Anyone Keep a Log Book of Your Pedals and Pedal Settings?

[djmiyta]

I do. 3 ring binders for all my printed pedal build docs. and spiral notebooks with my pedal chains and settings. I also have notebooks with my likes and dislikes about all my builds. and a few more notebooks on each pedals horoscopes. how else would I know whos gonna get a long with who? It gives me that edge over others and there trains and now I've shared it with all of you. Your pedals b-day and time it breathes electricity for the first time is all you need you proud builder of pedals.

Your welcome people of earth your welcome.

 

[Nostradoomus]

no I just make everything one knob nowadays

 

[jcpst]

I have a notebook for my pedal ideas. But once it’s built, I don’t feel the need to write anything down. If I have an idea for a sound, I just hook it up and dial it in.

In the words of Ratatat:

I've been rappin' for about 17 years, okay
I don't write my stuff anymore
I just kick it from my head, you know what I'm saying?

 

[djmiyta]

Kinda felt it'd be just a hand full of people who'd keep notes on builds. I was hoping for more to try others favorite or even different settings maybe I should ask what peoples current pedal train consists of being a bit more broad of a question. Most of the time Someone says something I gotta look up and sometimes what I look up I find I like. You are a perfect example. Never heard of Ratatat. I like em, cool chillax (kinda quirky (to me) music from what I've heard so far. (even though that may not have been your point you got something across so thank you)

 

[jcpst]

That was one of those old latent memories- I hadn’t thought of Ratatat in a long time. The self-titled album became a life soundtrack for a while when it came out. One cool thing about their compositional style is where they play an overdub while the track is playing in reverse. Then when they flip back to playing it forward, there’s this really nice reverse effect, but stands out because the melodies aren’t reversed.

But I could definitely talk tones! I’m kind of an octave pedal junky. One thing I do sometimes is have the POG with a lot of sub octave, then go into a ringer-style octave up. And then into either a muff or ts. I’m using the PPCB Kewpie as a muff, and the Fortin-modded tubescreamer.

Another I like that is really gnarly is a Curds & Whey set with the wavefolding as strong as I can get it, into a Schadenfreude. It’s like riding a wild horse, a bit untamed. The tone can be intense in the upper frequencies- going into a Rat helps tame it and dampen that high end a bit.

 

[spilla]

For pedal settings and signal chain, i take photos and then put them in a folder that has the date in the folder name

 

[DeadAirMD]

Same. I have photos of all the knob settings saved to an album. Also includes my amp and mixer settings. Stuff gets bumped and settings change, gotta remember where the sweet spots are.

 

[djmiyta]

I guess my age is why I never think of using my phone and taking pictures but excellent idea. Maybe I'll take pics of all my notes and stuff then it'll be backed up at least.

 

[jimilee]

Nope. I photograph each one, that’s about it.

 

[HamishR]

As someone who likes to experiment with the circuits I have quite the library of Vero layouts. I keep the DIYLC file and a PNG version for using but that's it for documentation. I don't build anything complex enough to have to remember settings, and my FX chains are three pedals long at most. Usually only one or two. And one of those is a UA reverb which is almost always on.

It really doesn't matter if it's documented or not - I'll still have pedals I have forgotten ever building.

 

[joelorigo]

Good idea. I have thought that I should have made notes about amp and pedal settings that I liked.

 

[gonzo]

I just draw the schematic and any notes on the inside lid of everything I build. Mainly in case something eventually goes wrong.

 

[RetiredUnit1]

Nope. I photograph each one, that’s about it.

Ditto, with 'caption' of what sound/song it's for, in a folder labeled pedal and amp settings. Far faster, no paper, never loose it in the cloud.

 

[Gordo]

I wish I did but then again not building as much as I used to. I DO keep copious notes and photos of repairs that I do, both to document original conditions of equipment and give me a backout strategy. The shop has a very much open door policy so if I get side tracked in any way it's good to have a reference point once an idea or "of course I'll remember this" happens.

Also little details matter. Eg: when an amp comes in for tubes and requires a rebias I make note of the original values because sometimes a correctly biased amp doesn't sound as good to the customer as a mis-biased amp.