See? I used the ‘or’ thing again in the title so that I can be cool. Ever since Coldplay did it on their new album, I’ve been trying to steal it every chance I get in order to perhaps somehow tap into their unique brand of British indie ‘cool.’ I don’t think it’s working. But I still have to throw in the ‘or’ titles as often as possible, because I’ve been seeing lots of famous people on television and on song titles and such stealing the ‘or’ as well, and pretty soon it’ll be so overused that I won’t even be able to be funny with it anymore. That’s what pop-culture media does. They spend billions of dollars figuring out what’s cool, and then they squeeze every last penny out of it. And then they dump it. Like, um, let’s say…David Spade.
But that is what my tone mentor told me. He said, ‘Quit trying to arrive at tone. Tone is a journey.’ And he was right. See, when I first started out, I would run around like a psycho trying to get my rig perfect…and then it wouldn’t be perfect, so I’d get all frustrated and then repeat the process…including the frustrated part. And his point was that there’s no way in this world that you’re going to know everything about tone, so you may as well just enjoy yourself as you journey on towards the best tone you’ve ever had. And then the next day, that day will be the best tone you’ve ever had. Hopefully. And then the next day. Don’t get so bogged down in having the greatest sound ever that you forget to have fun with it. And for you worship musicians, that you forget why it is you’re doing what you’re doing.
So now, I’m probably a little too much on the enjoyment side. I’m sure most of you are right there with me. You know, like, a cable goes out. ‘Well, a cable’s out. Guess I gotta redo my board.’ ‘Aw, blew a tube. Sucks man…now I gotta buy a new amp.’ ‘Blast, I broke a string. Well, I’ve been needing to add a Tele to the collection anyway.’ And I’m quite serious. So, as more pedals have come in (but only so that I can downsize, I promise! Wait…that makes no sense. But it does in a weird, gear junkie way, I promise…maybe…), I had to order some more Loop-Masters to fit everything and to streamline my board. So yesterday, as I’m down on my hands and knees for hour 3 of cable sorting, I decided to take some pictures; because I know, you’ve been here. And if you haven’t……you will. You don’t think so, but you will. And if you’re saying, ‘Oh, not me’, then you should be immediately regretting the decision to swing by this blog. And if you’re now leaving this blog because I just said that, and your curser is already moving to the Gear Page url, you’re done.
See, this is last month when I knew that my board was absolutely done:
And this is yesterday:
This is my bag of tools, accessories, and cables that weighs more than my amp:
It’s a sad life, I know. But the hope that I might one day actually have a tone that I don’t hate the next week, is worth dozens of 1992 LA Gear (remember, they were the first shoes to make light-ups? So score) bags of screwdrivers, truss rod adjusters, batteries, and trash (for some reason). And yes, those are cigar bags, I think. I bought some pedals from some guy at El Torito (not sure how my life happens), and he had them in these bags. I was like, ‘What awesome pedal-holders!’ Then I was playing at a church youth group, and the youth pastor complimented me on my taste in cigars. Uh, sorry children. So I keep them hidden now. Not that there’s anything wrong with cigars, if that’s your deal. I just have never been into sucking things that are on fire into my face.
And this is the click track that stays in the gear bag, too:
We use this at my church. I adore click tracks. Tempo is so overlooked, and so absolutely imperative. I have suggested this to certain worship leaders at certain churches while I’m playing lead guitar. And then the drummer’s ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ stares glaring into my soul make me humbly retreat back behind my pedalboard, re-tapping my delays for every new measure.
But, it eventually got done. Uh, for this week…I have another large piece of gear coming in next week that’s going to cause another re-do of the board. Score! See? A new pick, cable, or adapter is just an excuse to tear your board up and touch all that lovely tone. Like, literally touch…with your hands. You don’t know your gear until you’ve caressed them.
Here’s it for this week:
And of course, you gotta turn the lights off in the room, turn on all the lights on the pedals, and space ship it:
So, enjoy the journey. Don’t worry so much about the perfect tone. I mean, worry about it! Definitely worry about it, because it’s important…maybe the most important non-living thing in the whole world…even more important than some living things…and living people…but don’t stress so much that you don’t have fun, and that you can’t focus on worshiping God. Make sure the main things are the main things.
