Today’s Show Me Your Pedalboard entry is nice and compact and comes from bass player Brad! With the Mars Volta I was using not one, not two, not three, but four huge boards in my live rig. I’m fortunate in that I was able to play in a group that allowed for radical sonic experimentation, but traveling with four huge flight cases in addition to your amps and basses is a huge pain in the ass. Not mentioning when a single pedal would go down and then having to go pedal by pedal, board by board to figure out what connection came loose. You got to find a balance and got to find what works best for you! If you gig regularly and can fit your board into your back pack it makes traveling so much easier. As cliché as it is, less really is more, let’s take a look at what Brad is rocking out with:

Brad’s board begins with a Vintage Pro Co Rat reissue; Brad mentions that his Rat has been modified with the “Ruetz mod.” The Reutz mod basically reduces and controls the gain in the circuit which lets the pedal tighten up the low end. You apparently don’t need to solder anything to perform this mod, just got to cut the right cable! I had never heard of this mod before and now I want a Rat to try it out with. You can find more info on the Ruetz mod here.

Things move onto a MXR Carbon Copy Analog delay from the guys over at Jim Dunlop. The Carbon Copy is a really solid delay great for everything from short slapbacks to longer Steve Vai style lead delay trails. After the Carbon Copy is the classic BOSS DD-3 digital delay into a TC Electronics Ditto Looper. The Ditto Looper is a great little sampler, the Ditto Looper X2 is the larger version of the Ditto Looper that has some sampling features similar to the Line 6 DL4. Brad’s chain ends in a Radial Big Shot AB-Y line selector with an output going to a TC Electronics Polytune 2.

For some additional character for your board Brad might I recommend the Earthquaker Devices Dispatch Master? It’s a great delay/reverb and you can switch whether you want it to be a dedicated reverb or delay. Also give the Earthquaker Devices White Light Overdrive a try too! It’s a great overdrive that adds a clean layer of dirt and gets you some real cool 70’s rock tones. It makes your sound huge without it being overly gainy. Those are just my two cents though.

Thanks, Brad, for sending in your board! If you haven’t done so already, be sure to send in your board big or small to juan@pedalsandeffects.com and it can end up right here at Pedals And Effects! Until next time!

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Show Me Your Pedalboard: Brad

Pedals and Effects