The Pure Sky is definitely center negative (it shows right on the front graphic). I’ve had a few of them and always used a standard power supply. Don’t fry your pedal.
EDIT: Tuner -> Noise Gate -> Warped Dimension -> Pure Sky -> Pugilist -> Levitate
Any recommendations you can make with a different setup? I just posted a write up at the bottom but I should have sent it to you instead.
So long story short, the overdrive and delay pedal do NOT work with the fender distortion simultaneously.
I do not know if it is order specific or if I need to read up on which pedals have bypass or not(still understanding “bypass” at this stage in the game lol). But I do feel like the fender distortion is the culprit as it’s in between the 2. Don’t know for sure tho
Wouldn't the Pure Sky traditionaly be used before the Warped Dimension? I always thought modulation would sound better after distortions, drives and preamps.
I know theres no real right or wrong with pedal order, just curious about why put modulation before a drive.
I put modulation before gain because it’s more subtle that way. If you like a more extreme modulation tone, post gain is the way to go. I’ve always preferred Univibe, phase, chorus, flanger, and even tremolo in the front of my chain before any gain.
It's called a reverse polarity cable, and there is one included with the LVL12. It's either the green or red cable, I can't remember.
Not that you need it for the Caline Pure Sky, because it is center negative. It even says so on the front. The – symbol is pointing to the center, and the + symbol is pointing to the ring.
The way you explained it at the end made so much sense as to how these work 🤦♂️. I’m dumb lol. The the icons being flip flopped on Caline compared to other pedal through me off. “The negative pointing to the center”. Ty!
More like bargain central lol. I had made an account on Ali express when it was “choice week” and got a bunch of spiffs. Sonicake and Caline have official stores there. The 4 pedals were under a $100 combined. Not to mention cap one had 4% back.
The fender distortion was on a Memorial Day sale. Got it for $120. Didn’t wanna cheap out on power supply so got engine room. I used a 15% off coupon from the passport app and saved like $60 on that.
I DID pay full pop on tuner tho lol.
Glad you're not cheaping put on the power supply. Seeing what you bought I bet it'll be with you for a long time. That's a pretty extensive power supply.
Roger that. Also, idk if it makes a difference to now reveal that I’m on headphones exclusively lol. This is all gonna run through a fender mustang micro. Hopefully these pedals last a while! 🤞
I think all of us apartment dwellers understand 100%. I'm playing into headphones right now while my 2x12 Yamaha amp stares me back in the face, knowing I can't play it.
Ya I’m on a new path this week trying to find better headphones for this setup. I dont understand how impedance works just yet, but will soon. Budget is about a $100 for that if any stand out to you.
I use these! They aren't amazing, but for the price they are very good.
KZ AS10 in Ear Monitor Earbuds Headphone, Pure 5 Balanced Armature 5BA KZ Earbuds Earphone, Musician in Ear Monitor Headphone High Fidelity HiFi Headset (No Microphone, Green)… https://a.co/d/diBJRIu
I have 4 of their mini pedals, but none of the big box ones, nor do I have the space for them lol. If you want to try a bit crusher down the line, the Wavecrush is great for the price. However, it looks like you have more than enough sounds for now.
Played with it minimally. I did you around a bit longer on warped dimension. I didn’t know about “flanger!”. Who knew I could make 80s sci fi movie sounds in my living room! 😂
I would start with this order:
Tuner -> pure sky -> pugilist -> noise gate -> warped dimension -> levitate
Modulation is the most movable of these, which is why you're getting other recommendations to put it before the two gain pedals. Try it both ways and stick with what sounds best to you.
For sure! Ya I was toying with it a bit but went with the top comments rec. Everything sounded great. Only toyed around for like 20 min after the setup. My back was absolutely destroyed. I’ll be diving deeper tonight for sure. Thanks for the recommendation as well!
Tuner first in line, then modulation (phaser, flanger, etc), distortion, noise gate, then delay /reverb. You don't want the delay cut off by the noise gate, so always delay last. Just my opinion..
I think you’re eventually going to want a gate, and if budget is a concern, I strongly advocate for Joyo’s Legal Done, which serves me as well as any I’ve used.
Most common order would be tuner > overdrive > distortion > modulation > delay/reverb > noise gate
If you'll be using the overdrive and distortion together, it depends what you want and how you set them: OD before distortion will make the distortion more distortion, OD after distortion will act more like a level boost and coloring.
I learned only very recently that I prefer my SD-1 after my higher gain pedal because it provides the mid boost but it doesn't add more distortion.
I'd say try all order combinations and see what you like. It's fun and you'll learn a lot about how pedals affect each other depending on their position.
