ADHD ideas for a Minipedal Pedalboard.

So I'm totally stealing this from Effects Bay but I thought it was an interesting idea. I'm not a huge fan of the mini pedal craze because I have big feet and don't want my pedals packed together. Actually, as much as I love pedals, I'm kind of a minimalist. I prefer to get most of my tones from my guitar volume knob and the amp as much as I can. But pedals can certainly add color and so I thought about it. Assuming I was using a clean pedal platform, how would I set up a mini pedalboard?

TC Electronic Polytune Mini Tuner- I own the original. Tuners are kind of boring but being out of tune is amateur hour. Put a tuner on your board.

Xotic SP Compressor- This is one of the best compressors I've ever played through. Make your cleans fatter and give your drive more sustain.

MXR Phase 95. As a lover of all things Phaser and Vibe related this thing is fantastic. I like putting he phase in front of drive pedals to get a bit more of a vibe type sound out of them.

Mooer Green Mile- It's a TS9 but with true bypass and the right chip. Great for stacking with the SL Drive or doing the SRV thing with a clean amp.

EWS Little Fuzzy Drive. This thing is a bit fuzzy and a bit of a distortion. Very versatile, very tiny.

Xotic SL Drive- Great overdrive sounds, great Marshall-y tones. The SL Drive in Superbass mode is something people don't use enough. It sounds freaking amazing, stack it with the Green Mile or the Little Fuzzy Drive.

Mooer Trelicopter- I've recently started playing around with Tremolo again after years of ignoring it., and this thing has great reviews. The other option might be a chorus pedal. I like these after the drive pedals for more subtle effects.

TC Electronic Flashback Mini- Having a programmable delay pedal in such a small pedal format is cool. Just store your settings in your phone and "beam" them between songs.

I'd probably put it all on a PedalTrain Nano+ which should be just about right for a Mini pedal board.

Then I'd power it with a 1Spot which comes in the familiar daisy chain or their new isolated power brick.

So that's about it. Why not a mini wah? I don't know, I'm not sold on the mini wah yet. I like the full size pedal for that.

Top Pedal Releases of 2016

2016 has been a rough year for a lot of people but there have been some amazing pedals released. While it isn't quite over most new gear releases will hold off until the 2017 winter NAMM show. So I thought I'd run down my favorite pedals released this year.

Digitech Whammy Ricochet- Whammy's are just fun, I had one for a bit but it never found a permanant place on my board. That said the Ricochet is perfect if you don't need the real time control of a rocker pedal. It can bounce your sound up and down for you via preselected settings.

DOD Carcosa Fuzz- A versatile fuzz that isn't a fuzz face or muff clone the Carcosa fuzz carves out a unique niche but also covers a lot of territory. It's also reasonably priced at $99 and only from PGS.

Keeley Bubbletron- Robert Keeley and crew have been knocking it out of the park lately. The Bubbletron incorporates a load of features including a flanger, phaser, and step filter that can be controlled with an envelope filter to respond to your pick attack. You can choose your sensitivity to the pick attack and roll it off for more traditional sounds. A must have for tone explorers or for people who like a lot of options but don't have extra space on their pedalboards.

Keeley Monterey Fuzz Vibe- This is my pedal of the year. I did a review HERE and can't get over how fantastic this pedal is.  While it may be Mr Keeley's Hendrix in a box it's certainly not limited to it. It's so easy to dial in other sounds as show in THIS post and so incredibly versatile. Don't let the $300 price tag scare you. You could buy 9 pedals and not have this range of sounds.

MXR Echoplex Delay- Man this sounds nice. Combining the Echoplex preamp with a Carbon Copy delay and voicing the repeats a bit darker makes for an incredible sounding easy to use delay pedal. It might be a one trick pony but it does that trick amazingly well.

MXR Phase 95 mini- If you love phasers or mini pedals then this pedal is for you! The Phase 95 has built in sounds from the Phase 90 and 45 as well as a Script and Modern switch. Still it's super easy to use with one knob. The 45 is a much more subtle sound so if you ever tried a Phase 90 and found it to be to much this might do the trick.

TC Electronic Corona SCF- This limited eddition pedal marks the end of the more expensive SCF pedal made famous by players like Eric Johnson and Paul Gilbert and is revered in studios around the world. But due to sourcing problems the SCF will soon be discontinued. Not to fear the Tone wizards at TC have made those sounds availble via toneprint and loaded them all on this pedal. It sounds heavenly.

I'm also looking forward to TC Electronics new bargain line. 13 pedals priced at $50 available at Guitar Center here in the states. Several of these sound really promising and while the cork sniffers won't like them I imagine I'll be adding these to my budget recommendations rather quickly.

What else did I miss? Let me know

TC Electronic Polytune Classic Review

Of all the cool pedals out there one of the least exciting and yet most important pedals is a tuner. There are a lot of great options in tuners others than pedals. Clip on tuners seem to be very popular as well as smartphone apps. But if you have a pedalboard a tuner is almost a necessity. I picked up the TC Electronic Polytune about three years ago and it has served me very well so I thought I'd post a review.

The Polytune was the first polyphonic tuner on the market. Polyphonic means that it can "listen" to all your strings being played at the same time and hear which strings might be out of tune. Just strum your guitar and watch to see which strings are a little flat or sharp. It can also function in Chromatic mode, meaning just one string at a time. With the tuner engaged you can play any note on the fretboard and almost instantly see if it is in tune. You also have the option of Needle mode or Strobe mode depending on what your preference is. If you prefer to tune half step down there is a button on the back which shifts the poly mode down or up a half step. The newer models also include a drop D option which is really cool.

I run my Polytune in two different places on my board. Normally I run it right after my wah pedal and before anything else. This insures that my dry signal coming from my guitar is unaffected my any modulation. It also acts as a mute switch if I need it, no one wants to listen to you tune and if I need to cut the sound off it lets the delay taper off naturally. The other place I will sometimes put my Polytune is off of the second out on my delay pedal. This allows me to leave my Polytune on without it affecting anything else and I can see at anytime if I'm in tune, however I loose the mute switch option when I do this. Another cool feature of the pedal is that it has an in and out power jacks. This allows me to leave everything on the board plugged in with a daisy chain and then just plug in the Polytune when I'm ready to jam. Awesome!

Lots of Options 

Even though I plug in my Polytune I like to keep a battery in it for when I'm restring my guitars. It's faster and more accurate than my phone app. I find the Chromatic mode to be more accurate than the Polyphonic mode and that's what I use most of the time but for a quick check, the Polyphonic mode is great. I've been very happy with my purchase of this pedal, it's well built and works great.
This review was completely unsolicited, I received no compensation for it and all views and opinions are my own.