Okay, so thought I would do another post on my the pedal board that I am using this year. It is very similar to the one I was using last year funnily enough! You can read in more detail about that one here and the reasons for the choice of pedals. The Blackstar HT-Dual has long gone to be replaced by the Suhr Riot (which I love and you can watch my review here and read all about it here), primarily because I love the Suhr, but had a few niggles with the Dual, I still stand by the fact it is a great pedal though.So here isAs you can see most elements are the same, my beloved TC Nova System is still there and I now have the G-switch attached to enable me to switch presets instantaneously and have access to all the effects in those patches. This is a really important factor, as many people thing that there is a delay in switching presets with the TC Nova System, which there kind of is if you use the preset mode. The delay is the fact that the preset changes when you remove your foot, which is a strange thing to get used to, but it does work.So the major changes are the addition of a volume pedal, a Boss RC-3 Loop Station and a Brightonion switching pedal for the Blues Junior's fat switch. I added the volume pedal to give me a bit more control over my overall levels and gives me the ability to be a bit more dynamic, as on a couple of my guitars, the volume pots aren't that well calibrated! The RC-3 is in mainly to help with practicing and potential looping gigs. I have changed the bag from the Electro-harmonix pedal bag to the Gator 30x16 Wood Pedalboard to accomodate the extra pedals and give it a bit more stability. And that is it!BUTAfter gigging this board a couple of times, there were a few issues and here they are...the first was that surprisingly the Boss RC-3 had an excessive amount of noise on the output, basically a high frequency hissing sound, like a large gain increase being put in the chain, but without the actual gain increase. I have turned both the levels down, but to no avail! Given that it was only being used to enable me to practice it came straight out! The biggest problem (and get your violins out!) was that the case and pedals ended up weighting a ton and I have recently injured my back, so carrying great weights around isn't my highest priority! It was close approaching 20Kgs and that is heavier than my amp! And the bag itself is very heavy (about 8Kgs empty!), I think the Pedaltrain is a future investment! Also after having one gig where I had many footswitching problems, I decided to make my life easier and just take out the actual effects I am using with Groovething - the North West Premiere function and party band set no more no less! So I am now using thisSorry for the dodgy image (it was taken with the rubbish camera on my Samsung Galaxy S2!)So, this is just a nice simple board.

• Jim Dunlop Crybaby Wah, because we all need a wah! Although I am going to swap this with my Vox Wah as there is a slight crackle currently and I will need to do some investigating.
• EHX Soul Preacher - using this a compressor for funk rhythms and a boost as well (gives a bit of extra gain to distorted sounds for leads)
• EHX Micro Q-tron - my most used pedal with this band, sound great, instant funk disco, works well on Stevie Wonder tunes like Superstitious too!
• Boss SD-1 - I really really don't know what it is about this pedal, it is cheap, I have had it since the beginning of time, I have better pedals, but I just love the sound. It is clear and open, something about it which really works for me
• Suhr Riot - Say no more, this is THE distortion pedal
• Boss GE-7 - A pedal that I keep coming back to, it has so so many uses, so many infact I will do a separate post on this amazing pedal. I am using it as a solo bost (similar to the boost on the TC Nova System), simply boosting the mids to cut through.
• MXR Phase 90 - used for most of my modulation needs, I have been using Tremelo and chorus (for stuff like Valerie - Amy Whitehouse) to Flange and Phaser (for stuff like Are you gonna go my way - Lenny Kravitz), but this one pedal seems to work well covering all bases. I might throw in the amazing (and horrendously cheap but fantastic) Joyo Tremelo.
• Boss DD-7 - very short delay left on most of the time to give a bit of body to the sound. Really miss the Awesome TC Delay's and the variety of options, but 99% of time I am not using them during a gig. So this is perfect
• Finally, Boss TU-3 Tuner, well I never go anywhere without it!

So what am I missing? Well the number of delay options, the quality of the delays, and the octaver. But that is about it at the moment, and my back is happy!