#pedalboards

We're looking at an important piece of gear for ANY pedal-related rig today…A PEDALBOARD!! Come along as we check out the ABC Combo from Holeyboard Pedalboards, it'll change your setup for the better, promise!! 🎛

Head to YouTube to check out a time-lapse video of me building a new demo board, featuring the Canvas Volume Pedal from Walrus Audio, amongst others!! Always fun to build, and as you'll hear, it sounds pretty damn rad, too - cheers!!

On the most recent episode of GigRig's ChatTGR series, Dan Steinhardt revealed the details of a new pedalboard setup for Ed. The segment on Radiohead is from 35:56-41:42, with video of a GigRig tech testing the board at 38:53-41:20. Dan also revealed that he's building a board for Colin! However, Jonny doesn't want a professionally made board, because Jonny "likes that his board doesn't work, he likes that has to kick it."

Dan has assembled Ed's boards for a decade now, and often creates different ones not only for each of Ed's projects, but also different ones for studio and touring. The new board is specifically designed for Radiohead's upcoming European tour dates. Ed has spent a month with the new setup, and last Tuesday he met with Dan and expressed how happy he is with the new sounds he's able to create with it.

Switching Systems

The new board consists of three distinct smaller boards. As Jake explains in the video, the left board is mainly overdrives, the center board is weird ambient effects, and the right board is delay effects.

Ed has used true bypass loops since the In Rainbows era, and he's used TheGigRig switching systems since 2014 (before that he used Voodoo Labs switchers). These systems allows Ed to enable and disable any arrangement of his pedals by pressing a single switch on the controller unit. As Dan explains in the video, the G3S switcher on the primary board is the control center of the setup. It's programmed with presets designed for specific songs. The G3S ATOM on each outer board is controlled by the central G3S. So the song presets on the center G3S apply to all three pedalboards.

Looking for New Sounds

Ed's previous Radiohead touring board consisted of two boards, one with his core effects and one with weirder effects primarily used for newer songs. The core board featured a bunch of pedals aimed at creating the sounds of specific albums, such as a JHS Angry Charlie V2 (a modified clone of the Guvnor, used to recreate Ed's 90s tones) and a ThorpyFX Muffroom Cloud (standing in for Ed's Big Cheese fuzz).

This time, it looks like Ed is mainly using the newer effects he fell in love with while working on solo material. This applies to his drive board in particular, with a Kingley Harlot and Page at the core of his overdrive and distortion sounds. As such, it seems likely that older songs will take on a newer sound at the upcoming tour dates. In a sense, it may be reminiscent of Radiohead's Haiti Benefit show. At that concert, Radiohead played songs from across their discography using only the gear they brought to LA to record The King of Limbs.

Full details of the new boards below. For a full description of all of Ed's pedalboards since 1993, including all of Dan's builds, check out this page.

Left Board: Overdrive and Compression

Xotic XW-1 wah

JHS NOTAKLÖN

Diamond Compressor (original version)

Kingsley Page V2 tube boost

Kingsley Harlot V3 tube overdrive

JHS Color Box V2 (10th Anniversary Edition)

TheGigRig G3S ATOM Switching System

Center Board: Pitch and Glitch

Top Row:

Sonic Research Turbo Tuner

Diamond Tremolo TRM-1 (Ed's original in custom blue)

Hologram Electronics Microcosm

Hologram Electronics Chroma Console

Bottom Rows:

Gamechanger PLUS pedal

Gamechanger WET switch (PLUS pedal expander)

Electro-Harmonix Pitch Fork +

Digitech Whammy Ricochet

Red Panda Tensor

TheGigRig G3S Switching System

Floating (left of the center board):

unknown black pedal

unknown volume/expression pedal (maybe Dunlop DVP4 with some tape)

Right Board: Delay and Looping

Boss DD-3 delay (Ed's original delay)

Boss DD-3T delay

OTO Machines BIM 12-bit delay

Electro-Harmonix Memory Man delay (vintage big box)

Line 6 DL4 MKII delay/looper

OBNE BL-44 Reverse

Did you know you we make Pedalboards, too? Visit our website to build your very own custom board, created with the help of our good friend Todd Tabor from DryRunWoodWorks! Cheers!

Decided to sell the TC Plethora X5 as it just felt overcomplex for my needs.

Guitar board is now:

TurboTuner -> MXR reissue Dyna Comp -> EHX Electric Mistress flanger -> TC Flashback delay -> Keeley Dark Side fuzz / tape delay sim / vibe -> Ernie Ball volume pedal -> Keeley Aurora reverb

I might revisit the pedal order at some point but i think this will work for Police-y rhythm sounds and reverby volume swell leads.

Bass board is now:

TC Polytune mini -> Aguilar Octamizer -> Aguilar TLC Compressor -> Tech 21 Bass Boost Chorus -> DSM Humboldt Bass Station preamp/cab sim/DI

The Bass Boost Chorus has a pretty blue sparkle finish. I’ll try to photograph it later.