My First Pedalboard!

Gear
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Yeah, I have. Some in my cart, and I have $106 credit on Amazon. Just trying to think what I want to get. I am seriously considering another Zoom MS-60b.
I started messing with more effects in it, and went to the website, and there are like 35 more cloned pedals and amps you can add to it.

And they are all the pedals I am looking at.
AND it even has the Moog envelope filter @Gio was showing me (that cost $4000) you can add to it. It has everyTC Electronics pedal I was thinking about. Hall of Fame, flashback, 2x corona chorus, it has so much.

It has every pedal in the Source Audio Soundblox 2 Bass Mini modeler that I like, and better graphic controls, so I may even send that back even tho I like it so much, the MS-60b is so much more versatile.

Anyway, when I figure out what I am getting and order, I am getting some of those foot switch toppers too.

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would like to try one. if the amp modeling is correct, it could be a very interesting part of a pedalboard, as a mobile all-in-one setup.

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I am not an expert in amp modeling, but I love the sounds. I like the little Markbass 3.

You can add 6 more, each with a cab, and cabs are interchangeable. Unlike the B1four, the amp and cab are in the salami patch. You can select the cab on the last page of settings for the amp.
Or turn the cab off. So even tho this only has 4 patches per chain, instead of 5, you don’t need 2 patches for amp and cab

Be sure to look at the effects list online. The ones with a blue * are ones you can add thru usb.

I am using mine primarily as a compressor, well 6 compressors, and very good ones I might add.

I want another for a chorus, another for Reverb / delay, one for big muff / fuzz face / rat / mxr bass fuzz , another…

I am not going to run out and get 6, but I could see a pedalboard with 5-7 of these being great.

I wrote in another thread about how I like single effects, or just an effect with an amp / cab and noise gate. I don’t like setting up a chain Comp / octave / fuzz / flanger. But if I set up Comp on one, octave on another, use my Plumes OD, and then have flanger and cab on another, I love it.

Then I read in the instructions that some effects take up more processing, and if you overload it, it won’t allow you to add the last patch, and if it’s near full there can be some delays where it can’t keep up.
So that explains why ai don’t like the sound when it’s all in one unit.

But it’s a great pedal to set up single effects and or just amp, and cycle thru them (you can set up a foot switch chain for order to cycle thru your patches). So that’s how I am using it.

Instead of buying an Envelope filter, cuz that’s what I was thinking of, I am just gonna get another one of these for now, and who knows, maybe more later.

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So I’ll try here rather than starting a new thread. I don’t want to buy something and have it not work. So it’s about daisy chaining pedals to a power supply. You know those cables that you can share 5 pedals to one outlet. Say you have a 9v outlet at 300 mV. You put 5 pedals on it that each require 100 mV, but each would get only 60 mV. So, it shouldn’t work. But you really would only have let’s say 2 pedals on at once, so they could both get up to 150 mV, correct?

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Interesting question @itsratso… I’m looking forward to what the experts here have to say about that.

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If you replace “mV” with “mA” you are mathematically correct. You can add up the current requirements (mA) of all the pedals and that has to be less than the current rating of The power supply. The catch is that many pedals don’t turn off when bypassed, so they are still drawing current unless physically unplugged. Overloading the power supply may over time cause the power supply to fail or it may cause a condition that damages the pedals, depending on how things are designed. It’s best to get a big enough power supply or divide the pedals onto more power supplies. Dividing has the advantage of having a spare power supply On hand if one fails.

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Yeah. Even a cheap power supply is better than daisy chaining in this case.

I have a super cheap Donner power supply that advertised itself as isolating (tl;dr, it isn’t, they just put choke coils on each outlet) but still sounds fine on my board. That said, now that my board is more or less done it would be the first obvious upgrade.

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Yeah, I got a cheap, possibly donner, or no name one, and used it a bit, and then came across one line not turning on one of my pedals, then I saw I was still on a 100ma line, and this one needed 500ma. I had one, but it was a shared 9v/12v/18v.
Then I realized there was one other port that was 300ma 9v/12v/15v/18v. And all the others were 100ma. I realized that I thought since most of the cheap supplies were similar, that they were the same, and didn’t think to look to closely, buying not just for lower price, but mostly what would arrive soonest, this was first days of Covid lockdown and even with Amazon Prime, many things were taking a month or more to arrive.

A month later when I was building the board with more pedals, and found this, I quickly returned it and upgraded a little bit.
Went with

and it has pretty good power options. I like it, and I am not really strong with electrical, but it seems to offer much more of what I wanted and needed.

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I think that’s actually the same circuit as one of the Donners. When I was looking I found teardowns and most of the cheap ones were using the same or very similar boards. And lying about being isolated and instead just putting a choke on each power outlet.

Easy to test, take a multimeter, set to resistance, unplug the thing, and see if any of the two grounds of the outputs are connected.

For a decent PS with isolated grounds most of the options start around $80 IIRC.

That said, I have not had ground loop issues with my Donner yet. I guess the chokes sort of work?

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Yeah,I was after the 300ma instead of 100ma.
Most I saw in the $35 and under range had all or most 100ma, with one to 3 at 300ma and the two selectable with higher volt output.

I think this was one of the only ones I found, in stock, with fast ship, for $35. It very well could be a donner copy, or joyo, or koogo. It is Cailine, and those guys not only copy each other, I would bet a lot of them, or their parts come from the same factories. Probably factories making some of the bigger name pedals as well, just like the production line Basses.

