Before you judge my plan of having up to fifteen pedal pedalboard I want to explain what I want from pedal board. I want it to be “can do everything I want” pedal board. If I want spaghetti western guitar I would get it without changing anything. If I want ambient guitar I would get it. If I want high gain metal I would get it. I would get any of this with less than half of pedals but I would have to change pedals if I want something else. While planning pedal board I have used five or six pedals at time. I don’t want to change pedals when I want something else and more importantly I don’t want to be checking new pedals. Just want pedal board which stays the same for long time.
The last part won’t happen at first. I will have twelve pedals at first. Not sure if I will go to fifteen pedals. These twelve pedals get me quite close to what I want. But I will get big enough pedal board for fifteen pedals, volume pedal and one or two expression pedals. At first there is only one pedal taking expression pedal but I might get another. These are planned pedals and their order.
Tuner
Gate
Earthquaker Devices Night Wire
Fender Lost Highway
EHX Tone Corset or Seymour Duncan Doubleback
Revv G2
Revv G3
Catalinbread Giygas
Chase Bliss Tonal Recall
DOD Rubberneck
Surfy Industries Surfybear Compact
Walrus Audio R1
Reason why I have harmonic tremolo and phaser right after gate is both of those pedals react to playing dynamics. Both could be after dirt pedals but I think they work good enough before them. Some guitarist prefer phaser before dirt in any case. Surfybear will be main reverb. R1 will be there for everything what real spring reverb can’t do. There are special reverbs which can do what R1 can’t but R1 can cover the basics and some more.
There are two analog delays. But those aren’t your typical three know analog delays. For example Tonal Recall can be interesting sounding chorus pedal. Both sound quite different and can do different things better than the other. I want two delays so I can stack them. I think both can be bright enough when needed. Not digital delay bright but bright enough. That said next pedal is probably digital delay which can do more than these two.
After twelve or thirteen pedals I have no idea what to get for last two or three pedals. I can think of few pedals which would give me thing or two but those would only give bit different flavor of what I already have. I don’t want situation where I have many pedals which can do same thing. With R1’s spring reverb and Surfybear it is not a problem because I will always use Surfybear for spring reverb. Lost Highway is nearing situation where I am not sure if I have to have it on pedal board because I can do almost the same thing with other pedals.
Videos of less traditional pedals haven’t been too inspiring. I don’t need to make my guitar sound like synth. I have synths which sound like synths. Problem with some pedal demos is demos show extremes of pedal and you don’t get to hear how they sound with less extreme settings. Pedals can have sweet spots but some demos don’t show them. They show how far pedal can go. Then it is a surprise when someone shows how to get useful sounds from that pedal.