NPD - Donner Beltway

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Freddy V-C
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Joined: Sun May 17, 2009 4:55 pm

NPD - Donner Beltway

Post by Freddy V-C »

I've been on the lookout for a basic looper for the noise-wall interludes during Thank live sets.

I used to use a couple of chained Boss DD3s, which was effective but felt kind of stale after a while — I don't know about you but I can spot the sound of a digital delay with the feedback on full a mile off, and when I hear other bands do it I judge them for being lazy haha, so I couldn't justify doing it myself. So I got rid of the delays and started just manipulating pure feedback, which felt more exciting in some ways but if you've also gotta prepare for the next song in the set then it's easy to end up just letting one single feedback drone ring out, which can't be that exciting to listen to. With a looper I figure I can do something more interesting and have the option to just leave it running whilst I tune up or whatever.

Anyway, I found this for £20 second hand and figured it was worth a punt.

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beltway.png (6.39 MiB) Viewed 180 times

Looking at the photo as I write this post is making me realise I really need to give my pedalboard a once over with the dustbuster. I can only apologise.

Took it for a spin at a rehearsal for the first time tonight. First impressions are good, the reverse and half speed functions in particular bring a lot to the table sonically. It's a bit of a learning curve getting used to the controls with only a single switch (most challenging is the double-tap to stop looping, I don't feel like my foot is designed to double tap) but even just running the set twice through tonight I felt like I was getting the hang of it. Playing our second festival of the year on Saturday so I guess I'll see how that goes.

Running an extremely stripped down pedalboard currently in general. I did have an EHX Silencer noise gate for the past few years, but a recent amp service seems to have solved my ongoing feedback issues. Quite nice to know that my setup isn't inherently prone to feedback, it's just that I'd been playing through an amp with shagged power tubes for the past 3.5 years. So I'm enjoying no longer needing a gate, and being able to push the RAT a little bit harder. I've also taken off the TC Electronic Sub 'n' Up (a mainstay for a long time - almost a decade if you include the Mooer Pure Octave I had before that did the exact same thing but eventually shit the bed) but I'm on the fence, it might make a return. I'm also intending to get an Earthquaker Acapulco Gold soon, although unsure whether that will replace the RAT or stack with it.