Interview – Mason Marangella – Vertex Effects Systems

Mason is a rig-builder / developer working out of Point Richmond, California who is caring and passionate about what he does. In his relatively short history (having only really started in 2006) he has built up an exceptional reputation for professionalism, quality, approachability and knowledge and has worked with some of guitar’s biggest names including: Andy Timmons, Oz Noy, Michael Landau, Kirk Fletcher, Josh Smith, Matt Schofield and many others. He doesn’t just work with pros however, he will work with anyone that is serious about building their ultimate rig and gets glowing testimonials from all around the internet. His pedalboards in particular are not only sonically brilliant, but a visual work of art, a true master of his craft.

How long have you being doing what you do?
- 6 years

Why/How did you get into it, what’s the story there?
- I began Vertex Engineering in 2006 as a small custom shop in Berkeley, California, taking on small electrical engineering and design projects from local recording studios whilst attending the University of California, Berkeley. Soon after, I started to work as a contractor and consultant doing ghost designs and collaborative projects in the pro audio, guitar pickup, effects pedal, and tube amplifier fields.

In 2009, after having worked directly with many local musicians and artists along with the experience of completing several electrical design projects for both large and boutique companies, I developed an understanding of what was missing and what needed to be improved upon with both effects pedals and rig integration with a specific emphasis on networking devices for the best possible sonic performance. This is when I expanded Vertex Engineering with a new division called Vertex Effects Systems, which would focus on designing and integrating electronic devices as a network of effects, customized for the needs of each player. Within one year Vertex Effects Systems had been commissioned to design custom devices and systems for the most prestigious musicians in the world.

By 2011, after a successful two years Vertex Effects Systems, I decided to expand another division of Vertex Engineering called Vertex Effects to design the highest quality effects pedals and modifications for both reliability and tone. All of our products are hand assembled in the San Francisco Bay Area with premium handpicked components from only North American companies. Each product is built in small quantities and rigorously tested for the highest quality and consistency. In 2011 we released the Vertex Axis Wah, Vertex BC109 Fuzz and will shortly release the Michael Landau Signature Arion Chorus Modification in the early part of 2012.

Any particular influences?
- As far as rig design is concerned, I feel that little homage has been paid to the person that started integrating devices in racks and pedalboards professionally, utilizing low impedance buffers, interface boxes to streamline systems of effects and custom power supplies etc. This person was Paul Rivera. Even before some of the names that most people find synonymous with with professional rigs were introduced to the music industry, Paul Rivera was a very critical influence.

I’ve also been very inspired by the work of David Tarnowski of A/DA, he is a genius and has done some great designs. He’s one of the best engineers that I’ve worked with and I wish him success with the new launch of A/DA and their upcoming products.

You’ve worked with some pretty big names: Oz Noy, Michael Landau, Kirk Fletcher etc. Who did you enjoy working with the most?
- In fairness to all of those artists, they have all been amazing to work with. What I look forward to in working with each one of them is a new challenge; whether that’s finding a certain tonality in a pedal, expanding certain functions of their rig, or designing something custom to fit the needs of that particular client.

I find my enjoyment in dissecting those challenge areas and getting to learn from a new experience or reminding myself of something that I may not have done for a while. The idea of continuing to improve and refine my skills as both a designer and engineer is what has me continue to try new things and take risks in creativity.

What are your general ‘philosophies’ on wiring together the ultimate rig?
- 1) Input and Output Buffers

The necessity for both an input and output buffer is critical on nearly every pedalboard. There is so much misinformation and misunderstanding about buffers that it’s no surprise that they have a poor reputation. 99% of the separate buffers that are available are designed to be output buffers only. This means that they are not intended to control pickup loading on the input, which is one of the most critical factors in creating transparency between your guitar, pedalboard, and amplifier.

