Thursday, April 14, 2011

Arion pedalboard for sale

I'm selling my old Arion pedalboard.

It hasn't been used very much in the many years I've had it. It does work though, and it's a nice case for effects. Plus, it comes with three effects: a distortion (the "Metal Master"), chorus, and flanger.

As far as I know, Arion no longer makes the pedalboard/road case anymore. It has a 110v (2-prong) input and 6 DC outputs. It's made so you have have your effects pedals all powered from the wall and pre-patched so that you just open and remove the top and you're ready to go.

The effects sound pretty good.
The way the pedalboard looks on stage.

With top attached.
Closed top.
The Metal Master. Two outputs: the second can be "soft" distortion or clean.
Flanger bottom

Metal Master bottom.
Stereo flanger top.

Stereo chorus top.

Chorus bottom.
Here I am playing the effects. For the "Metal Master" I start out clean and go back and forth with the pedal engaged and disengaged. I'm playing a Les Paul Custom guitar going through a Celtic Edana amp (which is a clone of a '65 Marshall JTM45) into a Celestion Alnico Blue speaker. I'm recording mono with a Shure SM57 microphone through a Neve 1272 mic preamp and an Apogee Mini-Me A/D converter. There may be a little bit of analog limiting at the A/D converter but otherwise there are no additional effects.

I start out "clean". You can clearly hear the pedal kick on. Yes, the clean sound is somewhat "dirty" all by itself, but nothing like the pedal. I then go back and forth with the pedal on and off. And yeah, it's kinda noisy as a pedal.



I start out with the flanger on. You can hear a bit of noise as I turn it off -- I don't think that's the switch, I think it's my guitar cable. Then I play with the depth turned up.


With the chorus I start with the pedal engaged, then I turn up the "brightness", then I play the same faux-reggae with the chorus off. Then I turn the rate up to "crazy" and come back down again. Same setup as above otherwise.




What's good: it all works. It's a pretty cool pedalboard with a soft top which keeps your pedals from bouncing around in the back of the van. The 9v outputs will power most pedals. You can show up pre-wired at a gig and just plug a couple cables in and be ready to go.
What's bad: the "depth" knob on the chorus wants to pull off easily. I was thinking about gluing it on to stay tight but then decided I'd leave that up to you. The unit is old -- probably bought sometime in the late 80's. There are no audio cables and just the four power cables.
What I don't know about: I never unstuck the velcro strips and cut and placed them on any pedals. So I don't know if they need more glue or anything.

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