Vertex Effect Systems - Funk/Fusion/Experimental Pedalboard

[Desperado]

Here's a board that I did for a local client up that needed a board for various fusion, funk, and experimental bands that he plays in. The requirement were that the board be as light weight as possible (we used a carbon-composite laminated mixture that is 2/3 less weight than standard formica pedalboard material). The client also wanted to leave space for a few extra pedals in the back row if necessary at a later time. The base of the board is pictured below, a wah and volume pedal are run off-board and patched in at the interface (black box in the top right).

The client requested a custom interface with an buffer housed inside of it to drive the signal cleanly through the pedalboard (we re-housed his Axess BS-2 inside of the interface, plus an extra pass-through). The client had a transistor based fuzz in the mix that didn't react well to buffers, so the buffer comes at the end of the chain by request of the client.

I also modded the vintage MXR Envelope Filter for the client to have True Bypass (Carling DPDT switch), and a 9v tap. It's a great sounding filter pedal stock, but these mods just made it a little more usable for a gigging situation.

The order of the effects are:

INTERFACE IN (from guitar)--> Korg Pitchblack Tuner--> Vintage MXR Envelope Filter--> H.B.E. Vintage Fuzz--> Boss OC-3 Super Octave--> Boss PH-3 Phase Shifter--> Pedalworx Texas Two-Step--> DLS RotoSim--> MXR Carbon Copy--> Hardwire RV-7 Reverb--> Fulltone Supa Trem Tremolo--> INTERFACE OUT w/buffer (to amp)

*Stand Outs: The MXR Envelope Filter is a great vintage pedal, I normally like the Maxon Filter or the Robotalk, but for a simple and small filter pedal, it's amazing. Some really great dynamics and tone! Also the RV-7 Reverb pedal isn't bad. It's not exactly a Lexicon PCM unit, but it gets a lot of close tones and has lots of great variety. The Fulltone Supa-Trem is my favorite Tremolo for copping the true Fender "Blackface" Tremolo sounds.

Enjoy!

~Mason