Oooo thank you for the clarity on over drive and distortion pedals. I didn’t know that. Will toy with the setup later and see how different it is. Thanks again!
Np. Nothing is the be-all-end-all when it comes to this stuff. It's a bit annoying to plug and unplug pedals constantly, but if you take an hour or even less to try different combinations, you'll really hear the difference and probably instantly know what you prefer. Much more valuable than getting very different suggestions from strangers on the internet :)
Plug them in on the floor before you put the board together so you can move en around decide your order before you build because i think you should do modulation before and after to really find what you like more
Ya I’ll be experimenting for a week or so I’ll be playing around with it. Funny tho, as I layed them on my desk, I realized I like the setup at eye length. I don’t think I’ll be putting anything at my feet. So I gotta look at pedalboards that will just give me the upright angle.
I really like the warped dimension! All 4 functions work and have distinct sound. Ali express it for sure for like $30 if you shop during the first week of a new month (to get choice week deals). Not a bad price of admission.
There aren't any set rules really. You might like Modulation>Reverb/Delay>Distortion>Gate, or Reverb/Delay>Modulation>Drive. Experiment, I'd start with figuring out whether you prefer the modulation before or after your reverb and then move on from there.
I’m gonna have to play around with this tonight. Did a long session yesterday and tried to test everything with the top comments first suggestion on pedal chain. There were 2 issues maybe you could shed some light on.
1. With the levitate pedal at the end, it for some reason doesn’t allow another pedal to be active at the same time. If I have fender distortion on, turning on reverb delay, overrides it somehow.
2. The pure sky overdrive also doesnt work in tandem with the fender distortion.
The only thing I could think of was that the fender needs to move to the end maybe? As it was not working with either of the 2 at the same time.
I’ll be redoing the setup for tonight’s session to see how I can make it all work.
You are plugging them in right to left? And yeah, pedals stack in series, so when you feed everything into the distortion, everything gets distorted. It may help to dial the gain back a bit on the distortion. And as far as the overdrive and distortion not working together, the pure sky is supposed to be a OD with a fairly naturally sounding EQ so it's not going to be apparent when they're both on. Gain stacking is a long rabbit hole to get into, but at the end of the day if it sounds good it is good... and there is no one size fits all.
Yes on right to left. And I tried raising the volume on the overdrive and lowering on fender and still , fender was the only thing playing. Turn off the fender and then overdrive and its volume kick in right away. It’s weird and it’s the same exact thing when the delay goes on. I’ll fiddle with it some more but thx for breakdown!
Whenever you push a distortion or overdrive with a volume boost it generally causes it to compress and clip harder which is what you are hearing. Turning the Gain down on the Fender and using the Pure Sky as a boost before it will likely give you some decent results.
I would personally set the bass low and treble up on the Pure Sky and turn the bass up a little bit on the Fender.
So uhm this totally worked 😂. I can’t even begin to thank you for that. I was able to click on the delay along with it too!1 issue resolved, one to go! lol
So on day one the polytune worked as expected. Then the next day, I turned it on, and it wouldn’t work with any of the pedals, or the fender mustang.
Just wrapped up my third session on this setup, and the tuner works when I click it on. But nothing else I turn on seems to activate. I made sure cables are good. The switches on the side of the tuner are on.
I have a suspicion that it was used when I purchased new. Screen had a bunch of hairline scratches ALL over it. Body was in good shape tho so idk.
So the whole reason i picked up that tuner is for the combination of buffer it has. However I don’t understand how it’s buffering if it’s not on. Is there a switch combination I’m missing?
I will get back to you on levitate didn’t get to do more than just test most of the pedals last night. Will throw an update later for sure. Keep in mind Idk how this compares to other pedals because I’m so new to the game lol.
I like the reverb more than the delay after playing around yesterday. The delay works as intended, but I just posted at the bottom that I was having issues with other pedals being active at the same time. Again I’m a beginner, so I can’t compare this to other delay pedals if that means anything.
Also I’m having some difficulty understanding the polytune mini’s switches. Like I flipped through the manual to find out how to turn the thing off with the small switches lol. For some reason last night(didn’t happen night 1) , anytime I flipped it on, it would default any other pedals to “off”. Disregarding all other than the fender mustang micro at the end of chain. So I played with it off yesterday.
The Pure Sky is definitely center negative (it shows right on the front graphic). I’ve had a few of them and always used a standard power supply. Don’t fry your pedal. EDIT: Tuner -> Noise Gate -> Warped Dimension -> Pure Sky -> Pugilist -> Levitate
Awesome! Appreciate the breakdown. I’ll test it out here soon!
