Little break on drawings. We had heat wave in Finland and it was so hot in my flat I didn’t find energy to draw. I wrote more about pedalboard project over a year ago. Goal was to have pedalboard which stays the same and can do everything I want. It stayed same for over a year. It wasn’t as good as I wanted. One problem being it still needed amp. When I heard about Victory’s V4 amps’ latest iterations with headphone output I started to want one.
I got Victory V4 The Sheriff. It is their “plexi” or “Marshall” amp. V4 amps are big pedal sized amps with Two Notes Torpedo build in. They don’t use name Torpedo but it is Torpedo. Sheriff was the missing piece. It allowed to have whole setup on pedalboard. I don’t use cabinets. When I got Revv D20 there weren’t pedal sized amps with this quality.
After having the amp for few weeks I am quite happy with it. I was disappointed with cabinet presets it come with. Most of those were nonsense. Guy who made them didn’t understand he was making them for everyone to use. All use same cabinet model. Amp comes with several Victory amp models but presets use only one and most use terrible reverb. After uploading couple models I got earlier and setting usable presets it is not a problem any more but you have to make your own presets to get useful cabinet presets.
New amp required some pedal changes. Distortion section changed completely. Revv G2 wasn’t needed anymore because amp can do same level of distortion and more. Don’t need gain staging because I don’t play live. Revv G3 was also on same ball park with new amp and I didn’t like how it sounded into dirty amp. Fallout Cloud left the board because I had problems making it sound good with new amp.
DOD Carcosa became new fuzz. I had considered it before but wasn’t sure about it because it was so different from what I am used to. Gave it a change because it is cheap compared to other fuzz pedals. Should have got it earlier. With new amp I get almost everything I could think I want from a fuzz pedal. Before and After controls makes it really versatile. Switch for clean and dirty amp helps making it sound good either way. I have had problems making Big Muff style fuzzes sound good with dirty amps. Now such problems with Carcosa.
I wasn’t sure if amp alone gave enough distortion for everything. Considered couple options. KMA Wurm 2 was available at local store and I have wanted to get the original version for some time. Bigger size stopped getting one. Wurm 2 is smaller and has top mount. Wurm 2 is based on Boss HM-2 but can do much more. I have it in the HM-2 setting. Have to try other setting later. HM-2 sound has been enough for now.
Took some other pedal off to make room for amp. After some Tetris with the board I realized I had room for more pedals. Rather than putting pedal I took off I added pedal the board was missing. Pedal I took off had not got that much use. Got KMA Queequeg 2 after watching too many Way Huge Atreides videos. Pedalboard could do everything Atreides could except octave down. Now it can do that too. Walrus Monument is latest addition. I had wanted tremolo. Didn’t get one earlier because I thought Night Wire would be enough. When I had room and power for one more pedal, tremolo pedal after amp made sense.
I still don’t know what to do with Lost Highway. I doesn’t spark as much joy I want but I am not sure if another phaser could give what I want from phaser better than Lost Highway. If you could drop rate to 1/4 of what it currently is it would be what I want.