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finally my new pb is done! it’s the large sized gator, had the small one but bought too many pedals (oops). so from bottom to top:

  1. source audio spectrum envelope filter: amazing, the funk machine. makes you bootsy jr in seconds. 6 presets, infinitely customizable from mild to crazy. make my funk the p-funk.
  2. zoom b1four: you just can’t get away from it. use it more for a rhythm machine than an all in one box, but i do have some sounds in it i use. and i discovered one very important thing for practice that almost nothing i have found has - the aux out plays not just to the headphone jack but also to the line out so you don’t have to wear headphones to practice!
  3. hotone wally plus looper: just the friggin most adorbz thing on earth. and you can record 11 samples of 30 min each (!!!) with it.
  4. darkglass vintage overdrive: yes, darkglass. the metal guys. except this isn’t metal. you can really dial in some mellow tube driven sounds with it. and of course, screaming metal sounds if you want. but it skews more umm… vintage. don’t use a lot of od, but love it.
  5. EHX pog chorus: yes, because i saw it on scotts bass channel. and i haven’t found another chorus that sounds like it. and like scott i (using my zoom) like to use it with a quick slapback type delay, and i throw in a touch of reverb. shimmer galore, really pretty. pog gives you the note you play, the note an octave lower and the note an octave higher all at once for a really big sound.
  6. TC electronic hall of fame 2 reverb: 11 presets and a ton of downloadable sounds through tc’s toneprint app. (see next).
  7. TC spectracomp compression: the secret weapon. so i kept hearing about how every bass player needed compression and to never turn it off. and every compression demo i heard was… subtle. like is this doing anything subtle. but i bought this. and was unimpressed. so before sending it back, i tried the toneprint thing. this uses an app that downloads new sounds to your pedal through your cellphone and your bass’s pickups - super clever (I am using the one called the weapon) and my mind was blown, really tight super punchy tone. if you just tap your thumb you instantly get the larry graham KA-TWANG. if you struggle with getting a really funky sound, compression :grinning:. and yet still gives a nice smooth fingerpluck, just tight and fat. every bass player needs compression. never turn it off.
  8. Aguilar tone hammer di preamp: it was between this and the tech 21 paradriver, which i also have. i will sell the paradriver, but it was closer than i thought. the para sounds good and makes my ubass piezo pickup sound awesome. the TH also sounds good, you almost cannot make it sound bad but it has a huge flaw. some people say it isn’t a flaw because it’s not what it was designed to do. fair enough, but in the real world it’s what almost everybody expects it to do so i say flaw. it has a gain switch on it, with gain switch on you get overdrive/distortion. gain off, clean/no OD. so you dial in your preamp settings, get to a point in the song that needs a little growl and go to kick in the gain footswitch. you quickly scramble to unclick it, because your bass just got twice as loud. you have to decide if you want to use this preamp with the gain always off, or always on. there is no going back and forth. i have my darkglass for OD so it’s ok with me. but still mind blowing that they wouldn’t have made it unity gain between the two. i suspect a new version will be coming soon.

power is from the cheap but good caline power recommended by Tdub (thanx!). it is dead quiet so far and can power everything from the 18v Aguilar to the 500 mA zoom. i used those little cable organizer things to lock down my cables and keep it neat. the bottom cords that look kind of chaotic are actually tucked under the board lip and do not show when viewed straight on. Switch toppers for Pam. OK WAKE UP, sorry didn’t mean to rattle on. just thought i would share. let me know if this king james bible sized post didn’t answer any questions.

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@T_dub I’ve been looking at the one on Amazon. Does it give the option to reverse polarity on one of the outputs if need be?

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BTW, does everyone know what unity gain means? Cuz I didn’t. If you have any pedal with a volume knob on it (output, master, etc).
Click the pedal on, play a note, click pedal off, play same note, adjust pedal volume so both notes are the same volume. So, duh, now when you kick in your effect, you’re not louder or quieter then before. A free dB meter app on your phone makes it easy, don’t try to get it perfect, close enough is good enough. On a lot of pedals if you change the other settings it will change this, so dial this in last.

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That’s because the POG is an octaver/pitch shifter, not a chorus :slight_smile:

They are awesome too, great choice. I kind of want one but didn’t want to spend quite that much on an octaver.

I also like the Vintage Microtubes a lot, great pedal. Lots of cool tube-screamer like sounds in there, yet still with the Darkglass deep bottom end.

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Yes you are correct. But I also haven’t heard an Octaver that sounds like it either :joy:

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Hah!

Well I think the POG is pretty highly regarded, so excellent choice there. I’ve heard really good things about its tracking.

Hall of Fame 2 is also a great pedal, I almost bought one. Nice board overall! :slight_smile:

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Usually that is done in cables - you get cables that are wired to reverse the polarity.

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As far as I know, it means that the input level and the output level are the same (i.e., no amplification while some kind of sound shaping is done). Active basses often have a unity gain active circuit, such that you can switch from active to passive without a noticeable change in signal level.

Not sure if that helps…

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They have adapter cords (included) that reverse the polarity if needed.

Basically if you need it reversed, you use one of the two cords that are reversed.

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Yeah in my experience most people just use the cables for this.

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