Um, but do make sure tone is one of those main things. Please. For the love of all that’s merciful. The awesome riff you play isn’t doing anything for anybody if it sounds bad. 
Splendid.
Karl.
You should really rack all these pedals.
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Just kidding. But you thought about it!
bro! C’mon leaving us hangin….. so what pedals are on the board right now???
I recognize a couple, but your embedded pics won’t enlarge for me to snoop at all of them!
Heh
Good call from Mike – ever think about something like a Voodoo Labs Ground Control set up? Or would it mess with the mojo of having the pedals right there at your feet (which is exactly why I WOULDN’T do it!)?
Also, I couldn’t help but notice that you’ve dumped one of your 2 Memory Lanes and added ANOTHER Timeline/MIDI system. Please explain (aside from the pure awesomeness of having people ask you to explain)…
How does that board not snap in half when you pick it up?
He’s had both Timelines, but he added another MIDI Mate, I think. Those two MIDI Mates are probably the size of my entire board. I’m sure that thing is fun to move around, eh?
downsizing? really?
outstanding work.
Mike–haha I was totally just thinking about that the other day…we’ll see…
Larry–ya, I’m not very good at pictures…either taking them or embedding them. hehe Sorry. I’m trying to think what the pedals are on that board that I’ve rarely mentioned in this blog, so I don’t bore everyone. hehe
Probably the orange one on the right, which is a Guyatone tube tremolo (with a JJ tube). I used to make fun of that pedal ’til someone convinced me to try it. hehe And the one on the upper far left is a George Dennis optical volume pedal which surprisingly works very well. The upper right is an Ernie Ball Jr. to control a separate looping rig that I run live. And the Memory Lane is sitting on top of the PP2. hehe
Jeff–that’s exactly it! No matter how much flexibility midi-ing everything would give me, there’s just something about being able to sit in front of your board and tweak. And with the delays midi-ed and everything going into the two bypass loopers, with careful planning I’ve been able to minimize the stomping enough to where a midi setup would only be worth the time and effort if like, say, Chris Tomlin were to ask me to go on tour (which I’m just gonna go out on a limb and say is pretty highly unlikely…hehe
)
As for the Timeline/Memory Lane thing, I apologize in advance because this is long. As hard as it was to sell a Memory Lane, I was using my second one only as an always-on, in the background, sound. Well, a switch started having issues on it, so I sent it back to Diamond (who, incidentally, fixed it for free and even paid for the return shipping…Diamond guys are very good people). And while that was away, I made a setting for my Timeline as an always-on, in the background sound; because, since once you have an actual upfront delay sound, the background one is no longer needed, I could switch midi with one click to go to a more pronounced Timeline patch and then never miss the always-on patch until I turned delay off…at which point I can just switch back to the background patch. So that delay is almost never off. And I actually started to like the crisper background delay sound of the Timeline better for an always-on sound. I mean, I’ve got it set pretty analog-sounding, but a digital delay will never feel like a good analog one, and vice versa. They’re different pedals for different sounds. But, as I have a darker sound anyway, I liked the crispness of the Timeline for that background delay sound just a little better. And then, add to all that, that with the money from selling the Memory Lane, I could get another Timeline; and then I could use the two together, but still have the analog warmth when I needed it from the Memory Lane, the choice was made.
What I use them for is the first Timeline for most of my delay needs, and the second for most of my modulation and phrase sampling needs. And sometimes I’ll run them in conjunction with say, quarter notes on the first at a lower mix, and dotted quarters on the second at a higher mix. My first one had so many options, it kind of opened my mind a bit, and I realized I needed to be able to say, have a reverse delay, but also have another delay pedal to reverb that signal fading in the background.
(So sorry for the length of that response!)
Philip and Jeff–And the board looks bigger than it actually is. But, I know I’m not buff enough to carry all that either. So, the part with the Midi Mates is actually a separate board. I just unplug their power and midi (which are hooked into the main board) and detach it into two boards.
