Hello! Welcome to what will be a semi-regular column highlighting the pedals we love and some interesting or downright weird ways to use them in the studio. I'll kick this off with a deeper dive into my own discoveries (and missteps), while building out several mix-centric pedalboards for my home studio.
Why mix with pedals?
Stompboxes! Those insane little boxes o' fun lying around in every nook and cranny of your studio – or maybe that's just me? It's of no surprise to this audience that these versatile tools, which have long been used in outboard gear signal paths, can add fresh creative spice to our more extensive cookbook of available sounds when tracking or mixing. With most home studios relegated to digital interfaces and finite acoustic flavors, it makes sense to use as many options as possible to spark unexplored ideas or nudge mix elements into a more organic (and maybe less predictable) place. With the addition of MIDI control options in many modern pedals, we now have opportunities for all manner of time-synced effects or modulation, which, again, exponentially enriches the sonic feast we're creating. Plus, pedals are just fun, tactile little color (and colorful) boxes. I'm constantly finding new and mesmerizing creative applications for my growing pedal collection by simply changing the order in which they are connected. Entire worlds open up when you patch a reverb into a modulated distortion and then back into another reverb. Listen to most of Prince's studio work on 1999 and other classics, and you'll hear a variety of Boss stompboxes and other effects printed straight to tape – pulling otherwise dry instrument tracks into a vibe that will always be uniquely his. In short, why not mix with pedals?
What?
Let's start by looking at some of the supporting infrastructure on pedals that I've found helpful. In the latest iteration of my home studio, I've built a pedalboard on a 2 rack space sliding rack shelf from Penn Elcom . This rack sits on my desk just to the right of my mix position and is easily accessible for knob-twiddling or can be tucked away when I don't require direct access.I've set up this effects board with five pedals, an ML10X stereo loop switcher from Morningstar Engineering, and an EXTC-Stereo Effects Reamper [Tape Op#146] from Radial Engineering. I also have a Chase Bliss MIDIbox in the rack for MIDI control of certain pedals (we'll look at MIDI control in depth in a future article). I buy Canare L-2E5 (for TRS) and GS-4 (for TS) wire in bulk so I can solder my own cables to custom lengths to keep things tidy in the limited confines of my custom rack drawer. For pedalboards, I love using the SquarePlug low profile flat plugs, but I also need their SPS short body straight TS and TRS connectors for specific gear. The ML10X switcher has TRS outs that I split into TS cables. I usually get all of that raw material from Redco or Best-Tronics , then carefully plan and measure the cable lengths I'll need to wire everything up. Although the board is all hand-built and cable-managed via tie-downs and numerous zip ties, I leave enough play in the connections so I can easily swap out pedals with a similar form factor. I have one extra aux stereo pair of I/O running to the switcher, which allows me to send and receive to any other pedals I might want to grab from the shelf and add to my signal chain. The pedals, the switcher, and the Chase Bliss MIDI box are all powered by a CIOKS DC7 power supply . This supply has seven isolated DC outlets with four selectable voltages per outlet, so it is very flexible and super clean despite having such a low profile. Cable runs on the board follow the same general principles you'd use when wiring interfaces, preamps, or other powered gear – planning in advance and then following a template is highly recommended. Tidy cable runs make troubleshooting a hell of a lot easier when tracking down problems! One YouTube resource I've found valuable (and trustworthy) for these cabling fundamentals is the Vertex Effects channel – check out their Rig Builds & DIY Pedalboard Tips videos for some great tips.
Okay, How??
The entirety of my custom board functions like one outboard effect send, with the ML10X switcher serving as a "pedal patchbay" (more on this at the end of this section). The signal chain from the EXTC-Stereo interface feeds into my patchbay and is normalled there as a single stereo pair (in and out) to my audio interface. Check out the diagram below to see the signal path mapped out. This build allows me to have an external send to the pedalboard always ready from my DAW sessions on a dedicated pair of balanced outs from my audio interface. The receive is set up the same way, via a pair of balanced ins from the EXTC-Stereo. Gain-staging pedals can be super tricky, and we'll likely cover that in a future column, but experimentation and using your ears are the keys to a satisfying effects loop. Pedals often give no clear visual cues of input levels, and they all vary slightly in input/output impedances and the reactive components used. Some sound amazing when overdriven, and some just clip harshly. This is why a bridge solution, such as the EXTC-Stereo, is critical in any similar setup when using unbalanced pedals with balanced recording gear. The EXTC-Stereo converts the dry audio signal from line level (sent via a pair of my DAW outputs through my patchbay) to instrument level for processing through the pedals and then brings the processed signal back up to the appropriate line level for your interface. We've already established how fussy I am over my cable runs – spending inordinate amounts of time soldering my own patch cables and finding the perfectly sized zip tie at the local electronics shop. Marry this sensibility to the confined space of a pedalboard, and, to quote Carl Weathers in Arrested Development, "Baby, you've got a stew going." It's a considerable mass of cables and possible connections! I needed an easy way to re-order and rearrange my pedal chain – unplugging and re-plugging them several hundred times a week wasn't sustainable. I needed a switcher. There are dozens of solutions available: Passive switchers, mini patchbays, and a growing number of clever compact boxes. I've recently settled on the Morningstar ML10X, and it's perfect for my board. The MIDI-controllable ML10X switcher allows me to insert only the pedals I want to use in the stereo effects loop and re-order them to taste. The switcher acts a bit like a passive mixer or a tiny patchbay, and it's probably the most important thing I've added to my setup. It's super compact and easy to use, but it gives me complete control over pedal order and the choice of mono or stereo signal chain architecture. Using it, I can set up quick presets of complex signal paths I like and select those presets with either a button press or simple MIDI commands. Morningstar Engineering makes several other MIDI accessories and recently started selling their own cables and connectors.Speaking of MIDI, the Chase Bliss MIDIbox converts a standard 5-pin MIDI signal to a MIDI-over-TRS signal, which more and more manufacturers are implementing in their pedal designs. MIDI control unlocks a deep range of features in pedals from manufacturers like Chase Bliss, Red Panda, Hologram Electronics, and many others. I have a USB-to-MIDI converter attached to my computer: The excellent Blokas midihub, and a MIDI cable running from that into the MIDI box, which gives me control over up to four pedals (I have the older, slightly bulkier version of the Chase Bliss box – the new one has three TRS outs). With some clever configuration and a healthy dose of patience for learning an encyclopedia of MIDI CC messages, I can control most features and even bypass states for many of the effects on the board. We'll dive into the world of using MIDI with pedals (as it relates to mixing) in a future column.I'm super pleased with the way this last board build turned out, but it's always going to be a work in progress – switching out new pedals with unique form factors or features definitely keeps me on my toes. For a recent live set, I've built out an auxiliary performance-focused board that I can patch into this mix chain – we can look at that at some point, too.
Thanks for reading! Let us know if this is helpful, and feel free to email me at geareditorial@tapeop.com with any questions or suggestions.