Two pedal boards?

[Mr. C]

I've been using a Boss me 50 which I like okay. I've been playing w/ the idea of selling it and just putting a few pedals together. Anyways while reading a back issue of GP about pedalboards and multieffects pedals...some musicians use a multieffects pedal and also have a pedal board. I would think an A/B pedal would be needed for this. How would this be set up? One guitar to two pedal boards to one amp.? Thanks for any help.

 

[ranjam]

Remember, I am not a rocket surgeon, nor do I play one on TV. So here goes my 2¢, and never forget that free advice is worth exactly what you paid for it .
Some rack processing and the like are designed to work with line levels, have a low impedance input/output, and do perform better in an FX Loop, be it series or parallel. Those stomp boxes that were invented around 1842 were designed to work with instrument levels, and have a high impedance input/output. They tend to run better between the guitar and amplifier input. If someone tells me they run both, my best guesstimate is something like the ME50 is in the FX Loop, and the simple stomp boxes are plugged in the front end, between the guitar and amplifier. The ME50 is fine, but I'll wager you use the same two or three effects, so getting a couple of stomp boxes is definitely not a bad idea. Then you can spend the next thirty years finding the right overdrive or the right flanger for you .

 

[Light]

One of those floor things? It's just another pedal, one that does a lot of stuff, sure, but just another pedal. Just tag it on to the end of the line. Or the front. Or somewhere in the middle. Where ever you want, really.

No real difficulty here.



Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi

 

[Mr. C]

Ranjam you're right. I do only use specific effects on the ME50. I don't have the $ to put together a board w/those effects right now, even if I sold the ME50.

I do plan on getting one pedal however, and have a few others that I could make a sm. pedal board with. So I would in effect have two pedal boards that I want to run separate from each other. (Sort of like being able to switch through patches on the ME50). Putting the ME50 through the effects loop sounds like a good idea...I suppose I would use line out instead of the out to amp? Doesn't using the effects loop bypass the preamp? I assume using distortion that doesn't make much difference, but clean won't it?

Light, I don't think you understood what I meant. Hopefully what I wrote above clears it up. Of course maybe it doesn't make much sense what I'm trying to do, but I'm like that sometimes until someone points that out.

 

[Light]

Light, I don't think you understood what I meant. Hopefully what I wrote above clears it up. Of course maybe it doesn't make much sense what I'm trying to do, but I'm like that sometimes until someone points that out.

Doesn't the ME50 have a bypass switch?

You can still run them all in series, though it may be more of a tap dance than you want. But you get that with individual pedals anyway, so...


If you want to switch between the two setups, you could use an A/B box and mix the two signals together afterwards (you can just use a Y cable if you are never using the two setups at the same time, or you can use a buffer amp of some sort), or you could get one of THESE, which is really just a fancy A/B box. But all of that is more than you absolutely NEED to have. If you can do the dance, you can just put the ME50 in line with everything else, and put it in bypass when you aren't using it.


Oh, and no, and effects loop doesn't bypass the preamp, it comes between the preamp and the power amp. This provides a lower impedance signal to the effects, and lets the guitar hit the preamp unfettered. All of this typically makes for a more transparent signal chain. Depending on your point of view, that may or may not be a good thing. But putting the other effects in front of the amp and putting the ME50 in the effects loop is, from a practical point of view, no different from using everything in line before the amp, or everything in line in the effects loop.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi

 

[stevieb]

Oh, and no, and effects loop doesn't bypass the preamp, it comes between the preamp and the power amp.

Well, just can't pass up the opportunity to call out the Great and Mighty Wizard of Oz. Strictly speaking, you are right, Light, but the effects loop CAN bypass the preamp- routing like this:
Guitar>cable>pre-amp equipped effect>cable>amp's effects loop RETURN

and you have bypassed the amp's pre amp, or at least not used it at all.

I know, because that is how I get some use out of a Fender Deluxe 112 with a wacked pre-amp circuit. Works fine.

 

[Light]

Well, just can't pass up the opportunity to call out the Great and Mighty Wizard of Oz. Strictly speaking, you are right, Light, but the effects loop CAN bypass the preamp- routing like this:
Guitar>cable>pre-amp equipped effect>cable>amp's effects loop RETURN

and you have bypassed the amp's pre amp, or at least not used it at all.

I know, because that is how I get some use out of a Fender Deluxe 112 with a wacked pre-amp circuit. Works fine.

OK, sure, whatever.

So basically, you are using a semantic argument just so you can say I'm wrong. That probably says something about you, particularly since you start out by saying, "Strictly speaking, you are right."

So let me "correct" myself. If you use the effects loop the way the ranjam suggests, you are not bypassing the preamp section of the amp.

Happier?


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi

 

[stevieb]

Oh, fercrissake, Light, you really need to, well, LIGHTen up. Didn't you see the ? And anyway, the MAIN reason I pointed it out, was because I felt it is an occasionally-useful piece of info- knowing that, someone could:

Configure up their own hybrid amp (tube pre amp, SS power amp side of an all-SS guitar amp);

Configure up an all-tube amp from a mic pre and a guitar amp that uses SS pre amp and Tube power;

Save an otherwise useless guitar amp (what I did), or;

Get creative and try "stacking" any number of tube pres.

 

[ranjam]

Well, to get really complicated; I have run two pedal boards, the outputs going to a small mixer, and then into a good tube amplifier. I did this just to try out different board configurations. A good A/B box used backwards will do the same thing, but then you need to split your guitar so it feeds both pedal boards. This makes it complicated. Something like a Loop Bone simplifies things.
I went through a phase of owing every pedal ever created, and that caused a need for running two pedal boards, just so I didn't load the crap out of my guitar going through a plethora of pedals. Then I went through a purist snob phase, where I only ran straight into a quality vintage tube amplifier. Now that I am back into recording at home, I have a couple of small pedal boards. But they never run at the same time. I use the one board that most likely meets my needs for noodling about with the record light on. Both boards have an overdrive like a Keeley Blues Driver, but they will differ after that. Board 'A' will have a Leslie simulator, an octave box, and a Crybaby. Board 'B' will have a digital delay, a tremolo, and a chorus. I suppose for live playing a board 'C' could have an octave box, a delay, and a Crybaby. But then that's getting excessive. The point is that having too many pedals in series loads down you signal, and you invite Murphy's Law. Raise your hands; how many of you have spent an hour or two before an important gig tracking down a bum patch cord? Keeping your board down to four or at most five pedals (including a tuner) keeps it easier to troubleshoot, and your signal cleaner.

 

[stevieb]

...a plethora of pedals...

You should change your user name to El Guapo.

I do agree, KISS. About 15 or so years ago, I bought an RP-7 so I could have all the effects I really needed. After several years, I saved the 4 patches I use to the first four user positions, and hardly ever go anywhere else on the thing. I also made a PB, with tuner, TS7, Wah and tremolo/channel switches for my Deluxe Reverb- I'll bring either with me when rehearsing or playing out, but never both.

I have what I think of as "my sound" with either setup, feel no need to add more effects.