Is that like the last upgrade I shall ever perform?


But seriously, lovely guitar and I bet you'll have a lot of jealous people seeing you own a Les Paul.

Would love to hear about those Moogs.

Looks quite nice.

How's the "action" on it, Paul? Not sure if action is how it's called everywhere but growing up its how we referred to how close down to the fretboard the strings were and how lightly they could be pressed and still make a clean note. A buddy of mine had an Epiphone guitar that was just a dream in its ease of play.

The more warped or bowed the neck was the higher up the strings got which was not fun to play.

I've just picked up a "B" stock lap steel with a single humbucker, plus assorted finger-picks and thumb-picks, a tone bar, and a couple of sets of "decent" strings from Thomann UK, all for less than two-hundred and forty quid.

I can't help but think maybe I should have done this at the start of the lockdowns etc. though. Arse-about-face, as usual.

I've also just ordered what seems to be a decent book about using a C6 tuning, which is what Intend to play around with mostly. My "normal" blues slide-guitar playing should see me through open "E" hopefully.

"Sleepwalk," here I come. 

I've bought a new amp to go with the lap steel (and everything else) on eBay.

My current amp is brilliant, and it has all the effects and simulations of other amps under the sun.  My recording interface also has all the effects and simulations of other amps under the sun. I've also got a pedalboard full of effects, not to mention a couple of other multi-effects thingamabobs about the place.

My signal chain was getting a bit crowded. So, the answer is a nice little 5W Marshall valve amp, that doesn't even have reverb on it.



It's a neat little package, 23.9 x 45.5 x 41.9 centimetres, and best of all it has a switch to change it from 5W to 0.5W, which means I can (hopefully) overdrive it without alienating the neighbours. My current amp is 60W, but I'm never going out gigging again, so I really don't need anything like that much power.

I'm serious, after all this time, about getting back to basics. My guitar of choice is now the last Les Paul I bought, which is as simple as a two-pickup guitar can get. The lap steel has a single pickup.

The other thing I desired, and was, in fact, a deal-breaker, is an effects loop, which this amp has. What that means is that I can have my pedalboard plugged into the amp permanently rather than plugging my guitar into the pedalboard and the pedalboard into the amp. There are two jack sockets on the back, helpfully marked "send" and "return" which work like this:



...and sit between the preamp and power amp stages.  What this means is that you can use the preamp – which is where your amp gets its tone and voice from – in your actual signal chain with your pedals, before you start buggering about with it.  Obviously plugging pedals into the normal input jack colours the sound before it's even reached the amp.  I'll also need to remove the overdrive and distortion pedals from my pedalboard as they could end up overloading the amp section.  They go through the main input socket, between guitar and amp.

As you can see, I can also add any other "extras" between guitar and amp as normal.  The effects loop can be switched in and out via a footswitch.

For those valveficionados among you, the Preamp section has 3 x ECC83  and the Power amp 2 x EL34.

I may, at some stage, look at adding a larger speaker cab (it's got a cute little Marshall 8" onboard) but it's an awkward 16Ω load, so probably not.

Other than that.  I'm done.  And I really, really, mean it this time. 

I hope so.  It's all (guitar, tone bar, finger picks, thumb picks, and new strings, as well as the amp it seems) arriving today, along with a multi-item order from Amazon.  My trusty pocket knife is going to be doing a lot of hacking parcels about today. 

That's not my actual setup, just an example to show how an effects loop works.  I've got far more pedals than that. 

To answer your question though, no, not all of the pedals would be "on" at the same time.  Each one is operated by a footswitch on the pedal itself to turn it on and off.  All of my pedals are what is known as "true bypass" which means that when switched off the signal chain is diverted past the pedal.  The alternative, Buffered bypass, has part of the circuit staying in the signal path whether the main circuit of the pedal is active or not.  Both have pros and cons, but true bypass suits me best, certainly for playing at home, because most of the "problems" that it *might* bring are usually experienced at higher volumes for one thing.  As you're switching the whole circuit in and out it can cause audible *pops" and *clicks* when hitting the footswitch.  Buffered, as it's always on, can sometimes, affect the timbre of your sound.  Pros and Cons, Horses for Courses, etc.

This is my current setup, which I'll route through the effects loop instead of placing them between guitar and amp as shown. I'll also need to take the section marked "Dirt / Distortion" out as it could, possibly, overload the amp, being that the effects loop bypasses the preamp.  Those two pedals, along with a wah-wah pedal and a volume pedal will end up completely separate from the loop, slotting in between guitar and amp as per the old-school method.



The downside, now, is I'll have two spare slots on my pedal board.