A good buffered system begins with a relatively high input impedance, around 1 MEG (the guitar pickup design load impedance), but can be variable to a degree depending on the guitar and pickups that you’re using. Some of the cheap and popular discrete FET buffers that are available on the market have an input impedance close to 2 MEG (in many cases) which unloads the guitar pickups, where other OPAMP or transistor input buffer designs often have input impedances between 250k to 500K causing what’s commonly referred to as “tone suck.” Even discrete FET buffers, with the correct 1 MEG input impedance, do not have sufficiently low output impedance and current drive for the cable capacitance on a pedalboard. The idea with a properly designed input buffer is to isolate the guitar from the variations in pedal impedances and then convert the signal to low impedance to go through the pedalboard.

At the end of the signal path another buffer is necessary to isolate the rig from the cabling connected to the amplifier. By inserting another buffer for the output the capacitance from the cable going back to the amplifier, which is generally the longest individual stretch of cable in the entire rig, is isolated from the last device active in the chain that often cannot handle large capacitive loading.

2) Linear Power Supplies

At the moment switching supplies for individual guitar effects and pedalboard power supplies are not to the point of being as quiet as a linear supply. Currently it’s difficult to beat the value, consistency, and reliability of a Voodoo Lab Pedal Power Supply. Other solid supplies are the G-LAB, Burkey, and in some circumstances even the BBE Supa-Charger.

3) Cleanliness/Prep

Every pedal needs to be cleaned and prepped before it is integrated into a rig. So often people don’t realize how much dust and dirt collects in the jack and switches and these things create additional resistance and can cause intermittent problems in rigs that are completely avoidable. I use handgun barrel cleaners that fit 1/4 inch jacks and spray the jacks with DeoxIT as well as the shaft of the barrel and brush and move it in and out of the jack to clean the contact points. This combination works amazingly well and completely eliminates dirt and grime that accumulates in the jacks. It’s also wise to do this to your plugs on your cables before inserting them into the pedals; oOften they can be dirty or collect residue as they are made or handled.

It’s also important to tighten all jacks and switches so that they are secure and ready to be put into action. Often I’ll get a lot of pedals that have been used for many years and not maintained and are very close to having a switch collapse into an enclosure or a jack break loose. It’s critical to make sure these are appropriately fastened to the enclosure. Many pedals rely on these parts to be fitted tightly to the enclosure for grounding purposes and will also cause problems if these issues are not addressed.

Lastly, sufficiently cleaning the bottoms of pedals and removing any previous adhesives or fastening material is important. When applying a new fastener such as 3M Dual Lock, the surface that you are applying it to needs to be very clean for the Dual Lock to be most effective – the cleaner the surface, the better the adhesion.

4) Keep it simple

Generally, I’ve found that the less you can live with or make permanent on your board, they better off you’ll be. Often I have clients re-create a previous rig that I’ve done for them because they’ve realized that what they originally wanted was more than they bargained for. Right now a very popular trend for my clients is keeping staple pedals on the main pedalboard and building an expansion point from the pedalboard interface to patch in pedals that are for more occasional use at specific places in the signal path. For example, if you rarely use a flanger, however once a month you have a gig where you will need it, I would build a “break-out” in the interface that would allow you to have a separate send/return for the Flanger that would come after the Wah, Compressor, and Overdrive/Distortion pedals, but before the volume, delay, and reverb pedals. When you wanted the Flanger you could have it be exactly where it would normally fall in the signal path, however it doesn’t need to be permanently on your pedalboard. Also, another important feature is that the “break-out” is only active when something is plugged into that specific set of send/return jacks, if nothing is plugged in then the signal path is never broken and the pedals remain in series.

Do you have any preferred / go-to brands?
- I do love the pedals and products that I build for myself and my clients, however I’d like to showcase some products and manufacturers that I feel are exemplary at what they do.

