This is what I’m currently using to play guitar in church. It looks kind of complicated, but there’s a method to the madness.
One of the goals I’ve had for this pedalboard since I started building it was to create a one-man-band busking/performance setup. And with this last piece, I’m very close.
I added a Digitech Jamman Solo XT- but not for looping. No, I still need a looper that can sync to MIDI clock, and there’s only a few on the market. I’ll probably end up getting a TC Ditto X4, or a Pigtronix Infinity for that. The Jamman is for running backing tracks. That’s right, I can load up the SD card in it with .wav files, and use it for background pads, full-blown tracks, or whatever. I can even run click tracks on one side if I have to run a full backing track.
Of course, minimalism is something I consider an art form. And this board isn’t very minimal. In fact, it’s getting pretty big. And it makes me wonder, “Should I replace it with a single thing?”
But the only things I can find that would do what this board does would be either a laptop, or something like a TC Helicon Voicelive 3 Extreme. Neither one is a cheap alternative.
If my goal is to lead music solo, then this board is moving in the right direction. But there’s still more it could do: I can add vocal effects, and a programmable MIDI controller, and a switcher, and a looper…
At this point, I have more money tied up in these pedals than I do in all my guitars and amp put together. But would it be simpler to just sell all of that and use a laptop? Could that even be a possibility?
One of the reasons I’ve been hesitant to dive into software for everything is that it takes a LOT of work to set everything up, especially when you’re combining multiple programs that all do different things.
I can use Hydrogen to run most of it, but that’s going to require a LOT of work to get it to trigger everything. I can build songs, patterns, playlists, and then switch between them freely. The hard part would be to make a custom setup in it that allows it to run pads and send MIDI triggers to the other software. I would also probably have to use a filter program to change MIDI notes into PC or CC changes.
If that sounds like a lot of work- it’s because it is. And I want things to be simple- not just physically simple (as in having everything in one laptop) but functionally simple. There’s a good reason why people still like synthesizers and guitar pedals with knobs instead of computerized digital stuff. It’s tactile. You can feel it. You twist a knob, and it immediately does something. And that knob almost always performs the same function.
Ultimately I could go completely digital, but it’s much easier to tweak a knob to get a sound instead of playing with menus and settings. It’s not a reliability problem- I’ve had a laptop running guitar effects for hours without a hiccup. It’s a User Interface thing. Sometimes it’s better to have a bunch of knobs that each do a certain thing than to have a digital board that does everything.
I find that narrowing down your choices actually increases your creativity. You spend less time playing with things, and more time just playing music. This applies to art, literature, and all sorts of other creative pursuits. If you can do anything, you become paralyzed with option overload. With a laptop, there’s too many distractions. I think I’m going to stick with hardware for simplicity’s sake. Yes, that means it’s bigger, but it will be much easier to use.
So without further ado, here’s a demo of what the board is capable of: