I just came across this post and I'm not judging, but how did you manage that?

[nightlight]

 

[VonBonfire]

Drew is a busy guy so he probably was on autopilot when he packed it up and just forgot to put it in the box. One time I got into the car to go to a gig and didn't even have my hat on if you wanna talk about being a space case. That's worse than going to a gig naked.

 

[PBGas]

Someone disassembling their board and in the process of reinstalling everything, maybe?

 

[DrewJD82]

Wtf…….ya’ll know how fuckin’ weird it is to open random threads on the internet and see they’re about you?

And spot on, @VonBonfire, I threw away the original shipping box and went to find a new one, stuck the ML5 box in the new box that was already filled with packing material, causing me to not realize the lack of weight in the new box when I left for work the next day at 4AM to go supervise 4 different constructions occurring on the campus at the same time.

Once I realized it I sent the vendor, Perfect Circuit on Reverb, a message and it was no biggie. I actually got so damn busy I completely forgot to send it out, I bought that thing at the end of December and Perfect Circuit just sent me a follow-up message earlier this week asking if they could assist me any better than they have when *I’M* the one who dropped the ball. THAT is customer service!

All that said, the new board rips!!!



I installed the EJ pickups in that Strat and the bridge is a bit underwhelming, I need a bit more output than that, though I dig the EQ curve of it. It just doesn’t push the dirt pedals into any kind of useful territory and I can only assume EJ running Plexi’s on 10 is making up that difference, but I’m running mine on 3-4.

Removing the loop switcher was the best idea I had for it since I decided to build it; it’s fucking pointless to lock yourself into presets when you don’t even know what presets you may need. I ended up turning the loops on manually just to jam with the board. Now it’s an ‘old school’ board, everything is in front of the amp minus the VP4, which is in 4CM and one side is placed before the dirt pedals so I can utilize the Fractal compressors, modulations and drives.

For information sake- if anyone wants to utilize a loop switcher with a Fuzz Face or any impedance-sensitive pedal, be prepared to deal with some bullshit. And the Axxess Unbuffer was not a worthwhile solution to me, it was a $100 paperweight. I’ll likely approach the loop switcher again down the road, I’m getting a non-buffered one, but there’s ample glitches and quirks to work out with a loop switching system that people should be prepared for going into it.

 

[DanTravis62]

The morningstar loopers are good

Honestly all of them (Boss es5/8 etc) are great

but IMO like 95% of people who buy loopers don't even play out so they don't need one at all

It just ends up being a paperweight

Those EJ pickups sound great to me, Drew - honestly that's a great strat bridge pickup tone. Maybe you just want a humbuggy in there?

 

[CoreyW]

Wtf…….ya’ll know how fuckin’ weird it is to open random threads on the internet and see they’re about you?

And spot on, @VonBonfire, I threw away the original shipping box and went to find a new one, stuck the ML5 box in the new box that was already filled with packing material, causing me to not realize the lack of weight in the new box when I left for work the next day at 4AM to go supervise 4 different constructions occurring on the campus at the same time.

Once I realized it I sent the vendor, Perfect Circuit on Reverb, a message and it was no biggie. I actually got so damn busy I completely forgot to send it out, I bought that thing at the end of December and Perfect Circuit just sent me a follow-up message earlier this week asking if they could assist me any better than they have when *I’M* the one who dropped the ball. THAT is customer service!

All that said, the new board rips!!!



I installed the EJ pickups in that Strat and the bridge is a bit underwhelming, I need a bit more output than that, though I dig the EQ curve of it. It just doesn’t push the dirt pedals into any kind of useful territory and I can only assume EJ running Plexi’s on 10 is making up that difference, but I’m running mine on 3-4.

Removing the loop switcher was the best idea I had for it since I decided to build it; it’s fucking pointless to lock yourself into presets when you don’t even know what presets you may need. I ended up turning the loops on manually just to jam with the board. Now it’s an ‘old school’ board, everything is in front of the amp minus the VP4, which is in 4CM and one side is placed before the dirt pedals so I can utilize the Fractal compressors, modulations and drives.

For information sake- if anyone wants to utilize a loop switcher with a Fuzz Face or any impedance-sensitive pedal, be prepared to deal with some bullshit. And the Axxess Unbuffer was not a worthwhile solution to me, it was a $100 paperweight. I’ll likely approach the loop switcher again down the road, I’m getting a non-buffered one, but there’s ample glitches and quirks to work out with a loop switching system that people should be prepared for going into it.

If you want to run fuzz, specifically Fuzz Face variants, you need to snag a gig rig. being able to select buffer on/off per preset really helps.

The morningstar loopers are good

Honestly all of them (Boss es5/8 etc) are great

but IMO like 95% of people who buy loopers don't even play out so they don't need one at all

It just ends up being a paperweight

Those EJ pickups sound great to me, Drew - honestly that's a great strat bridge pickup tone. Maybe you just want a humbuggy in there?

