My 1992 Pedalboard ASK ZAC 43

well hello friends and welcome to
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another Ask
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Zac today we're gonna have fun looking
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at my retro
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90s pedal board we're gonna dive
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deep into uh into this
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board and uh all the the pedals on it
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this is a
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these are some of the the pedals that i
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had back in the 90s and then
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some reproductions that i had to use
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like this 808 i had an original 808 and
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sold it so this is a reissue but
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otherwise these are
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my old pedals from uh from the olden
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times
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so uh yeah we're gonna have fun so while
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you're thinking about it
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uh if you've been enjoying the show uh
1:13
subscribe if you've already subscribed
1:15
please go to askzak.com and go to the
1:18
store
1:19
and you can pick up a t-shirt or a mug
1:21
or there's the tip jar information
1:23
in the description so all right
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so this was kind of inspired by the
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clone episode i did last week
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and uh you know talking about the 80s
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and 90s and the beginning of the
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boutique stuff made me think
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about the what i was using during that
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period of time because i
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i didn't have any boutique stuff i guess
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i guess you could consider this demeter
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kind of a a boutique thing
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but otherwise it was you know boss and
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ibanez stuff
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so let's talk about this
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board uh so first off
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this is a boss bcb6
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pedal board it was originally released
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in 1983
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and it really was the standard for pedal
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boards at the time
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and of course it was limited in that it
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was really only designed to
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to hold boss pedals you could
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uh put smaller pedals like it like you
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could with this
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uh trimulator but if you put anything
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bigger like this 808 is actually
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slightly bigger than a boss pedal and so
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i had to hollow out
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some of the plastic i just kind of
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chipped away at it
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but yeah that was that was the standard
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and so that's what you saw on television
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and so uh
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i used to you know stay up late at night
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uh after i was supposed to be asleep as
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a
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teenager and uh actually probably yeah
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starting you know about 13 14 years old
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i would
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i would go to bed and then after my
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parents went to sleep
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i would go and i had a little television
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in my room and i had headphones it had a
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headphone jack and i'd plug that into it
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this was an old tv with you know rabbit
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ears on it and i would get
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i could get nbc which that was the
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channel i wanted to watch because i
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wanted to see the tonight show
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you know with Johnny Carson and then
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after that i wanted to watch letterman
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because letterman was my favorite
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because i really liked the band because
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i liked doc severance
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and and the you know the the jazz you
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know kind of
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tv jazz that they were playing which was
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great and i had respect for that and
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also the musical guests they had they
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had great guests on the tonight show
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but i really enjoyed watching uh the
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most dangerous band
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you know on letterman and so i loved
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hiram bullock the original guitar player
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and he used one of these full of petals
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and will lee had won
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one of these full of pedals the bass
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player and then when
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hiram left when they got sid mcginnis he
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had one of these two and it was
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right there in plain view you could see
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it and then people would come on the
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show
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and uh so you'd see uh guys
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you know whether it was the tonight show
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or or letterman i remember
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seeing like john jorgensen have one i
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remember seeing john leventhal
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duke levine who was playing with mary
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chapin carpenter
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in the 90s and uh you know but uh you
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know saw these guys you know kind of
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using
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this board and uh
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you know i ended up just kind of finding
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one by you know blind luck
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so uh my first you know to kind of give
