Pedal Points

To a guitarist, constructing a new pedal board might be akin to a Swiss pediatrician transferring her personal effects into a new suede purse … uhh, or something. In an act of uncalled for awesomeness, my buddy Mas recently bestowed upon me a couple bitchen vintage distortion pedals, necessitating the rearrangement and re-seating of my own personal effects. When I discovered that another friend, Winter (colleague, craftsman, and Thing-Fish referrer nonpareil), was going to wind up with some scrap lumber, I moved in.

 

Blank. Empty. Spaces.

A table saw cut or two later I had a sprawling canvas upon which to install my masterpiece.

Implements of ridiculousness.

As you might guess, we’re not talking about a Bob Bradshaw switching system here. This just needed to be a few stomp boxes anchored with Velcro. Not satisfied just to mount the devices on a plank of wood like a normal person, I set about “customizing” the new array. This eventually consisted of me wandering into the garage and finding a wrecked copy of the Captain Beyond album, Sufficiently Breathless. Opening the gatefold sleeve, I found that it was almost exactly the same width as the new setup. Bingo. So, yeah, now there’s a Captain Beyond album jacket embedded into my pedal board. It amuses me, ok?

Layout.

So now I have, left to right: Morley Bad Horsie wah-wah,  Boss TR-2 tremolo, Boss DS-1 distortion (of which, according to Wikipedia so how could it be wrong, Steve Rothery of Marillion is a notable user) (Thanks, Mas), MXR Micro Amp, Boss TU-2 chromatic tuner.

Perspective.

Above is what it might look like if you fell face down onstage near me.

Addendum: I’ve used this new configuration on one show now. Everything worked and nothing fell apart. Success.