a 3 or 4k or more guitar to have good tone, trust me on this. I have guitars that range in value from 3 or 4 hundred to too much but the common factor with all my guitars is that they all sound and play good.
Get a good sounding guitar that plays nice and if you have to upgrade pickups or electronics or whatever to make it better or to get what you want out of it then do that because if you're already completeted step one then tweaking the guitar to your tastes is a good thing, if you're playing through a POS and you're trying to tweak your guitar to sound like Slash no pickup in the world is going to help.
Step three...review steps one and two before moving on to step three, if steps one and two are complete then check the little things.
The "little" things are really not little at all. Make sure your guitar is set up correctly, if you can not do it yourself PAY SOMEONE TO DO IT...a guitar with a proper set up will play easier and be in tune and all this will lead to less headache from issues, better sustain and a better overall tone.
I wish I had a dime for everytime I tried to help some one tweak their rig for more sustain or a better attack only to find out that the guitars frets were so jacked up and the action was so high no pickups or pedals in the world would have helped!
Also in step three spend the extra cash and USE GOOD CABLES...whats the point in a good amp, a good guitar and maybe even pickups to taste if you're going to try and connect it all with a POS cable. No need to spend stupid money here there are plenty of good ables out there...George L's, DiMarzio, Planet Waves, etc are all good and none of them cost that much.
Now, on to step four...if you're at step four look back one more time and make sure that steps one, two and three are indeed complete to the best of your ablilty, now move on.
You now have a solid base tone, a good guitar thats playing great and sounding good, a good amp to pump the guitar into and this should all be connectred by a good cable...now flesh out that sound!
Pick pedals/effects that you need...don't buy a flanger because you saw a demo on PGS.com that made the guitar sound like a ray gun and that sounded cool, buy a flanger because you want to use a flanger or because you're looking for something you hear in your head that is not coming out of your rig.
Buy the best pedals you can afford at the time...this is not to say that all good pedals have to cost a lot of money but if you want a good flanger don't go to GC.com or ebay or whatever and buy a $9 flanger because you want one and you have $10 so thats all you can get, go try some flangers, try all the flangers you can find and then pick the one you want and then save for it and get it...in the long run you'll save money since you won't have to go through a half dozen flangers to get the one plus if you ever decide to sell it, if you bought quality you'll sell it and loose little to no money, not true if you're selling a second hand $9 flanger.
Alright, i'm off my soap box now. Just my own 2 cents from playing music for the past 21 years, I've learned a lot and believe me, i've made almost all of the mistakes Im warning you about, so this is experience speaking not some crap I read, cut and pasted form the internet.
Enjoy yourself and let the music show you the way.