ShortScale.org

Added a Superego+ last week. Picked it up last week and spent yesterday plumbing it in and rearranging everything. It's pretty awesome. For what seems like a fairly niche pedal, the sounds it creates are so, so usable. I find myself replaying old songs and finding things it can add.

Rearranged the board added some risers that are currently made out of scrap foam mats from BJJ. These were intended as placeholders until I made proper wooden ones, but they work. The squidginess of them feels a bit off though, so I think I do need to make decent ones.

Dropped the Red Llama clone. It sounded great but wasn't getting use. Was tempted to drop the ODB-3 too, as much as I love it, but then decided to put it in the loop of the Superego where it is well suited for big synthey buzzey drones, or just good thick overdrive. The 2 band eq and wet/dry control make it a good choice here, I think. But I'll experiment with other stuff in there.

Between the risers and lower profile cables, I've opened up a bit more space...

This showed up in our recycle centre over the weekend. Not cheap-cheap, but less than a typical pedal. It powers up, the pinch roller turns, the preamps work well ... but no tape loop. I have some old reel-to-reel tapes and intend to fuck around and find out ...

Nice, I picked up a cheap Korg tape echo last year, and the deal was too good to be true. Asked a few questions of the seller after it turned up and he dropped the comment that "it always sounded great until it blew up". lol.

Haven't found a good tech yet.

Could be a bit of a bargain, that.

Looks like people sell the tape loops on eBay?

http://ebay.us/m/X3Edo5

Oh cool - alas that seller doesn't post to Dahn Unda where I am. I did find some others but considerably more expensive. I figured I can't hurt anything by snipping and splicing a few feet of one of my reel tapes, the worst that could happen is sticking and jamming, but the tape path is open and cleanup would be simple. I'm pretty excited to try when I get the time.

My WEM Copicat tape loops were cut-and-splice jobs. I used to have a jig for doing that...

Was after something to put in the effects loop of the Supergo+, hence the M5 Wanted ad in the classifieds.

I realised I probably wanted the ability to stack effects and obviously an M9 is too big (M5 probably would be too, tbh) so came round to the idea of one of the hackable ZOOMs. I thought about the G1on which can apparently run a lot of the same effects, but it's also pretty big.

I kept an eye out for non-+ MS pedals, was thinking of grabbing a MS50, but then a mint MS70 appeared with pretty good BIN price so I jumped on it.

Early observations:

Being able to load different effects with the effects manager is brilliant, having dirt etc. makes this an excellent choice for what I need.

The user interface is not nearly as intuitive as the MS70+ but that might change with experience. I'd like to be able to cycle sideways through effects in a patch with my toes, like I can on the MS70+, but it's not easy. I might look at fabricating caps for the buttons somehow.

It seems to run out of processing power MUCH sooner than the MS70+. I was a little shocked/disappointed at the things it can't do. But it can still do loads, I probably need to be more honest about how many effects I actually need at once.

The way the Superego+ has a mode that only selects the effect loop (without frozen sound) is suddenly super useful. Wish there was a way of switching easily between that and Latch mode as they're where I imagine I will spend my time.

Also wish there was such a thing as a stereo Superego with a stereo effects loop. A Supergo + +?

The M13 is a little neglected these last few sessions. Spending a lot of time on that central column of EHX and ZOOM.

A friend wants me to play guitar on some of his stuff, says he wants texture. Reckon that board has more than a coupletoanstextures.

I, I think I'm done?
I've been a bit bummed out about not having a stereo looper. I have the Memory Man, which has a looper, but it's a little basic and I like having it earlier in the chain. The M13 has a 28 second looper, but it bounces everything to mono, which is a weird design decision on Line 6's part.

So I got the Mooer GL200. I paid £130ish for it. It's stupendous for the price. Stereo in/out, midi in/out, bluetooth in, XLR in, line/instrument switch, phantom power (?!?!?!!!), a touchscreen control, and a drum machine. And it lets you add your own midi tracks for the drum machine. And your own samples. So you could use it for anything, really. It also allows you to write your own audio into the loop memory, so you could add backing tracks etc.

I've had it about a week now, but to be honest, most of that time has been spent rejigging, remaking cables, cutting new foam risers/spacers for everything. It all fits, just about.

