Stomp Racks: The Brain

Rainbow your pedals for fancier tone.

The idea i had when I was 15 of owning every Boss pedal to create the ultimate rig is stupid on more levels than we have time to list.  Besides having ab-normal stepping accuracy I would also have to be able to do it near instantly.  Going from verse to a bridge i might have to step a dozen times.
Welcome to the future!  We’re here right now.  Sort of.

Now there are systems that you can throw in stompboxes, midi modules, rack units and powerbooks in it and out the other side spits out your take on well controlled tone and puts it all on the floor.  It’s kind of great.
It also seems like a pros have gone to this set up from the opposite ends of gear philosophy.

A tight "Floor Rack" from Mike Vegas of Nice Racks NYC

You’ve got the guys with the monster racks that they have to pay to transport and only their tech knows how to run, wanting to get it all on the floor.  Then there are the guys that kept adding stomboxes to their board and have been dealing with “tap-dancing” between parts and learning to live with noise issues.  

Stomp-Racks

The “brain” of these set ups are in the midi foot-controller itself.  The brain sends commands to either the units themselves or to loops that engage the stompbox itself.  The foot-controller holds presets that can simultaneously several effects at once.  It’s similar to using presets in a multi-fx processor except you’re using any gear you want.


The RJM mastermind is a great little board.  It’s very straight forward to set up and a good deal.  
There are several companies that make units like this now.

The Softstep's sensor switches can change parameters six different ways.

If you want an absurd level of control the Keith McMillen Instruments Softstep will keep you real busy.  We’ll talk more about that another time.

Let’s just say that you had 2 combo amps, 4 stompboxes and midi-module pedal like the Eventide Timefactor.
You stomp on the RJM Mastermind and:
a signal is sent to the Effects Gizmo, RJM pedal looper device, to switch on your distortion and flanger pedals,

RJM Amp Gizmo

Eventide Timefactor

RJM Mastermind

A signal is sent to the Amp Gizmo, yep, these are the real names, to switch from the Blues Deluxe to the mesa or switch channels on the amps themselves. Finally a signal is sent to the Timefactor to change to a short slap-back delay.  If you decide later that you want to a huge, psychedelic delay, just hit the switch on the Timefactor itself.

This one is real nice

It’s huge freedom to decide what you want to play through and the level of control that you dig.  Another way I look at it is that it’s a work in progress.  It’s a real workbench that you can keep adding, subtracting and rerouting to always make it work for you no matter what new, “game-changing” effect comes out next month.

Players will always argue digital vs analog as far as sound goes but when it comes to control you can’t deny.  Digi rules.

-Jay Bois