Used an ES8 for a few years, in some ways I found some limitations, in others I never did. I "upgraded" to a G3, and in some ways its a pretty decent improvement, in others the ES8 was better. Overall I think the G3 is a better unit, but It would be cool to figure out how to combine the two.

Ive got an idea I need to flesh out, but I think I may have a solid plan on continuing to use the ES8, if I can figure out a way to send two input signals at the same time into it.

 

[skoora]

I like the laziness in a switcher when a cable goes bad or a pedal is acting up I just don’t turn on that loop until I feel like dealing with it
I did end up with enough drive/fuzz and boost pedals that I put all of them in series in one loop and just turn on the one I want.
Is there a looper that lets you change the order of the loops so you don’t have to reorganize pedals?

 

[CoreyW]

I like the laziness in a switcher when a cable goes bad or a pedal is acting up I just don’t turn on that loop until I feel like dealing with it
I did end up with enough drive/fuzz and boost pedals that I put all of them in series in one loop and just turn on the one I want.
Is there a looper that lets you change the order of the loops so you don’t have to reorganize pedals?

I have personal experience with the Boss and Gigrig, but not the others...

Both Boss and G3 let you change the pedal order per preset. Don't know about the others.

 

[DrewJD82]

The morningstar loopers are good

Honestly all of them (Boss es5/8 etc) are great

but IMO like 95% of people who buy loopers don't even play out so they don't need one at all

It just ends up being a paperweight

Those EJ pickups sound great to me, Drew - honestly that's a great strat bridge pickup tone. Maybe you just want a humbuggy in there?

They definitely sound great, I need to consider it before I swap it out. I love the idea of having a ‘classic vintage Strat’ tone-wise, that aspect in itself is an education in building tones and I have my Gilmour Strat for everything else Strat-wise. But when I hit that bridge pickup and a Fuzz Face, I want that fucker to sound like an actual Fuzz Face!

To be fair, I’m not gigging right now myself, so all of this shit is just for the kicks, with a bit of ‘opportunity + preparedness = luck’ thrown in for good measure, I’ll be ready to go when I finally find the right collective of people who actually want to play in a room together instead of just talking about it.

 

[DrewJD82]

I like the laziness in a switcher when a cable goes bad or a pedal is acting up I just don’t turn on that loop until I feel like dealing with it
I did end up with enough drive/fuzz and boost pedals that I put all of them in series in one loop and just turn on the one I want.
Is there a looper that lets you change the order of the loops so you don’t have to reorganize pedals?

Yep, the exact one I’m sending back, the Morningstar ML5R. There’s also an ML5, but that’s not re-orderable. Super easy to program, too. I’m sending it back because one of the impedance trim pots was missing and after opening it up it stopped working entirely, I was getting some odd issues with it previously so I think I just got a lemon. I’m going to try to regular ML5 next, with the non-buffered loops and see how well the Fuzz Face holds up in a loop.

 

[VonBonfire]

They definitely sound great, I need to consider it before I swap it out. I love the idea of having a ‘classic vintage Strat’ tone-wise, that aspect in itself is an education in building tones and I have my Gilmour Strat for everything else Strat-wise. But when I hit that bridge pickup and a Fuzz Face, I want that fucker to sound like an actual Fuzz Face!

To be fair, I’m not gigging right now myself, so all of this shit is just for the kicks, with a bit of ‘opportunity + preparedness = luck’ thrown in for good measure, I’ll be ready to go when I finally find the right collective of people who actually want to play in a room together instead of just talking about it.

I know Jimi was all about his fuzzes but even when I was using plexi and strat I eventually ditched all of them and settled on a TS style pedal. My favorite fuzz was the Fulltone '70. I had a big box from back when they were still a boutique maker but it was smoother than the usual germanium as it was using bc108s.

Might be worth checking your bridge pickup height back there if it's seeming extra anemic or just bumping your amp volume and rolling your guitar vol up or down depending on how hard you need to goose it. If you have your bridge floated a good bit you might need to raise it.

I don't know about the EJ set but I had a few different strats and the Klein Epic '56 reverse was my favorite, followed by the stock pickups in the mirror image Jimi strat. 90% of my use was neck pickup but for real snaky licks down low I'd jump to the bridge. Both sets were pretty low output IIRC. I preferred three position selectors, they make more noise when you bang em back and forth and sends the amp into feedback ala Hendrix, plus I was prone to bumping the easily jostled 5 pos out of position into 2 and 4, neither of which were tones I've ever cared for. Strats IME are a way bigger headache to get an amp and pedals set up right for than a good old LP or ES which is partly why I made the switch back in '15. Unless you manage to find a magic strat you usually gotta work harder and have super clean technique and that is def not me haha....