Pedal stacking madness! Just A/B'd and stacked 10 pedals

[TwilightOdyssey]

In an attempt to narrow down option envy for my band's upcoming recording session (debut album), I did something I've been meaning to do for months: Took out all of my most-used pedals and tried various stacking combinations of fuzz/drive with different boosts.

The pedals I used are:

Hartman Tommy Bolin fuzz
Death By Audio Fuzz War
Fulltone Ultimate Octave
Hip Kitty Oxblood
Way Huge Green Rhino
Xotic BB Preamp

z.vex SHO
Catalinbread Naga Viper
Thundertomate Phil Hilborne boost

Nick Greer Sweetback Driver

I ran each pedal (a-f) into each boost (1-3) with and without my 'always on' Sweetback Driver. For example: I ran the Tommy Bolin into the SHO (A1), then into the Naga (A2), and then into the Thundertomate (A3). I did this for all 6 fuzz/drive pedals making a total of 36 combinations!

The signal chain was as follows:

Agile AL2800 w/Bare Knuckle Riff Raff/Stormy Monday set > Maestro PS-1 Phase Shifter (powered on but in the 'off' position; used solely as a tone press) > [Fuzz/Drive pedal] > [boost] > Sweetback Driver > Radial ABY > EAST Studio 2/Emi Wizards > Bumbox Cielo/Emi Swamp Thangs. I swapped out the fuzz/drive and boost pedals for each combination, so there was only one of each at any given time.

The resultant 3 hour test was crazy fun ... and just plain crazy!

I made notes of each combination for future reference.

My favourite combinations are:

Tommy Bolin fuzz/SHO: midrange-heavy mild crunch. Very transparent and articulate.

Tommy Bolin fuzz/Thundertomate: Killer sounding tight/compressed crunch tone. Delicious rhythm/riffing tone.

Fuzz War/SHO: Amazing, HUGE high gain fuzz tone. (No Sweetback)

Fuzz War/Naga: About the same gain level as with the SHO, but darker/crunchier. (No Sweetback)

Oxblood/Sweetback: Midrange crunch tone, very Thin Lizzy Marshall sounding ... think "The Boys Are Back In Town".

BB Preamp/Naga: Super transparent lead tone. Nice Marshall-type of flavour.

BB Preamp/Thundertomate: GREAT mild crunch rhythm tone! (No Sweetback)

 

[bigmack209]

Re: Pedal stacking madness! Just A/B'd and stacked 10 pedals

I'm sooo jealous. That's nice. You'd better sound good!

EDIT: just looked up your band. Sweet! I really like it!

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Pedal stacking madness! Just A/B'd and stacked 10 pedals

Thank you, sir!

Yes, I will be making sound clips of the ones noted above this weekend ...

 

[everdrone]

Re: Pedal stacking madness! Just A/B'd and stacked 10 pedals

amazing! looking forward to clips and album

 

[Andrew Lamprecht]

Re: Pedal stacking madness! Just A/B'd and stacked 10 pedals

Very cool!!

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Pedal stacking madness! Just A/B'd and stacked 10 pedals

Updated all of the tones above with active links. Mic'd my rig from 5 ft away, forehead height, using a Cascade Fat Head II ribbon mic.

Sorry for the crapulent camera pics!

 

[everdrone]

Re: Pedal stacking madness! Just A/B'd and stacked 10 pedals

very cool man! I was thinking you were gonna use an iso cab (GAS), awesome to go another route!

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Pedal stacking madness! Just A/B'd and stacked 10 pedals

very cool man! I was thinking you were gonna use an iso cab (GAS), awesome to go another route!

Well, I could certainly use the iso cab, but since this is the rig I will be using for the album (along with a couple of other amps and my mid-70s Hiwatt cab), I really did it as a ref for the album ...

 

[erksin]

Re: Pedal stacking madness! Just A/B'd and stacked 10 pedals

You really should run the Naga Viper in front of those drives and not the other way 'round - it does best doing the boosting rather than being boosted.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Pedal stacking madness! Just A/B'd and stacked 10 pedals

You really should run the Naga Viper in front of those drives and not the other way 'round - it does best doing the boosting rather than being boosted.

Ah, thanks! I will give that a try! Will it also work with the fuzz pedals that way?

 

[erksin]

Re: Pedal stacking madness! Just A/B'd and stacked 10 pedals

Ah, thanks! I will give that a try! Will it also work with the fuzz pedals that way?

Kinda depends - do you have much experience with treble boosters?

