Over the past few months, rehearsals for the ‘Now We Have Light’ recording session have been hotting up and my thoughts are now turning to guitar sounds and the practical requirements of performing the new material live.

I thought I’d share my pedal board layout with you and talk a little bit about the various goodies on my current live rig.

So one of the most important things for me is to keep the weight down! Travelling with heavy equipment is no problem in a van but flying is a different ball game. I’ve got the pedals mounted on a Pedaltrain One and they’re housed in the light flight case - not as much protection as the heavier case but it does shave a bunch of bulk off.

Controlling the pedals is my Carl Martin Combinator mk2. It’s been a trusty switching unit and provides clean 9volt dc power to all but two of the pedals on the board, as well as a dedicated tuner out and a handy mute all function. 

Some of the elements of the board end up on the floor as I’m out of space, so off to the left is my tuner and acoustic emulator. I decided to add this to the board last year for the ‘Night of The Prog’ festival, again as a weight-saving exercise. It allows me to emulate the acoustic guitar whilst playing my electric and is very handy for tight spots where there is no time to change instruments!

On the left-hand side, I’ve got the TRex Replica offering a very clean delay, the Flint by Strymon, which is a brilliant piece of kit combining two classic effects, Tremolo & Reverb, in one small format pedal. Finally, I have the MXR Phase 90, This one has been modified to increase the output volume as the pedal was always quieter than the direct line level. 

On The right-hand side, I have the Blackstar HT Dual pedal, which is my current favourite distortion pedal. I’ve got five or more distortion and fuzz effects but this is the one I reach for most often. The next pedal is the Tech 21 Comp Tortion, it’s long been discontinued but is a great overall tonic for the guitar sound. It levels the performance out and provides great presence and balance.

The new edition is the introduction of an old favourite the Morley Volume Wah. Again two pedals in one and I’ve been finding it very useful in attenuating the drive sounds, where it allows for a nice sculpting of the tone and amount of gain. I’m also using it for volume swells and tone filtering which is a nice extra!

There’s obviously a tone of wiring going on and for this, I’ve used Switchcraft 1/4″ jacks and a high-quality soma cable. 

So there you have it, a quick rundown of all the parts of my Live Rig…

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