A moment of tonal dissatisfaction, a touch of OCD, and realizing that a compressor after the EP booster actually cuts out too much of the nice frequencies gave me the impetus to rearrange my pedalboard. And behold, I finally did it; I squeezed my entire overdrive section onto the first row. While having better visual appeal, the process flow is a lot more obvious to people who may want to use my pedalboard. You now know that I have a pre-overdrive booster to squeeze more gain and compression out of the AC Tone, BB Preamp and Timmy, and a post-overdrive booster to give more clarity and punch if the need arises (such as playing through a solid state amp).
And yes, I forgot to mention the new additions to my pedalboard. I recently acquired a BB Preamp, better known affectionately as the Andy Timmons pedal. This has the most gain out of the usual 3 Xotic pedals (RC/AC/BB), and to my ears, the most versatile of the lot. You can use this as a clean boost with a good, broad EQ tweak with the gain at zero (like how Lee Ritenour uses it), or set it to mild gain to push an already-overdriven amp to make it sound, well, for lack of a better term, better (like how Greg Howe uses it).
In my case, I cranked the gain all the way up. This is meant to be my Marshall sound; big, loud, chunky and punchy. Even at full tilt, the pedal isn't fuzzy or overly screechy in my rig, and retains the natural tone of my guitars. A Les Paul will sound thick and fluid. A Strat will sound spanky and throaty with a Blues growl. A Tele will still have the sparkle and twang.
I replaced my old-timer Korg DT-10 with a Pitchblack, more for real estate reasons than for tonal reasons. It's 2/3 the size of the DT-10, and true bypass. I didn't hear its effect on the tone until I made the switch, and immediately heard higher definition and more articulation out of my pedals, as if someone had tweaked the EQ in the upper-mids/lower-highs in the right direction.
I also realized that with the new arrangement of having the compressor before the EP makes the tone control useable again. Previously, when I turn the tone past 60%, the overall sound was too brittle and nasal. By cranking the EP to run at 18V, and having the bright switch off, the tone control became tamer and less fatiguing on the ear; setting it at zero gives a dark but warm wrap-around of the notes, and cranking it to full gives a nice treble bite that helps my Strat and Tele sound authentically vintage.
Sigh. Tone, the Never-ending Story, continues.
-JC
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