And ya, the plan was always to get another Midi Mate for the second Timeline, but they are hard to find for the right price and ones that aren’t pink or red or some horrifying color. So I was running it off of a Midi Mouse for awhile. Which is great for space saving, but not so good if you need to get to more than 3 patches in a hurry.
Kenrick–haha Ya, I know. But I have gotten rid of a lot of superfluous effects and boosts and such over the last year in order to streamline things. So, the board looks big, but if you count the actual effects, there’s only 13 including the volume pedal. Then you’ve got the tuner, pedal power, 2 bypass loopers, 2 midi switchers, and a volume pedal for the separate looping rig, and suddenly just your power and switching have taken you from a humble 13 pedals to a quite large 20 pedals, unfortunately. But the ease of switching live, having presets, being able to have a pure tone and still use effects, and less noise from pure power is worth it……kind of. Every once in a while, I still wonder for a few seconds how many more ‘fun effects’ I could have if I sold all my switchers, tuners, and power. hehe
heh… good answer Karl!
I compared your text in the answer to your main article, and I think the answer to our question here is bigger than the article itself.
hehe….
I think i’m going to have to try this memory lane into a timeline one day!
Thanks for the info – I’m still loving my Timeline and MIDI Mate set up. The pedal really does it all (if you’ve got the pedalbaord real estate!).
I’ve got a Creation Audio Labs Holy Fire (48v!?) on the way and my Timmy should be going out next week. I might have to do my own, infinitely inferior shootout video…
shootouts are fun! I am doing one with all my current overdrives. And My Tim is ready in about 3 weeks. Can’t wait.
Larry–hehe Ya, I tend to write waaaay too much.
And having an analog delay flavor and a digital delay flavor on your board to choose from can prove very useful. Well, at least fun!
Jeff–so nice to hear that. I love the Timeline, and it’s nice to hear about other people digging it, too.
And nice gear score coming in! Yikes! And is 48 volts correct?! I read that somewhere and just assumed it was a typo. lol Wow, that’s crazy! Can’t wait to hear the shootout, brother!
Larry–same thing! Can’t wait to hear the shootout, bro!
Good times are coming.
Karl:
I absolutely love your blog/site/whatever it is. I probably have read everything on it over the past couple of months since I first stumbled across it, and have tried several of your suggestions, which for the most part have been right on (at least to my ears), particularly the Tim and the Mosferatu which sound so good I can almost taste the tone (as you might say). I recently got (finally) a timeline and a controller is on the way. Do you think you might find time at some point to give a little more detail on how you have structured your presets, how you jump back and forth during a service, etc.? I am bringing “modern” worship music into a conservative, german lutheran midwest church and your minimalist approach has inspired me, but I need to somehow adopt it on the gear side too so I don’t look like a guitar hero wannabe (very tough, and reading your blog makes it tougher!). Thanks for a really great resource!
Doug (EJ Strat, Vox Ac-15, hot plate for volume [and hopefully not tone-sucking] control).
Hey, Doug! Well it’s great to have you here and thanks so much for the kind words. It’s honestly really nice to hear that some of my ramblings can be helpful.
And right on with the Tim and the Mosferatu. Those are extremely good pedals, and (well, at least for now, haha) I don’t ever expect to replace them.
And congrats on the Timeline! I am in the process of putting together a series of videos called ‘Using Delay in Modern Music’, which will feature the Timeline a lot, so hopefully that will be helpful. I’ve been working on it for a while, and time has just kind of been against me lately in finishing them. But, soon!
And which controller did you get? I use the Rocktron Midi Mate, and it’s actually so simple to use that you think you’re doing something wrong at first. And actually, the Timeline is set up quite simply for midi as well, so it should be fairly simple with whichever one you have on the way.
I totally hear you with having a small enough rig to not scare people.
But your rig looks pretty nice, bro! Love it. Ya, just let me know which midi switcher you’ve got, and I can try to help out with the switching stuff for the Timeline.
Cheers,
Karl
LA Gear !!! ^__^