05/07/13

On the Queen Elizabeth II Highway from Calgary to Edmonton

Canada

Just thought I would share this picture of my effect pedals for all the tech heads who have requested the lowdown.

As I had to travel light I had to ditch my MXR Pitch Transposer and Line 6 delay rack unit/pedal board system and come up with something new. After trawling the local music shops the solution came from Guitar Guitar in the shape of a TC Nova multi effects unit. The Nova has all the delay and harmonizing settings I need and has enough storage space for my programmed patches. The unit took a bit of time to learn but after a few hours it became very familiar, the only drawback that I had was that it took too long to move up the banks (approximately 1 sec) which seems like 10 seconds when you are playing a live set. I overcame this by ripping the Midi buddy form my old setup and MIDI’d it up to the Nova. Now I have instant patch changing. The on-board tuner is sufficient but because my eyesight is bad I decided to buy a stand-alone TC poly tuner which has a better display. All this was carried across the Atlantic as hand luggage and unlike my guitar arrived safe and sound. The first thing I had to do was mount all this shit onto a footboard. I found a sheet of high grade marine plywood lying behind a skip next to our hotel at Newark Airport, Mickey V then purchased a hand saw and proceeded to cut the ply to the appropriate size. The board was then painted matt black and day glo tape was added to the edges whilst the paint was still tacky. A few layers of gloss added the final protection, then the units were attached using Velcro technology. At each corner you will notice the anti-Mike Peters tank traps. These large hoops basically stop our wandering singer from standing on my unit and changing my presets. It was either that or bamboo spikes covered in monkey shit but he drew the line at that.

That is all.