http://www.joshsmithguitar.com
I met up with Josh while touring this summer with Raphael Saadiq and The Dave Matthews Band to go through his rig and advise him on options and getting notes for his pedalboard parameters. Josh was an amazing guy, and he had both my wife and me out to see with special access passes to go backstage during and after the show. It was a great show, the entire band with Raphael Saadiq sounded spectacular!
Some of the things that Josh wanted to see on his board was the capability to use a Wah pedal off board, but after some of the distortion and fuzz units (via a custom interface). He also wanted to have the ability to run STEREO out to two amps from the Arion Chrous and the Eventide TimeFactor (into a Fender Super Reverb & Vox AC-30). Additionally, Josh wanted to add a Vertex Custom Buffer to the system to help keep the signal as pure as possible especially to drive the lines going from his pedalboard to his amp (which are typically quite long when playing large stages/arenas). Lastly, Josh asked that I recommend a good fuzz pedal that can could cover a lot of ground from Muff to Fuzz Face, but could "cut like hell." I referred him to Paul Trombetta of PT Design, and through their conversations and demo videos etc., the two of them settled on a custom PTD Mini-Bone that is fine-tuned for a very precise and articulate player such as Josh.
Overall the board sounded fantastic and had a lot of great OD/Distortion/Fuzz choices to go around, as well as some great Tremolo options from the Josh Smith Trem. Also, running the Arion Chorus and TimeFactor in Stereo really fills out the space well and gives the tones coming from the pedalboard so much more dimension.
The order of the effects are:
(from Guitar)--> INTERFACE IN--> Sonic Research Tuner--> Lovepedal Tchula (COT w/Boost)-->PTD Mini-Bone Fuzz--> INTERFACE SEND--> Vintage Vox Wah--> INTERFACE RETURN--> Lovepedal Englishman--> Rockett Pedals Josh Smith Tremolo--> Arion Chorus (Stereo Out)--> Eventide TimeFactor (Stereo Out)--> INTERFACE OUT (Stereo Out + Buffers with ISO Transformer)-->(to Amps)
* Notes: Some pedals in the line up are daisy chained that draw low current and/or don't interfere with other pedals in the chain when the power is linked to another pedal. Also the 18VDC outlet is split off to create two 9VDC taps to run into the Englishman (which can run at 18V), and into the Josh Smith Tremolo (which can also run at 18V by using an internal trim pot for more headroom). Josh didn't like them to be too clean (in terms of headroom), so we adjusted the power output to emulate the same current that feeds the other 9VDC devices when split between the two pedals.
* Stand Outs: The PTD Mini-Bone is an amazing pedal. Paul does such a great job with each one and really is making some of the best hand-built stuff out there. Also, the Josh Smith Tremolo has some great tones to it and does the Vintage Fender Tremolo sound very well.
Enjoy!
~Mason @ Vertex