After years of getting dirt from the amp...

digitalscream

...I may have finally turned a corner.

I've made no secret of the fact that I believe the Bogner Ecstasy Red is the best distortion pedal ever made, so when I saw one cheap I decided it's time I made a board with it. Of course, not being one to do everything the normal way, it had to be a bit different...the problem is that I don't have an amp capable of producing a clean tone. So...



This board takes care of everything, with no mucking around putting the delay into the effects loop. Signal chain is:

Wah -> tuner -> TC Shaker (don't really like it, to be honest, but there was a gap) -> Bogner -> Eventide -> AMT F1

That last bit is the clever part; it's AMT's take on a JFET-based Fender preamp. The idea is that this board can go into the effects return of any amp, and get pretty much the exact tone I want. If I ever end up playing gigs again (and that's a possibility, depending on whether my plans in the first half of the year work out), I'll actually be able to say "sure" when asked if I mind using someone else's backline, and travel with literally just my guitar and my pedalboard.

I can even run it direct into the PA, thanks to the F1's cab sim output.

Oh, and in case anyone's wondering, it sounds wonderful running into the effects return of my JCA22H - at least as good as plugging straight into the amp's preamp. I've got a bit of tweakery to do, but I'll probably post clips at the weekend.

ThePrettyDamned

Nice! I remember when drew tried a similar set up and it came close to working for him - he had some fairly extreme needs, but thought it sounded pretty great (despite being an amp gain guy like yourself). 

digitalscream

ThePrettyDamned said:

Nice! I remember when drew tried a similar set up and it came close to working for him - he had some fairly extreme needs, but thought it sounded pretty great (despite being an amp gain guy like yourself). 

Yep - he was using the extra functionality of the F1, where you can put another preamp (eg your amp's preamp) in the F1's effects loop. Therefore when the F1 is engaged you get the clean Fender-y preamp, when it's bypassed it actually switches to the amp's preamp. It's a neat way to turn a dirty-on-both-channels amp like the Jet City into a three-channel amp.

I believe there was a tiny bit of bleed-through from the amp's preamp into the clean sound, at a level which normal people wouldn't be bothered about

digitalscream

I should also give a big shout out to the power supply, which is phenomenal value for money - the Vitoos DC8, picked up for £30 from eBay. It's got three isolated sections: A and B (both single output and isolated from the rest of the unit and each other, 9/12/18V, 1000mA), and 6 x daisy-chained outputs with a combined total of 300mA.

It happily powers the Eventide Time Factor (notorious for causing all sorts of noise in other pedals if it's not isolated) at 9V, the AMT at 12V and the rest of the pedals on the combined outputs, with zero noise. In fact, this board into my JCA22H's power section is practically silent, which can't be said for the amp itself.

EDIT: Also, can we please have a moment of silent appreciation for the fact that this is the first time ever that I've put a board together and had exactly the right amount of space on the board for the pedals I wanted on the front row. It's quite literally (and accidentally) millimetre-perfect.

Chuffola

*applause*.  

Winny_Pooh

That is the ugliest wah I've seen. The rest looks alright though.What would you conpare the Bognor to?

digitalscream

Winny_Pooh said:

That is the ugliest wah I've seen. The rest looks alright though.What would you conpare the Bognor to?

Ugly it may be, but it doesn't break when I stand on it one-footed. That's no mean feat.

As for the Bogner...I don't really have any frame of reference, since I rarely spend long with distortion pedals. It is, however, very amp-like; my preferred way of doing things with my amps is to have the crunch channel right up and ride the guitar volume for clean, and that works just as well with the Red as it does with my amps (actually, I think it's slightly better).

I've got a bit of a problem somewhere in the mids where it's sounding slightly nasal and losing clarity, but I think that's because I haven't got the hang of where the AMT's mid control's centre frequency is relative to the Bogner's. I need to play with it a bit more, that's all; if not, I can always put the Mooer Juicer in front of it to add some sparkle and clarity.

What I can say is that even without the boost, the Red has crushing amounts of gain on tap, especially in 20th Anniversary mode.

