Maher pedalboards

Okay, I admit it. I'm a gear-head! I love guitar pedals. All the shapes and colors and fun sounds they make. All in pursuit of that perfect tone!

So everytime I'm around other guitar players, I love to check out what they've got strapped to their pedalboard.

Here is Kenny's board who plays for Matt Maher. Kenny's backline is usually a Vox AC-30 or a Fender Twin:

He's got the Line 6 delay, Boss Giga-Delay, Boss Compressor-Sustainer, Boss Tuner (the best). I don't recognize a few of his pedals, so I'll have to get Kenny to clue me in unless someone knows what they are.

And here is Maher's board. He is currently running direct (without an amp):

Matt is using the Vox Tone-Lab for his SG with a Fulltone distortion. I'm not sure what the blob of gaff tape on the left is all about. :) He routes his acoustic separately, thus the 2 Boss Tuners. He is using a tubed pre-amp for his SG as well, but I can't remember what it's called. I'll find out.

Comments

[Nathan]

Here's what you're missing on Kenny's:

Zvex - Box of Rock
Xotic FX - RC Booster
Homebrew Electronics - UFO
Homebrew Electronics - Psilocybe

[John Kim]

It's great to see what everyone else is using. I'm gear head myself and I'm almost content with my set up. I also like it neat.

[Kris]

For my church's worship team, I play a 1980's Charvel Model 5 guitar with active electronics, through a Behringer VAMP-PRO (rackmount)into a Tech-21 Trademark 10 amp and go direct out to the board from the DI built into the Trademark-10. The 10 watts is about perfect to hear myself and not blast everyone else away. Now if the bass player would just join me in that idea...
I switch channels/banks with a 12-button Midi-buddy pedal controller. The only floor effect I ever use is an Aphex Punch-Factory optical compressor. No matter what I'm doing this compressor will make it bigger and better. It cost around $100 and is worth twice that. A lot of times I play crunchy chords under what the leader is doing on acoustic, this compressor helps to drive those chords and keep the volume up for the whole measure. I have an old Casio tuner that I use, but the V-AMP has an excellent tuner built in.
Getting the V-Amp to "sit up and bark" takes some serious studying of the manual and technical know-how. I still don't have it down 100% of the time.
One sunday I accidently put it into a mode that I could not get it out of, and we could not change the channel or get any sound out of it. Luckily for me the Tradmark amp has excellent tone all by itself and I just used that.
I've tried many things. I have a Fender 65 watt amp that I have used for 1 channel clean and 1 channel dirty, but it is just too loud for our current sanctuary. If the volume is low enough, there is so little power going through the EQ circuits that the tone really suffers.
When I used pedals, I used a Pro-Co Rat II distortion, the Punch-Factory compressor and an Arion Chorus-Flanger. It worked pretty well for most worship situations.
If you want a simple set up, Tech-21 has a Trademark 60 amp with XLR outs, 2 channels and a "boost" control on the 3-button foot control, that gives you 9db more on whichever channel you are using. That would do everything a worship guitarist needed to do. Maybe add a digital delay or chorus pedal at the most. I'd like to get one and try it out.

[Michael D. Yaeger]

That is a PreSonus BlueTube DP pre that Matt is using.

[Kenny Butler]

So, Just to let ya'll know Matt has changed his set up recently. We got rid of the Tonelab (it finally ate the dirt) and switched it out for a Tech-21 Blonde, which kinda sounds like a Bassman. Its a lot less space for basically the same outcome. He plugs it directly into the bluetube DI.

Kenny (matt's guitar player)

Oh, and the red HBE pedal on my board isnt the UFO, its the powerscreamer. and it kicks my butt...