The Andertons Staff’s Pedalboards!

Guitarists are curious folk. We’re always keen to discover what certain players are using and why, with pedalboards being particularly intriguing to us. That’s because there are literally thousands of stompboxes out there, so it can be fascinating to find out which combinations of effects musicians use to achieve their signature sounds.

Now, we realise that none of us are Slash or Steve Vai. So some of you might not even care about what we use! However, we’re confident enough to say that we qualify as experts when it comes to guitar pedals and know what makes something “good”. That’s why we’ve put together this article showcasing the pedalboards of our staff — to ultimately give you some fresh inspiration for your own setup!

Chris Toft

Senior Digital Guitar Marketer

Chris' Pedals

When it comes to effects, I typically use them to enhance the sound of my amp. I think of them as extra colours to add to my tonal palette! Like most guitarists though, I’m forever tweaking my pedalboard, either through boredom or because I keep buying new stompboxes. This, however, is my current setup. It covers all of the sounds I need for my various musical projects… that is until the next pedal comes along!

I’m massively into ‘80s hair metal, so I tend to rely on a good valve amp for most of my distorted tones. I currently use an EVH 5150III EL34, which is a killer amp and has more gain than I’ll ever need! With that in mind, I guess you could say that the 5150 footswitch is the command centre of my board.

My signal chain starts with the MXR Talk Box because, well, why wouldn’t you want a talk box? It’s difficult to use and impossible to look cool when using it, but it’s one of the most uniquely fun pedals out there! From there, I go into the ever-reliable Boss TU-2 and then the Strymon Compadre compressor/boost, which is useful as it’s essentially two pedals in one! I use the compressor to even out my clean tone and kick in the boost for solos. The Maxon OD808 Overdrive is the original tube screamer pedal and works really well for tightening up the crunch channel on my 5150. The last pedal is the iconic MXR EVH Phase 90. Eddie Van Halen is by far my biggest influence, and the Phase 90 just makes solos pop — not to mention it has a cool striped paint job!

I run my reverb, delay and modulation effects through the 5150’s FX loop. The Strymon Mobius has just about every mod sound you’ll ever need, but I mostly use it for chorus and tremolo — though it’s fun to play with the more unusual effects like ‘Destroyer’ and ‘Quadrature’. I then go into the Eventide MicroPitch delay which I absolutely love, for no other reason than the fact it nails the ‘80s “Van Hagar” detune effect. It makes my signal sound huge and instantly puts a smile on my face! The last pedal in my chain is the TC Electronic Hall of Fame Reverb. It usually just lives on the Plate setting for that iconic ‘70s “Sunset Sound” Reverb Chamber effect, but the TonePrint feature makes it incredibly useful for other applications too.

Ben Greener

E-Commerce Development Manager

Ben's Pedals

This pedalboard was inspired by the YouTube channel ‘5 Watt World’ and their slogan “the most music for the least gear”. Originally, I was going to use a mixture of homemade pedals with a couple of classics for modulation and delay, but I just couldn’t get the rig to be as versatile and as compact as I wanted it to be. That is when I decided to go down the digital route…

The centre of the rig is, of course, the Line 6 HX Stomp. This can handle 95% of the rigs I will ever want to build — all in one small box that sounds amazing! One of the unsung bits about the HX Stomp, for me, is the USB interface. At home, this pedalboard sits on my desk and the HX Stomp therefore becomes my audio interface, my re-amp box and is still able to be the core sound of my rig all at the same time!

The downsides of the HX Stomp are its lack of DSP power and its three switches. This means you need to be really careful in how you plan your rig. Luckily, for less than £20 you can add a couple of extra switches with the Hotone Ampero Switch. Normally, I run this with the switches on the HX Stomp controlling individual effects, while the extra Ampero switches control preset or bank up and down.

I also have a couple of essentials on my pedalboard, so if the world does end and the HX gets bricked — I can still get some pretty good tones and tune my guitar! I set the EQ to tame some of the frequencies on a couple of my humbucker-loaded guitars, as I’m mainly a P90/single-coil guy and so my tones are typically designed for them first. It doesn’t get turned on a lot, but can be a life-saver in the right moment! The Lovepedal Fuse is 9/10 set as a simple boost. It’s fairly flat, but I like the option to add some extra drive to any rig I have configured.

Do I need any more than the Line 6 HX Stomp and maybe the extra footswitch? Not at all, but it is nice to have the space for a couple of options that will just make my life easier.

Elliot Stent

Senior Digital Guitar Marketer

Elliot's Pedals

It’s stupidly ostentatious, I know. Especially when I haven’t played a proper gig since about 2016! But believe it or not, I use every single stompbox on my pedalboard. Nothing on there is just “for show”. So if I ever had to downsize, then trust me — I’d have a tough time figuring out what to cull!