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a little bit of context my first pedal
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was a dod chorus
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and it got stolen from the high school
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uh
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equipment locker you know that because i
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played in the jazz band in high school
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and uh my little bag that had my
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chorus in it and a wawa that i borrowed
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from a friend
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got stolen and so i
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i took care of my buddy who lost his
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wah-wah
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and at least i think i did and then i
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bought a ce2 you know boss chorus
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you know from the ams catalog and at the
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same time i decided i wanted to try
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getting an overdrive pedal so i got the
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boss sd1
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the yellow pedal with three knobs then
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i decided i really wanted to get into
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delay
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and again this is about 1990 at this
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point
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and so i i from clawson's music in
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corpus christi texas hello bob and
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bubba i ordered a boss dd3 delay
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and like many from that era you know i
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was used to just using batteries in my
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pedal
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my pedals so i get the dd3 i put a
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battery in it
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well it lasts one gig and then it it
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starts the delays
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time starts going away and
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i'm like what's wrong with this pedal
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and my guitar teacher had to tell me
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well that's a digital delay it'll eat a
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battery in a night
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and he said you're going to have to get
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a an adapter for it
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i was like what's that i mean i didn't
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even know what the jack was on the back
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of the pedal that's how
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ignorant i was and none of the music
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stores in corpus christi even
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had nine volt power supplies you know
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and uh
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and it was kind of like you had to use
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the boss power supply with it you know
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there wasn't even the knowledge of okay
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it's a nine volt center pin
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negative you know and it's filtered and
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such there was no
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knowledge of that so i had a special
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order of boss psa 120 power supply
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and this was back when it was a
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transformer you know it was heavier than
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you know they don't make that power
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supply anymore the one they make now
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is uh is a digital switching power
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supply so i got that
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so now we get to i was
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in my hometown of kingsville texas and
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there was only one music store there at
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that point
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because the music man that i had worked
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at had closed
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so there was this uh this one store
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called getch
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that was more of a piano shop and then
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there were some pawn shops
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that would routinely have some
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interesting gear in them so usually at
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least once a week of course
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i would go to the pawn shops well i
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happen to be digging through this one
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pawn shop
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and there was something that i guess i
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had just hadn't noticed before
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but i found one of these boards
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in the back covered in dust and thick
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dust
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so they didn't have a power supply to it
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and the pedals were just sitting there
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and i asked the you know the owner i
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said what do you want for this
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and he said and he said i don't know 200
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i said well how can i try it out
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he said i don't know i don't know i said
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well
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how do we know if it works he said i i
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don't know
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so i said uh well i think i might have a
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power supply at home but
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would you do a hundred dollars for the
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whole thing because it was the plastic
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board
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full of pedals and it had you know
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an analog delay and it didn't have all
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these pedals in it but it had it had
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this exact cs2 compressor and this red
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pedal
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and had the dm2 it also had like an eq
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pedal and a ce3 chorus and some other
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things that i've gotten rid of through
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the years
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and he agreed and so i ran
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home got my boss power supply