Branshen

Cool setup. I too had a direct to PA board a couple of years ago, except I had a tech 21 blonde instead of a amt f1.  I'd love to hear the clean tone of the amt direct when you get round to making some clips. 

dindude

Looks good. It's great having all fx in line, simplifies things greatly.

Sassafras

The AMT F1 is probably the most useful pedal I've ever had.
I used to use a lot of borrowed amps and it always got me the sound I wanted.
I rate it higher than the Sansamp GT2.

MrSwanson

The power supply sounds like a great find, thanks for the heads up.

professorben

Traitor. 

digitalscream

professorben said:

Traitor. 

Wait until you hear it, you'll be wanting to buy it off me.

professorben

digitalscream said:

professorben said:

Traitor. 

Wait until you hear it, you'll be wanting to buy it off me.

Stop it.

just stop it. 

professorben

How much?

digitalscream

professorben said:

How much?

Not selling.

Yet.

chrishill901

@digitalscream  I love the idea of the f1 as a clean pedal platform, I have been entertaining the idea of moving away from amp drive for a while...

im glad to hear it works well in that capacity, so you can run 'amp in a box' type pedals into it, but how well does it work itself as an amp in a box? I gather it's a fender twin in a box? Does it do this well?

im basically looking for a blues in a box pedal that will go straight to the PA. is the cab sim good on the F1? Does the F1 take ordinary drive pedals well like a tube screamer? I'm looking for something to give me SRV style tones at an always controllable volume. I like the idea that I could have a fender clean tone with built in cab sim that will go to FOH, step on a tubescreamer or equivalent for an SRV tone, step on a Marshall in a box for some classic rock... am I barking up the wrong tree with the F1? I know the Kemper of helix will give me the tones I want but it seems quite an expense!

PolarityMan

I so want one of those slimmed down WD's but theyre rare as rocking horse shite. I use a weeping demon and a boss GT-10 and side by side they fit on my board but not with leads in them, shaving even a half inch down in widthw ould save me 5 mins at every practice which would be nice.

digitalscream

chrishill901 said:

@digitalscream  I love the idea of the f1 as a clean pedal platform, I have been entertaining the idea of moving away from amp drive for a while...

im glad to hear it works well in that capacity, so you can run 'amp in a box' type pedals into it, but how well does it work itself as an amp in a box? I gather it's a fender twin in a box? Does it do this well?

im basically looking for a blues in a box pedal that will go straight to the PA. is the cab sim good on the F1? Does the F1 take ordinary drive pedals well like a tube screamer? I'm looking for something to give me SRV style tones at an always controllable volume. I like the idea that I could have a fender clean tone with built in cab sim that will go to FOH, step on a tubescreamer or equivalent for an SRV tone, step on a Marshall in a box for some classic rock... am I barking up the wrong tree with the F1? I know the Kemper of helix will give me the tones I want but it seems quite an expense!

I should be doing some clips tomorrow, but...the cab sim on the F1 is acceptable in a pinch, but wouldn't be my first choice relative to cab impulses.

It can be driven into overdrive quite well on its own (the gain knob has a good range on it), and if you put a boost in front it behaves almost exactly as you'd expect an amp to; in my limited experience of Fender amps, I'd say that it does exactly what it says on the tin. It's a bloody brilliant little bit of kit.

It also has a send/return for an alternate "channel" when you bypass it - so you could get the AMT JCM800 pedal and have an instant clean/dirty preamp.

I'm not joking when I say it's one of the best buys I've made in quite a while. I've had this board in my head as an experiment for ages, and I think it's here to stay.

PolarityMan said:

I so want one of those slimmed down WD's but theyre rare as rocking horse shite. I use a weeping demon and a boss GT-10 and side by side they fit on my board but not with leads in them, shaving even a half inch down in widthw ould save me 5 mins at every practice which would be nice.

Yeah, I have no idea why they discontinued them. Bloody stupid idea, because I remain convinced that it's the best switchless wah on the market.

UnclePsychosis

I remain convinced that the WD would have done far better with a less silly name and a more conventional look. 

digitalscream

UnclePsychosis said:

I remain convinced that the WD would have done far better with a less silly name and a more conventional look. 

Agreed on the name, but I actually quite like the look of it. Most wah pedals look boring and their makers seem to be stuck in the late 60s.