Update

Hey Then When Fans, It’s been a while since we posted anything, so I thought I’d give you a quick update and then go over my guitar rig just for fun and because it ties in to what we’ve been up to.

Then When are writing new material for our next release. The tunes are really shaping up nicely and we can’t wait to share them with you. We plan on going into the studio in the next month or two and laying down six to seven new songs. We’re going to have a new logo and new merch when we launch the release. Tentatively, the title of the new release is “Strange Lost World”.

In preparation for recording, I was getting my guitars and pedal board ready and thought it would be cool to put together a rig rundown post to share my methodology, signal chain, and inspiration for the build.

Guitars

I have a few electrics, A PRS S2 singlecut, an ‘80s Kramer Pacer, a Les Paul Studio, and a Warmoth partscaster. Without a doubt, the partscaster is my favorite. I chose all the specs for it, designed the control layout, and put it together. The Warmoth neck is 24 ¾” scale with a 10” – 16” compound radius fretboard. The neck and fretboard are roasted maple, the nut is a 1 ⅝” Graph Tech TUSQ, the frets are stainless steel 6150s, and the neck also has an asymmetric curve that makes it just so comfortable. The pickups are both Seymour Duncan. There’s a Trembucker JB in the bridge and a Jazz in the neck. Both have individual coil tap switches that provide surprisingly good single coil tones. The volume knob is placed just out of the way for strumming, picking, and getting to the pickup selector switch, but close enough to use quickly. I opted for no tone knob because for my entire guitar-playing life the only thing I’ve ever done with a tone knob is obsessively make sure it’s up all the way. I could geek out for hours talking about every little nuance of this guitar. It plays like a dream and I get a variety of great tones out of it.

Pedal Board

I rebuilt my pedal board in preparation for going into the studio, but I also wanted to make it simple to set up and use live. I needed something that was going to be quiet, versatile, and solid. I wanted the ability to go straight to the board for reamping but also hear my rig when I lay down the tracks. To accomplish this, I built a patch bay and a buffer bay to route my signal through the pedals, effects loop, and provide direct (dry) outs for my tuner and recording.

Here’s the signal chain:

Guitar > patch bay in > Cry Baby 535 Wah > buffer bay in > TC Electronic Subnup > Kokko phaser > MXR Uni-Vibe > Ibanez Tube Screamer > electro-harmonix Soul Food > buffer bay amp out > amp preamp > amp effects loop send > buffer bay FX in > Boss FV 500 H Volume pedal > Boss DD7 Digital Delay > buffer bay FX out > amp effects loop return

Things that are not in the signal chain:

patch bay direct (dry) out > Korg PB01 Tuner

patch bay TRS > dual button footswitch

Here’s the ins and outs of the patch bay and buffer bay:

patch bay:

guitar side: in, direct out, TRS, TRS

board side: direct out, direct out, TRS, TRS

buffer bay:

guitar side: in, effects loop send (to pedals), buffered effects loop return (to amp), buffered amp out

board side: buffered pedal loop out, effects loop send (to pedals), effects loop return (to amp), amp out

I found the plans for the patch bay and buffer bay on vertexeffects.com after watching YouTube videos on the Vertex Effects channel. I modified them slightly for my purposes, basically just combining different options so I could route the signal the way I wanted.

Amps

My main amp is a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier Tremoverb 100 watt combo. It sounds amazing, but it’s a big-ass heavy tube amp that has its idiosyncrasies. I only take it out for recording and bigger gigs. For practice and most gigs, I’m using a Boss Nextone Special. It’s very close sounding to a real tube amp, light weight, and reliably consistent. It’s also incredibly loud. The power level can be set at 0.5 W, 20 W, 40 W, or 80 W. For practice I have it at 20 W, and we’re a pretty loud band.