Tone Report Weekly 185 | Page 39

Step 2: I/O Routing and You Before discovering the magical convenience of in-out interfaces, I used to just plug my guitar into the first pedal and send the signal to my amp out of the last pedal. And sure, that sounds simple enough, but it wasn’t always the case. For instance, I once mounted a volume pedal on my board as the first pedal in the chain. But, for the sake of flow and pedal access, I needed to mount a pedal above it on the board, making the input jack completely inaccessible without removing a pedal each time I wanted to plug in. I even ran it that way for a while—and it worked, sorta—but I eventually got fed up and went hunting for a solution. of your board quickly. Other companies, such as Empress Effects and Goodwood Audio, make full- on I/O interfaces complete with buffers, boosts, mutes, noise gates and tuner outs. Whether or not you’d need any of those features is up to you, but no matter what—mounting one of these under your board will save you time and possibly even some frustration. This is when I discovered junction boxes. There are several companies who make these fantastic little devices, some in wondrously small, 1590A-style boxes that mount perfectly in the upper corner of your Pedaltrain with the help of a little Velcro. In reality, these are usually as simple as four jacks wired up to go in- one-side and out-the-other. But even still, they’re really handy for getting in and out ToneReport.com 39