Fender Hot Rod Deluxe III Ltd Edition Laquered Tweed Combo

I really like my Blues Junior amp, but very occasionally I find it could do with a bit more clean headroom.

I was looking through all the second-hand Fender amps a while ago and stumbled across a Limited Edition tweed covered Hot Rod which was being sold locally.

This one has a Jensen C12N speaker, and the new style footswitch.

It sounds great on it's own, and through a 2x12 extension cab even better. Looks great too.

TC Electronic Polytune Clip

The Polytune clip is an accurate, small, clip-on tuner which works well with any guitar. Amazon are currently selling these in their sale with £10 off, so well worth getting hold of one as they are very useful indeed.

Vintage AV3P semi acoustic guitar

One guitar I had missing from my collection was an ES-335 style semi acoustic guitar. There were several that I had considered in the past such as the Epiphone dot, but I really wanted something with a bit more versatility than the standard twin humbucker model.

The Vintage AV3P has three P90 stacked humbuckers which have a control to roll between single coil and humbucker. You can also turn on the middle pickup using the push switch on the tone control to get many different sounds ranging from warm jazz to twangy telecaster. The Stratocaster single coil 'out of phase' sounds are also obtainable.

The AV3P has unfortunately been discontinued, but they occasionally come up for sale second hand. I managed to find a very nice example on Ebay, all it needed was a bit of truss rod, action and intonation adjustment to get it playing really well. I am very impressed with the quality of finish too.

Decibel Eleven Split Personality Amp Switcher AB/Y

I sometimes like to run two amps together, such as my Orange TH30 and Fender Blues Junior. In the past I have used a simple passive AB/Y box. This worked reasonably well, but did create a fairly noticeable mains hum.

After a quick search for a solution, I came across the Decibel Eleven Split personality which seems to have all the things I need:

• Class-A, all discrete, high impedance buffer - eliminates losses due to splitting and allows driving long cable runs without high frequency loss.
• Second output is transformer isolated and includes a ground lift switch to eliminate the noise and hum from ground loops
• High quality transformer - provides extremely flat frequency response even when driving lower impedance line inputs 
• Second output includes a phase reversal switch - corrects any polarity mismatch between two amplifiers 
• Increased headroom - allows for hot signals without clipping
• Optional mute function - for muting both outputs 
• MIDI Control - allows remote access to 128 custom pre-sets using MIDI program changes and/or direct switch control using MIDI continuous controller messages

The Radial BonesTwin City and Lehle Little Dual are two other options I came across, both of these get good reviews, but they are more expensive and do not have the midi or mute functions. As I am using this to run 2 amps together rather than switching between the two, the 'clicky' switches are not a problem either.

The D11 Split Personality is a very well built unit, heavy and solid. It does not colour your sound in any way, gets rid of the mains hum, has very visible LED's and looks the business too.

Idea for fixing full size TC Electronic pedals to Pedaltrain pedalboard

While I was putting together my Pedaltrain pedalboard, I came up with an idea for fixing down my full size TC Electronic pedals. Below is a basic diagram of what I had in mind.

I contacted TC Electronics to find out the thread size of the thumb screw used to hold the base plate on, and was informed this is 1/4-20 (1/4" diameter, 20 threads per inch), which is the same thread that most cameras use to attach to tripods etc. 

I did try some bolts, but the main problem I came across was that that the base plate is also threaded. This is actually a good design to prevent the screw falling out when the base plate is removed, but it means a standard threaded bolt will not work, as the full thread will prevent the base plate from being tightened to the top part of the pedal.

I need to find (or have specially made) a bolt of around 25mm in length with just the top 5mm being threaded, also making sure it does not go too deep inside the pedal  and cause any damage.
Another option is to drill out the thread in the baseplate, but this will obviously devalue the pedal.

As the TC pedals stay on fairly well with Velcro supplied with the Pedaltrain (although the industrial stuff would probably be a lot better) I have decided to stay with that option for the time being, but will probably revisit this idea in the not too distant future.