Mogami and Belden Cable

They are easy to prep and sound great. There are a lot of boutique cable makers out there doing a great job of marketing DIY patch cables as well as high-end audio cables for guitar players. For many people these are acceptable and, depending on your scenario, they may be. The problem that I find is that with many amplifiers many of these boutique cables peak in a displeasing way, especially with amp gain. They often sound sharp and piercing in the upper midrange frequencies. I find that the frequencies these cables are exaggerating are frequencies normally lost as a result of capacitive build up. So in other words, the cables are being designed to be brighter to bring back frequencies normally lost with longer runs of cable. The problem for me is that once a buffer is introduced and the cable capacitance is no longer as problematic, people will inadvertently accuse the buffer of making the sound of the rig bright instead of blaming the true culprit – the cables. The bottom line is that it is very difficult to make a truly “neutral” cable, what I look for is something that can be a chameleon in many different contexts and is impervious to pedal changes, high or low impedance, high or low gain, etc. I find that 9/10 Belden and Mogami cables will sound better than their boutique competitors, and that last 1/10 of the time are, at the least, comparable sonically.

Rockett Pedals

 - Blue Note (one of the best Tube Screamer variants around, super flexible, amazingly amp-like, zero clean bleed).

- 10 Ton Hammer (a great higher gain pedal, max the volume, put the gain to zero and you have one of the best Marhsall Plexi pedals around).

- Josh Smith Dual Tremolo (one of the best Fender style tremolo pedals around, very simple with an amazingly rich sound).

Voodoo Lab

- Sparkle Drive (another great Tube Screamer variant, clean control is amazingly helpful and makes the pedal very versatile).

- Pedal Power Supplies (the best quality and value power supplies available – amazing linear power supplies).

Paul Trombetta Design

- Mini-Bone Fuzz (one of the best discrete pedals you’ll ever hear, extremely versatile and amazingly well built, Paul’s fuzz pedals murder any of the Pete Cornish fuzzes by a long shot).

Neunaber Technology

- Stereo WET Reverb (simple and lush sounding reverb, 3-knobs with few frills, but this has the most natural and transparent reverb available).

- Stereo Chroma Chorus (reminds me of the best qualities of a Boss Dimension C, with the transparency of the T.C. Electronics Stereo Chorus).

Strymon

- Timeline (a great successor to the popular Line 6 DL-4, amazing versatile, sounds amazing, and has an amazing amount of options that rival the Eventide Timefactor, but is much fuller and rich sounding).

Neo Instruments

-Ventilator (the best Leslie simulator you’ll find. Most simulators can do the fast speeds well, but it’s in the slower speeds that it’s easier to discover which pedals are pedals and which are difficult to distinguish from the real thing. The Ventialtor is one of those special pedals which is surprisingly close to the real thing).

Lovepedal

- Tchula (great low gain OD tone, it’s two COT50′s in one pedal).

- COT50 (if you can find a folded enclosure version, they are the absolute best always on pedal you’ll find).

Tanabe

- Dumkudo (the ultimate Dumble in a Box. I’ve played over a dozen Dumbles and I have a Dumble modded Super Reverb, and this thing is the closest I’ve heard to nailing that sound).

Providence

- Chrono Delay (a great 2290-ish delay, that is super simple and super organic and rich. If you don’t need many delay functions this is the one to get).

What are your plans for the future?
- There have been so many changes and unplanned events that have happened since 2006 that have all been amazing experiences, which I’m extremely grateful for. I’ve also had some tough and invaluable learning experiences which have been very influential for me, and as for the future, I plan to be surprised!

Finally, if you were to give away one free piece of advice for someone wiring together there pedalboard (or rack or whatever) what would it be?
- Keep it simple: too often people want a ton of functions that they do not use and account for less than 5% of what they do. I’ve had many clients build what they considered to be the ultimate rig and a year later found that the rig was more than they needed and inevitably ended up scaling down the same rig with less functions, fewer pedals, and a smaller footprint.

I encourage people to think about what they absolutely need for 90% of what they do and backwards plan your rig from there. Think about the non-negotiable functions of your amp that you use (effects loops, channel switching, etc), think about which pedals may be repetitive with each amp function or other pedals within the rig. This will help minimize overlap and get the most “bang for your buck” so to speak, out of your rig.

Mason Marangella
Vertex Effects Systems
Point Richmond, California
http://www.vertexeffects.com

All that is left to say is thank you to Mason at Vertex Effects Systems for a highly informative and interesting interview. Mason has left us all plenty to think about and I for one will be taking his expert advice. Keep an eye out for more articles and information from Mason, exclusively at DirtBox.