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plugged it in but didn't play through it
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because i just wanted to make sure that
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it you know everything powered up you
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know because i didn't want to lose the
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deal
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and i gave him a hundred dollars and uh
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you know i took it home and began i
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took everything apart and cleaned it and
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then uh
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got it uh got it back together and
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everything worked
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you know perfectly everything was fine i
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was just amazed
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so uh anyway so that's how i got my
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first pedal board a boss
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bcb6 and just to give a little uh
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you know kind of context it came out in
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1983
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and it was a hundred and forty dollars
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and all it came with
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was the the the plastic board itself the
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daisy chain
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and the little megami molded plugs
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and that was 140 which in today's money
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would be
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330 dollars for what some guys on the on
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the gear page called a tupperware
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pedalboard i think it's very handy i i
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love it i mean i
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i kinda after playing through this i'm
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kinda tempted to go back to using
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something like this because it actually
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works really well
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okay so in the board you know starting
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off you have the psm5
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and a lot of people thought this is a
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power supply it's not because the power
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supply has to plug
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into it and then it has a daisy chain
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coming off of it all this is an
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av box it's all it is the way they set
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it up
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was where you would plug in the guitar
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here and your amp here
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and then it would go in between either
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looping through all the pedals
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or going straight to your amp i
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figured out pretty quickly what it was
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and i wired it differently and so what i
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did was i ran it to the
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the tuner and then out on the last pedal
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so that i could switch in between either
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tuning which also muted my signal so
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that i could tune or change instruments
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or go through the pedals
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the the tu-12 when it was released
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in 1983 it was a hundred dollars which
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is
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236 in today's dollars
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is it starting to add up this was an
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expensive board okay
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so then and the tu-12h is still a great
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tuner you know it's not it's not like
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it's some inaccurate horrible
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tuner okay next you have the cs2 and
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this the compressor was released
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in 1981 and went through 86 and it was
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then was replaced by the cs3
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i loved this compressor and
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i just thought it's a great sounding
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unit
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[Music]
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and uh it's perfect for uh you know this
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kind of thing
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[Music]
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[Laughter]
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it's hard to get that last uh chime in
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there
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but uh yeah like like playing that
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pretenders
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solo to uh to kid which is one of my
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favorites and honeymoon scott actually
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used one of these live i think
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in the studio when he recorded that he
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used a tele
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you know direct and i'm sure they had
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like an la2a or something like that
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but uh yeah cs2 is a great
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compressor uh it's pretty squashy
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sounding
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you know even if you set the sustain low
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like i've got where it's you know that 9
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10 o'clock range it still has a bit of
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squash to it
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but to me this is you know that's this
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is what like vince gill and stuart smith
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and
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tons of guys were using these in the 80s
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and then they went on to the cs3 later
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on
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all right then you have the 808 this is
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a reissue
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unfortunately you know i had a real one
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back in the day
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that i paid 30 bucks for and
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uh i sold it in the late 90s for 350
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bucks
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but i still regret it to this day but so
12:28
this is a reissue
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the original 808 was 50 in 1979 which
