Guitar playing back then was so exciting, productive and lots of fun until I started to adding more pedals into my setup. I played less and less as I spend most of my guitar time chugging a few power chords and tweaking the pedals to my liking. But in reality, all I need is a dirty sound and a clean sound. What frustrates me the most is when I chain the pedals, even with true bypass, I felt (or hear) that the tone of my guitar becomes more washed up with more pedals in the signal path. I think it has to do with the non-soldered contact points with the patch cables and the floor noise generated within the circuit of pedal itself.
The Tone
During the years of playing in a band or even by jamming with friends, the most enjoyable and memorable performance is when I don't have much gear onboard. I remember playing just with my Tele and Peavey Classic 30, cranking the amp up till I get a good loud distorted tone and clean it up with the guitar's volume knob. Talking about minimalist, an electric guitar thru an amp is as pure as you can get. And since then, I've been more of an amp guy rather than the guy with a big pedal board when it comes to tone. Even with the jam groups that I've been into lately, I'd bring my modified JCM900DR and an MXR Zakk Wylde overdrive into the studio and watch the grin on my everyone's face in the room when I start to play some tunes.
The Looper
I have a few 3dpt foot switches laying around from my previous ventures and I've acquired a few more stomps lately. I really want to use/maximize the pedals when I get a chance to join in a band again but I don't like the tone being sucked out by the chain from my guitar. "So, why not get a looper?", I told myself. Ebay had some nice bypass loopers for cheap but it I want something that will fit my needs. I want a looper that has a bypass all switch, that can act as footswitch to my amp (JCM900 or Carvin Legacy) and has an isolated loop for the amp's FX loop.
So the plan, instead of a 8 loop system, I only made 4 with a few additions
A cable would be running from the guitar to the looper and four cables from the amp. The amp would have the cable from the looper, a cable for the footswitch and a pair from the FX loop.
The gut shot
I've learned a trick on how to silence the other pedals when they are being bypassed. It's just not enough to disconnect the input feed from the circuit. Especially with boost, OD and distortion, they will just hum and the active path in the circuit will pick up the noise. To silence them, you have to ground them.
How it Supposed to Work
My pedal board is still in work. I'm still waiting for supplies (cables and connectors) I bought online. But the plan is ...
Guitar ->> TC Tuner ->> Looper - >> Amp >> FX Send ->> EQ Pedal ->> Looper ->> FX Return
Loop 1 - Zakk OD or TS808 Clone
Loop 2 - Wah + Whammy
Loop 3 - DS1 mod
Loop 4 - i dunno, a Phaser or Compressor?
Fx Loop - Chorus + Delay
How it should look like
In the next installment, I'll probably post a video of a working demo and a schematic of the looper so stay tuned.