IMO, they work best as they were intended - slamming the front end of your amp (or another overdrive or distortion) and focusing the upper mids. I have tried (for the sake of experiment) boosting the Naga and vice versa with a '69 and a couple different Tonebenders and its okay, but not really its strong point - unless you love gobs of compression.

 

[DankStar]

Re: Pedal stacking madness! Just A/B'd and stacked 10 pedals

I didn't know you could successfully mic a cab a country mile away like that! Is your amp cranked pretty loud to make it work?

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Pedal stacking madness! Just A/B'd and stacked 10 pedals

I didn't know you could successfully mic a cab a country mile away like that! Is your amp cranked pretty loud to make it work?

Truth be told, I would normally supplement a mic that far with a couple of close ones, but didn't feel like doing all that work. Since I am running two amps, I needed the mic far enough away to capture both sounds, which is why I only used the distant mic.

To directly answer your question, yes: it was quite loud.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Pedal stacking madness! Just A/B'd and stacked 10 pedals

Kinda depends - do you have much experience with treble boosters?

Yes.

IMO, they work best as they were intended - slamming the front end of your amp (or another overdrive or distortion) and focusing the upper mids. I have tried (for the sake of experiment) boosting the Naga and vice versa with a '69 and a couple different Tonebenders and its okay, but not really its strong point - unless you love gobs of compression.

Well, last night I tried running the Naga both in front of and behind a couple of my fuzz pedals.

First thought -- it really is amazing how different the tone is just by swapping the position of the drive and boost. Not efficient for live use (Unless you have two of one pedal and sandwich the other), but you can get two very different tones and gain levels simply by switching the order of the pedals.

I kept the Naga on the same settings I was using before and where I like it the best with my amps when used on it's own -- Range and Heat at max, and Boost at 12 o'clock. I dialed in a thick, semi-saturated tone on my Bumbox Cielo/Eminence Wizard setup and tried the amp with each pedal alone.

The Naga on its own is great, as I've stated elsewhere. Definitely my favourite "not clean" boost of the day. It tightens the amp right up, cleans up any overhang, and gives a nice boost in volume and clarity. With my amps pushed to the point of power valve distortion, the Naga on its own is my current favourite lead tone.

In front of the Tommy Bolin fuzz, the tone changed in significant ways -- it got much thinner/brighter, more compressed, and had a LOT more gain. The sound, overall, was much more like using a fuzz face type of fuzz instead of the Sam Ash.

Behind the Tommy Bolin, the Naga did the same thing it did to my uneffected tone -- gave it a mild boost, tightened it up, and increased the volume without drastically altering the tone.

For my application, I much prefer using the boosts to add a slight boost and more of a harmonic layer than just slamming the front of the amp.

Also, I found the tone to be much more compressed with the Naga slamming the drive pedals instead of the reverse, which it adding a general, overall boost and tone colourtation.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Pedal stacking madness! Just A/B'd and stacked 10 pedals

Have you tried using the ABY box near the beginning of your chain so you could feed each amp with a different setup of stomps? Makes for some really great combined amp tones.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Pedal stacking madness! Just A/B'd and stacked 10 pedals

Have you tried using the ABY box near the beginning of your chain so you could feed each amp with a different setup of stomps? Makes for some really great combined amp tones.

You know ... that NEVER occurred to me!!

New experiment time!!

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Pedal stacking madness! Just A/B'd and stacked 10 pedals

You can run different OD or distortions to each amp and when they are both played you still have that thick distortion but there is more clarity, if that makes any sense. I guess it has to do with the different frequencies and clipping of each stomp, and being different, the one fills in what the other misses. That's as technical as you're gonna get from me.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Pedal stacking madness! Just A/B'd and stacked 10 pedals

... and you call yourself a doctor!

 

[Frankly]

Re: Pedal stacking madness! Just A/B'd and stacked 10 pedals

When you stack them, do all of them turn on when you step on the top one? Do you have to stand on a milk crate to step on the top one? How do you know that they all turn on at the same time? What happens if one falls over, or even a few start to lean in a Pisa-esque manner?

Thank you.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Pedal stacking madness! Just A/B'd and stacked 10 pedals

When you stack them, do all of them turn on when you step on the top one?

Sometimes.

Do you have to stand on a milk crate to step on the top one?

No, I've been working on my Lightness Kung Fu.

How do you know that they all turn on at the same time?

Use my ears.

What happens if one falls over, or even a few start to lean in a Pisa-esque manner?

I patiently re-stack them.

Thank you.

You're welcome.