I've spent a few hours with the Mooer and it's great, although some things seem a bit odd. Uploading midi and samples isn't as straightforward as it could be. Or rather, the interface is super straightforward, but it seems to lose the midi mapping, or I'm making some strange error in exporting midi from Ableton. Either is possible. Sometimes the drum machine seems to glitch a bit: earlier it was playing some weird beat, despite it being on a preset and not a user beat. I switched to a different beat and back again and it seemed to fix it.

It seems to be impossible to turn off the click in when you record your first loop into a slot. Maybe I'm missing a setting somewhere, because this seems like a crazy restriction. The workaround that I've discovered is that the click doesn't happen if a drumbeat is already playing, so you start a beat playing, but with the drum volume on zero, then use the record button as you'd expect to.

I'm hoping these issues might get patched in a firmware update at some point. If they don't, it's not the end of the world.

There are loads of preprogrammed beats. Most are okay, which is about as much as you would want. Certainly good enough for developing ideas from.

Crucially, it sends MIDI clock messages to the M13 and the 8-Step Program, so they're all in sync. It also sends a play message when play is hit on the looper, which will start the 8-Step Program. I think this is a good thing.

Today I got the final piece of the jigsaw: an amp modeller. I love my big valve amps for proper playing, but I've been asked to play an ambient type set where I'll be going straight into a PA, and I like the flexibility of this.

The Zoom MS80 cost me £65 has stereo in/out, which doesn't really exist at this price. After maybe 45 minutes play, I'm very happy with the sounds, and that's before really getting to know the models. The Twin Reverb sounds fine and sounds like what you'd want it to. There's silly metal amps there, which sound like silly metal amps and will be fun. There's a load of stuff in between (Marshalls, Orange, Matchless, Vox etc) which all sound pretty good.

The MS80 allows you to load your own IRs, and apparently this makes a bit of a difference. I'll play with this is and see what happens.

The big advantage, though is that this is upstream of the looper, which means that any drums etc don't need to go through an amp sim on my computer, and that any amp drive that I want (post all the delayey/reverby/modulationey nonsense) gets saved to the loop.

It sounds pretty great, all together. I'm pretty delighted with this board as it is now.

Extremely sick!

That looks bloody great Paul.

Looks like a city! Excellent logistics and ergonomics there.

About 2 years ago (maybe 3) my Marshall JVM stopped working, which unfortunately coincided with Mansons closing down and the amp guy they used retiring. Laziness and direction of the band meant it has sat there until last week when I finally got it sorted, and my god do I love this amp!
After a few years of complex pedalboards and single channel amps it has been liberating to play with just amp dirt (albeit a plethora of gain stages), a delay and a bit of modulation just in case.
Last board before repairing the JVM: Board this week:

Yeah, the JVM's a bit special if Marshall dirt is your thing. Always loved them (one of the few amps I still long for).

Who did you take it to? I have no idea who I would go to for amp stuff around here. I've a pal who used to work in Mansons and I'd probably ask him, but he hasn't played in years and probably doesn't know who is still in that line of work.

My Matamp occasionally makes a few noises that I can usually put down to lovable idiosyncrasies, or tube warmth (it's supposed to buzz like that...) but occasionally I wonder if I should take it for a health check. I don't gig it, but I've never done more than reseat a valve in the 13 years I've owned it.

I will say, having put off taking my Peavey Classic 50 for a service for like five years because it seemed "fine" (although not necessarily great lol), when I finally did take it to a local tech last year I fell in love with the sound of it all over again. Just a thought...

Bacchus wrote: Tue May 19, 2026 10:08 pm Yeah, the JVM's a bit special if Marshall dirt is your thing. Always loved them (one of the few amps I still long for).

Who did you take it to? I have no idea who I would go to for amp stuff around here. I've a pal who used to work in Mansons and I'd probably ask him, but he hasn't played in years and probably doesn't know who is still in that line of work.

My Matamp occasionally makes a few noises that I can usually put down to lovable idiosyncrasies, or tube warmth (it's supposed to buzz like that...) but occasionally I wonder if I should take it for a health check. I don't gig it, but I've never done more than reseat a valve in the 13 years I've owned it.

Took it to Retro Amps near Newton Abbot, I saw Tazma Studios recommend him after doing some work for them. Super nice guy (Darren), I emailed first and he said just give him a call so I’d just do that in the first place. Number’s on the website, think it’s just retroamps.com.
As Freddy said, it’s definitely worth getting a service, I bet you’d be very pleasantly surprised.