Pedaltrain Classic 2 pedalboard project

I was in need of a bigger pedalboard so I could add on some extra pedals from time to time. Although I am usually quite happy to go down the DIY route, I found that the Pedaltrain Classic 2 was just the right size for what I needed. The Classic 2 is one of the new 2015 models in the Pedaltrain range with an improved design.

The following pedals were going on the board:

1. TC Electronic Polytune.
2. EHX Nano Pog.
3. TC Electronic Mini Spark Boost.
4. Ibanez TS808 Tubescreamer
5. TC Electronic Spark Boost.
6. TC Electronic Mojo Mojo.
7. TC Electronic Corona Chorus.
8. TC Electronic Flashback Delay.
9. TC Electronic Hall of Fame.
10. BOSS RC-3 Loop Station (with skinny little twins footswich).

I already had a BBE Supa Charger to use for the power supply, but also added a T-Rex Fuel-Tank Chameleon which between them will give me up to 13 isolated outputs with 12v & 18v options should I need them. The BBE has six 100ma outputs and two 200ma outputs, the Chameleon has five 300ma outputs.

If you don't want to spend so much on power supplies, it's well worth looking at the Diago Power Station (9v 3000ma) or even the Mooer Stage Power (9v 2000ma), these both use daisy chains, but for many applications work very well.

The next challenge was to find the correct brackets for the power supplies, this was a little confusing due to the older Pedaltrain brackets no longer being compatible with the newer boards. The Pedaltrain website informed me that the BRKT-2 and UBKT-2 are the brackets to use with the Classic 2, although I could also use the PT-UNI-MK or the PT-VDL-MK.

Although designed for the Voodoo Labs psu, the BRKT-2 is also compatible with the BBE Supa Charger so I had to buy those, and the UBKT-2 was said to be a suitable solution for the T-Rex, so I had to get some of those too.

After fitting the UBKT-2 I found that the brackets were hitting the deck, so I added some large rubber feet on the front (next to the existing feet) to raise the board up a bit and give it more grip. I think it would be better if the original feet were screwed in rather than riveted in, as a lot of people tend to change or modify them anyway. The T-Rex was secured to the brackets with dual lock and cable ties.

A roll of wide Velcro comes as part of the package, so I attached this to the four rails (a bit annoyed that some of it was creased up quite badly). My full size TC electronic pedals hold in place quite well with the Velcro (although I do have an idea in mind which involves using the base plate retaining screw as a fixing method). The mini pedal was cable tied using a bit of wood on the underside. For the TS-808 and BOSS pedals I used bicycle chain links which were then cable tied, I was going to screw them down to the board, but (after already drilling some holes) I realised that I would be 'earthing' them to the metal board and that was going to potentially cause ground loop problems. I did screw down the pedals on my my Nano board, but I am using a double insulated PSU with daisy chain to power that, so can get away with it.

The Pedaltrain is a good strong pedalboard but it could still be improved. A bit more care with the Velcro, some longer cable ties and easy to change feet would also be nice. I suppose it all comes down to keeping things as cost efficient as possible. The soft case that came with it seems reasonably robust, but it would have been nice to have an external pocket like the older versions (more cost cutting?). I have noticed that not everyone is happy using a drill to mount the brackets either, but it's probably better to have the option to put these wherever you choose, as opposed to having them pre-drilled. Overall I am reasonably pleased with the Pedaltrain and the outcome of the project, it should last me a good while too.

Electro-Harmonix Nano Pog Octave pedal

I had been looking at the Micro Pog as a future investment, but then the Nano Pog appeared on the market which would obviously take up less space on the pedalboard.

The tracking on these pedals is about as good as it gets, there are no nasty glitches either, it's also polyphonic so you are able to play chords as well as single notes.

I am using this pedal for emulating 12-string guitar, thickening up single note riffs, producing organ sounds and creating textured layers (in conjunction with other pedals).

There is some speculation about the Micro and Nano models using different algorithms etc, as far as I am aware the electronics are exactly the same, the Nano is just in a smaller package.