Kingtone

I changed everything for my October ‘05 Europe tour. The reason was the need to have something that would fit into an SKB roadcase that I bought to keep everything together, portable and flight ready. The case worked out great with two levels of stuff packed way snugly - extra pedals and stuff below and the board on top.

For the Europe tour, I used a Line 6 delay pedal instead of the MemoryMan, a Boss Tremolo pedal and a Boss TU-2 tuner pedal. It was always ‘amp du jour’ and sometimes had to go direct - which wasn’t so bad. I was losing some tone in this setup, so upon returning to the US started experimenting and found the Boss stuff to be the culprit, so out they went. I had also wanted a “straight into the amp” tone - ie a pedal set-up that would be simple and have EVERYTHING bypassed when not in use.

Replacing my old Matchless Hotbox is a Blackstone Appliances Mosfet Overdrive 2S. It delivers ‘cranked blackface’ on one channel and massive crunch on the other. It keeps ALL the low-end intact and isn’t fizzy. Best of all, it interacts with guitar pickups so I can turn down the volume knob, clean up the sound and KEEP the tone…from funk to metal on a tele. 9v and all in a tiny, elegant box. Pretty amazing.

Next is my trusty modified EH Deluxe Memory Man which i use for short and slapback delay. It always sounds great and I can twist the knobs with my toes! For the crucial long delay tones I use a Blackbox Quicksilver delay. Minor quirks aside, this is the only digital delay I have found that gets the regeneration of analog/tape delay right. It is very close to the sound of my old Echoplex EP3 (not quite as bright though), with none of the hassles in a compact box. AND you can control the volume/regen with a volume pedal - just like the mod I did to my EP3.

I still sometimes use my old Echoplex EP3 with a custom tape length of around 7 seconds (for sound on sound) and a Line 6 DM4 delay for live looping.

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‘The Suitcase’ (1995-2005):

The ‘Suitcase’ circa 1998-2004 - A burgundy faux alligator Samsonite suitcase that contains a: Vox V847 wah -> Matchless Hotbox -> MXR dyna comp-> Boss Tuner w/ signal bypass -> modified EH Deluxe Memory Man. A detachable IEC power cable feeds power to all the 110 and 9v units.