The “brain” of my board is the One Control Crocodile Tail Loop, which is a sophisticated pedal switcher featuring 8 loops and MIDI. Most of my effects are routed into the unit, which lets me create presets that turn on/off several pedals with just one click. I also use an add-on MIDI programmer called the CrocEye to expand its MIDI capabilities. This sends patch-change commands to my Boss and Line 6 pedals, and it even switches the channels on my Marshall JVM amp. If you can just about wrap your head around MIDI, it’s like magic…

Running into the front-end of my Marshall are various gain pedals. The Horizon Devices Precision Drive is the most used of the bunch, which really tightens up the JVM’s dirty channel, and I’ll add in the TC Electronic Spark Booster for leads. The Lunastone Big Fella dishes out sweet low-gain sounds, while the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi Op-Amp pedal is just super-fun for emulating those iconic Smashing Pumpkins “Siamese Dream” fuzz tones!

The effects loop section of my board encompasses the two Boss 500 series pedals, which cover all of my delay and modulation needs. While somewhat dated, the Line 6 M5 is like a Swiss-army knife as it’s filled to the brim with different effects — including some pretty obscure ones! In front of all of those, signal chain-wise, is the Custom Audio Electronics Boost/Line Driver. This just increases the overall volume of the amp and is assigned to my solo/lead patches on the Crocodile Tail switcher.

My pedalboard does exactly what I need it to do, and it don’t feel like there’s anything “missing” — which is great for my bank balance. The only thing I want to refine is the cable arrangement underneath, as it’s a complete mess!

James Hurman

E-Commerce Catalogue Assistant

James' Pedals

You may look at my pedalboard and think two things: 1 — what a hot mess. 2 — what are these brands I’ve never heard of? This board is the culmination of trying to build an inspiring setup on a budget, and sometimes that means thinking outside of the box. A few caveats, as a non-gigging player I don’t have to consider practicality aspects like board size, number of effects, durability or layout — which allows me more freedom to build this wire-crossed monstrosity.

Before even thinking about pedals, any great tone is built on a foundation of the guitar and amp, so let’s start there. My favourite guitars are my ever-faithful Mexican Standard Fender Strat which I’ve had since I was 11, and my Michael Kelly Patriot (basically it’s a Les Paul). My amp is a Marshall Origin 20 Head with a 1×12 Celestion V30 cab. This combination offers me plenty of headroom for my pedals with the characteristic edge-of-breakup mid-focused punch of a Plexi. This core tone is the perfect canvas to paint my palette of pedals on.

My base tone starts with the TC Electronic Spark to just nudge the front end of the amp and a subtle analogue or tape delay from the Donner Island to add some space which sits underneath the mix. This goes into very short slap-back from the Donner Revecho to add some thickness and texture, and a light touch of reverb from the Revecho to round off the edges.

As you might be able to tell from the over-abundance of fuzz, overdrive and boost — I like to explore different textures and combinations of gain, from the smooth compression of the Mooer Blues Crab (a really great budget blues breaker-esque pedal) to the aggressive crunch of the BC Bender for that meaty Jimmy Page riff tone. All of my drive pedals are great affordable options and I could personally recommend every single one.

In terms of wet effects, I keep it relatively simple as I’m not too comfortable with those “wobbly” sounds. When I want to add a bit of movement I can kick on a subtle chorus, or a big, washy univibe. Although it’s a messy rig, it gives me all the sounds I want, and there’s plenty of room for growth as I change and upgrade pedals!

Tom Sherlock

Full Stack Developer

Tom's Pedals

Like many guitarists, I’m constantly mixing things up and swapping pedals out — so this is more of a snapshot in time rather than a long-term board!

The centre of the pedalboard is a loop switcher I had custom-made to change my amp channels and switch pedal loops as well. This allows me to change between clean ambient/delayed cleans and amp dirt with a single switch, which is great for loud/quiet transitions in songs (did someone say Nirvana?)

Apart from this, the signal chain is pretty standard — going through the Pitchfork, Mimiq Mini and Korg tuner first before hitting the Way Huge Swollen Pickle for some disgusting fuzziness. I mostly use amp distortion, so depending on the loop switcher’s channel, there’s then a choice of the clean amp channel with overdrive, ZVEX Lofi Junky reverb/delay and looper, or the dirty channel with the EQ set as a boost plus the Tape Machine delay. I run everything through the front of the amp as I often use amps without an FX loop, and I’m not too fussed about getting pure delay repeats.

I’ll probably add a few more pedals in time, such as a homemade germanium fuzz to go with the DIY overdrive, and a proper TS-style boost for my dirty channel rather than an EQ!

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