The "Nothing Sounds Good, Time to Tear Apart Board" Thread

[mathias]

Not just talking like, "I'm having a bad day playing or I accidentally left my tone rolled off and now it all sounds like mud." This is those "I need to reinvent everything" moments.

I'm currently going through and auditioning all my pedals in different spots, against other pedals of the same type, on studio headphones into a mixer and through my amp. Feels a little OCD but I feel like I'm making progress, and also finding some neat ways that break the traditional wah -> dirt -> modulation -> amp signal flow that we all love to ignore. A little bit sad inside that some of my custom pedals and ILF favorites that have been on my board for a long time aren't making the cut right now, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Granted, it still feels a little


So yeah.

How often do you do this? Does it "feels good man" or just make you more frustrated?

[sonidero]

Paging Neonblack...

If you have a pedal or pedals that you used to love but aren't really feeling now you should hide it in the sock drawer for awhile... Sometimes I just move my amp around or try a different guitar and everything works out... Also listening a at a decent vol to what the pedal sounds like in a room would prolly be better then headphones cause most people won't hear it that way anyway...

[mathias]

Yeah the same feeling is making me want to go play with Squier J Mascis guitars at a shop and try out new amps, too. Gotta reinvent the mind, body, and spirit of the guitar here.

[neonblack]

Hahaha yep. This is my life.

I would definitely wait. I've found around the 2 week mark is when I start thinking "Man, that would sound great with (insert pedal I've flipped).

Although, I will say that I recently flipped everything but tuner-delay-OD-looper and its helped me focus more on playing the instrument rather than the pedals, and helped me realize what I really need on my board.

[mathias]

I will definitely be keeping the pedals.. I've no problem flipping the cheapies but they're harder to get rid of, the custom stuff and handmade stuff all goes into the display cabinet in my office.

As far as

Also listening a at a decent vol to what the pedal sounds like in a room would prolly be better then headphones cause most people won't hear it that way anyway...

Some of this was 2AM must-fix-everything feeling when family was asleep, so I had to be on headphones. It's a good start for auditioning say, one basic fuzz against another, too, and eliminating amp breakup and interaction with other pedals to remember what just the pedal sounds like alone (I've had a lot of my pedals wired into a certain spot on my board for a looong time and didn't remember what hey sounded liked without a bunch of patch cables before/after)

[rfurtkamp]

I just pull stuff off/on as I need to.

Radical changes don't really occur no matter what I use, I sound like me and have for a long, long time.

I know what I want and I know how to get it. Most of the standard order I use is pretty much set in relative stone - but I can do very radical rerouting with the patch bay for a lot of it, and the master pedalboard feeding everything is all about interaction and I'm almost 3 years in on it now and don't intend to change.

The core of my stuff is what it is - if I need a radical change, I switch guitars and muck with the parametric EQ.

[Ghost Hip]

When I get this way, I tear all the stuff off my board, putnit back together, everything lands in the same spot, and for whatever reason it sounds better.

[BoatRich]

When I get this way, I tear all the stuff off my board, putnit back together, everything lands in the same spot, and for whatever reason it sounds better.

I'm pretty much the same way, I rearrange my board like twice a week but they're almost always the same unless it's for a specific purpose.

[mathias]

Trying out stacking ODs differently, and I have a new OD that I'm working into the mix. Currently playing with their various range of sounds (knob twiddling).. typically I just leave them on the board in a certain order with certain settings. So in some regards, this is productive.

[rustywire]

It's usually a bad idea to dial in all your shit to "late night" volumes.
Especially if you do most of your playing at other levels.

EQ is your friend, try turning knobs when you're flirting with those destroy/rebuild feels.
Some days, tube gear (in particular) just doesn't sound as/very good from where you previously left it.
Do you use a voltage regulator? Little details like that can greatly aide consistency...and should be mandatory for anything with a tube rectifier AFAIC.
But yeah, trial & error is the best chance for a relatively painless fix.
It isn't wise to make rash decisions in a rig you've carefully assembled over months/years...but playing the "what if I do this" game can really be the game changer you seek. Personally, I try to approach this type of situation in ways that are easily reversible.

[mathias]

Part of this is questioning whether the stuff I've built up over the years is what I want to sound like or whether to change/purchase/etc my way towards something different.

also, yeah, I'm exploring a lot more of the interaction between guitar vol/tone knobs and stacking and using tone knobs on pedals.. in the past I just would dial out the pedal's tone towards noon where it wasn't terribly shrill.

Inspired quite a bit by this quote from the post on the new Knobs site http://www.knobsdemos.com/an-introduction.html

Try subtelty
It's better if they don't know it's a chorus

This bit can be considered something of a more accessible note on the "always-on" sound. There's a lot to be said about applying effects just to the point where they are identifiable, and then dialing them back. The change will be felt, but hard to place.

Try three nearly inaudible effects. See how they combine. This may sound like a lot of pedalboard space for a subtle difference, but don't think of it that way. A grand piano is massive, and that's just how it has to be to make that sound. Every pianist knows there's no substitute, and this is really no different. You just haven't invented your piano yet. If it takes 8 pedals to find that ideal "base" sound, it's worth it. Besides, there are a number of pedals capable of doing this all on their own. The Warped Vinyl, or the BitQuest, or the Gears.


Try using a distortion / fuzz with the gain barely on. Dial back the volume on your guitar some. UNDERTONES. IT'S NOT A FUZZ ANYMORE, IT'S AN UNDERTONE BOX. Bit crushers work beautifully for this.

Add a drop of reverb, or a quiet delay, upper octave, flange, oscillation, arpeggio, loop. Take the most obnoxious, unusable pedal you've ever encountered, and put it one notch above absolutely undetectable. A / B it. Turn it off and on and see if you can hear a difference.

[rfurtkamp]

I certainly don't need 8 effects at 'barely on' - I agree on subtle for a couple things (baseline reverb, chorus if I want it), but past that if it's an effect I generally want to hear it.

What makes me sound like me more than anything beyond fingers and how I play are the 2mm picks, stainless strings, and a particular attack. It's not in the boxes, as much as I love 'em.

[mathias]

I think the idea is to encourage originality. It's not suggesting you literally do this, but instead do different things to find a new sound.

[rfurtkamp]

Never had a problem with finding my sound with what I had available or access to, so I suppose I don't get that part of it.

[KaosCill8r]

Part of the problem may be electronic. Put a bit of contact leaner on your plugs and plug them in and out of the effects jack sockets a few times to clean them. You guys have just had winter up there and the cold, damp air could of caused some corrosion on your plugs and sockets. I found that this can be the cause of lacklustre sound sometimes. A few corroded connections can make a big difference to sound quality in a signal chain.