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would be 150
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in today's money and the uh
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the reissue tsa to weight in today's
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money is 170
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so it's more expensive now than it was
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when it was released which i think is
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pretty funny
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uh i haven't played through a tube
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screamer in forever because i've been
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using you know most orations or the
12:51
karma
12:52
or you know even a nobles or something
12:55
like that and so it was a kind of a hoot
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to uh
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to play through this
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it has a lot a lot of mid-range and you
13:18
know we'll just
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turn this uh dd2 on too to kind of
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get the full effect because that's the
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way i would have used it was you know
13:25
with the dd2 on here and get that
13:37
it's a nice uh yeah
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it's fun to revisit the tube screamer
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they don't they don't sound as bad as i
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remember them sounding i know that
13:46
sounds elitist so anyway
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and of course uh you had to have an
13:51
adapter which they didn't sell adapters
13:54
at that point so
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what i did was i went to radio shack and
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i got
13:59
a female you know boss style
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jack and then i got a you know an eighth
14:05
inch plug
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and i just wired them together i
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soldered them together and made a
14:09
converter so that i could plug the daisy
14:11
chain
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into the 808 and use it on a power
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supply instead of having to run a
14:17
you know battery in it and then have to
14:18
remember to unplug it
14:20
i had to do the same thing with this
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next one so this is the the tremulator
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which of course was released in 82
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by a demeter and of course you know with
14:30
a often told story
14:32
is you know that uh rya cooter wanted a
14:35
tremolo pedal no one was making one at
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that point
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and so uh demeter made one that was
14:40
based on his uh
14:43
his blackface twin reverb so
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go to the go to the neck pickup
14:48
[Music]
14:51
we still have the 808 on yep
14:54
all right so we're going to the neck
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pickup on the this is my uh
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my kabichi body dano caster neck
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uh adder neck pickup uh ron ellis
15:05
60t bridge pickup and it's got a glazer
15:09
b bender on it and yeah
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so here's the again this is the
15:15
compressor and the tremolo on
15:27
[Music]
15:38
[Music]
15:43
again you know this pedal has been
15:45
sitting in a box for years
15:47
i only used it and uh it was nice to
15:50
pull
15:50
you know pull the pedal out again and
15:52
hear it and it's a great sounding unit
15:53
and
15:54
and i've heard that these early red knob
15:56
ones are supposed to be
15:57
good i don't know i don't know i i think
15:59
i paid
16:00
i can't remember what i paid you know
16:02
for that pedal you know used many years
16:04
ago
16:05
all right so there's the trimulator and
16:07
here's the boss dm2
16:10
and you know this is
16:13
the second version of the pedal it
16:15
doesn't have the coveted
16:17
early chip it has the later chip which
16:19
was also in the dm3
16:22
to me still i prefer actually the sound
16:25
of the dm3 over the two
16:28
no matter the different chip in it
16:30
because i think the three
16:31
is uh is cleaner sounding and i just
16:34
like it better
16:35
so of course i'm not going to get rid of
16:36
this thing because i've had it forever
16:38
and uh and its repeats are really kind
16:40
of thuddy
16:42
so you know but it's good on a
16:44
telecaster you go to the back pickup and
16:51
[Music]
17:03
you
17:09
[Music]
17:25
so yeah d dm2 is great for uh
17:28
fattening up a telly thing and you know
17:30
getting a good
17:31
slapback uh the dm2
17:34
when released was 200 in 1981 which
17:38
would be like 472 dollars to
17:40
today okay
17:44
that's that's more than what we think of
17:47
as the inflated price that we pay for
17:50
used ones
17:51
all right the dd2 might as well kind of
17:54
give the stats on that
17:56
the dd2 was released in 1983
17:59
it was two hundred and twenty dollars
18:01
then which would be like
18:02
five hundred and twenty dollars now
18:08
all right this is the way i set it i set
18:11
it at
18:11
uh the 800 milliseconds on the mode
18:14
i set it you know straight up and then
18:16
the feedback and levels
18:18
at nine o'clock so you get this kind of
18:21
[Music]
18:26
thing
18:32
[Music]
18:50
the dd2 i think is one of the sleeper
18:54
delay pedals
18:55
i mean they're still relatively cheap
18:58
uh i mean they can be bought for in the
19:00
hundred to two hundred dollar range
19:02
depending on how clean they are
19:04
most of them in the 120-150 range and to
19:07
me
19:08
if i were only going to have one delay
19:10
pedal on my board because normally i use
19:12
two
19:12
because you can tell you know you know i
19:14
had two delay pedals one for long and
19:16
one for short
19:18
like but if i only had one it'd be the
19:20
dd2 because it just has that right
19:24
it's not as study as the dm2
19:27
but it's not as clear as later petals it
19:31
just and i don't know i've had to do
19:32
with the big chip that was used on these
19:34
or what but
19:35
these just have a really really nice
19:37
sending repeat and i
19:39
yeah if i was only gonna have one delay
19:40
pedal it'd be the dd2 that'll be another
19:42
pedal i never you know if i you know
19:45
i'll never get rid of
19:47
so anyway that's that's kind of the
19:51
the board and uh what's really
19:55
funny about about this is one i need to
19:58
talk about
19:59
so i was telling you how how much it you
20:01
know each one of these pedals cost
20:03
when new so if i wanted to buy this
20:05
board you know back in the day
20:06
you know brand new it would have been
20:08
one thousand one hundred and twenty
20:09
dollars
20:11
and if i wanted to and so if you take
20:12
inflation into account this would be two
20:14
thousand
20:15
six hundred and ten dollars yeah
20:19
so one of the real funny things about
20:21
this is is a realization because you
20:23
know you think that you're
20:25
kind of evolving as a player and
20:27
sometimes you're kind of coming around
20:29
full circle
20:30
so i'm going to put my guitar down
20:34
and uh and so this of course was the
20:36
pedal board i used in the 90s
20:42
well this is the board i use now notice
20:45
any similarities
20:47
they're both straight in line they're
20:49
both
20:50
have a tuner a compressor
20:53
a tremolo an overdrive and two delay
20:57
pedals
20:58
it was kind of this weird thing of
21:01
finding out
21:02
you know what i've i'm using the board i
21:05
used back in the 90s but just kind of a
21:08
i don't know maybe a slightly updated or
21:10
you know version so of course
21:12
this has an isolated you know power
21:14
supply on it and is more compact
21:18
but yeah you have a different flavor of
21:20
distortion
21:22
but
21:24
[Laughter]
21:26
there you have it all right well guys
21:30
i hope you've enjoyed today's episode
21:33
uh where we took a look back at these uh
21:37
old pedal boards that uh again i saw my
21:39
heroes use back in the 80s and 90s and
21:42
that
21:42
i hadn't used for a long time you know
21:44
probably was until
21:46
in the 2000s that i got a you know pedal
21:48
train board or something like that
21:50
so anyway well i hope you've enjoyed
21:52
today's episode i'll see you next time