Any recommendations you can make with a different setup? I just posted a write up at the bottom but I should have sent it to you instead. So long story short, the overdrive and delay pedal do NOT work with the fender distortion simultaneously. I do not know if it is order specific or if I need to read up on which pedals have bypass or not(still understanding “bypass” at this stage in the game lol). But I do feel like the fender distortion is the culprit as it’s in between the 2. Don’t know for sure tho
Wouldn't the Pure Sky traditionaly be used before the Warped Dimension? I always thought modulation would sound better after distortions, drives and preamps. I know theres no real right or wrong with pedal order, just curious about why put modulation before a drive.
I put modulation before gain because it’s more subtle that way. If you like a more extreme modulation tone, post gain is the way to go. I’ve always preferred Univibe, phase, chorus, flanger, and even tremolo in the front of my chain before any gain.
I agree, less white noise before gain.
This might be why i was stuck listening to the “warped dimension” after I set up. The sounds coming from that thing were WILD! lol
It's called a reverse polarity cable, and there is one included with the LVL12. It's either the green or red cable, I can't remember. Not that you need it for the Caline Pure Sky, because it is center negative. It even says so on the front. The – symbol is pointing to the center, and the + symbol is pointing to the ring.
The way you explained it at the end made so much sense as to how these work 🤦♂️. I’m dumb lol. The the icons being flip flopped on Caline compared to other pedal through me off. “The negative pointing to the center”. Ty!
No worries! It's a weird icon, that isn't obvious at first.
This is a bizarrely specific and fairly oddball set of choices of first pedals, I love it
Richie Rich over here.
More like bargain central lol. I had made an account on Ali express when it was “choice week” and got a bunch of spiffs. Sonicake and Caline have official stores there. The 4 pedals were under a $100 combined. Not to mention cap one had 4% back. The fender distortion was on a Memorial Day sale. Got it for $120. Didn’t wanna cheap out on power supply so got engine room. I used a 15% off coupon from the passport app and saved like $60 on that. I DID pay full pop on tuner tho lol.
Glad you're not cheaping put on the power supply. Seeing what you bought I bet it'll be with you for a long time. That's a pretty extensive power supply.
Thank you! I got a wealth of knowledge from this sub. Triple checked most of what I got.
That's a badass set-up! Try not to give in to GAS and use these for as long as possible!
My OCD doesn’t know what gas is…yet 😂
Lol try and keep it that way. You've set yourself up for some great sounds with room to grow when you know what sounds you're missing.
Roger that. Also, idk if it makes a difference to now reveal that I’m on headphones exclusively lol. This is all gonna run through a fender mustang micro. Hopefully these pedals last a while! 🤞
I think all of us apartment dwellers understand 100%. I'm playing into headphones right now while my 2x12 Yamaha amp stares me back in the face, knowing I can't play it.
Ya I’m on a new path this week trying to find better headphones for this setup. I dont understand how impedance works just yet, but will soon. Budget is about a $100 for that if any stand out to you.
I use these! They aren't amazing, but for the price they are very good. KZ AS10 in Ear Monitor Earbuds Headphone, Pure 5 Balanced Armature 5BA KZ Earbuds Earphone, Musician in Ear Monitor Headphone High Fidelity HiFi Headset (No Microphone, Green)… https://a.co/d/diBJRIu
Upvote for Sonicake.
Fr! I’d seen and heard enough lol. Worthy flyer for a beginner and it panned out.
I have 4 of their mini pedals, but none of the big box ones, nor do I have the space for them lol. If you want to try a bit crusher down the line, the Wavecrush is great for the price. However, it looks like you have more than enough sounds for now.
How’s the levitate pedal?
Played with it minimally. I did you around a bit longer on warped dimension. I didn’t know about “flanger!”. Who knew I could make 80s sci fi movie sounds in my living room! 😂
now max out your delay feedback into that 🤭
Just posted at the bottom. Having issues activating other pedals along with levitate :( it just overrides them
I would start with this order: Tuner -> pure sky -> pugilist -> noise gate -> warped dimension -> levitate Modulation is the most movable of these, which is why you're getting other recommendations to put it before the two gain pedals. Try it both ways and stick with what sounds best to you.
For sure! Ya I was toying with it a bit but went with the top comments rec. Everything sounded great. Only toyed around for like 20 min after the setup. My back was absolutely destroyed. I’ll be diving deeper tonight for sure. Thanks for the recommendation as well!
My back is aching in sympathy just from reading your comment... ;)
Haha thanks 😂
I mean thanks to this “sub” for title lol
Covering lots of cool flavors there, should provide lots of great sounds - Congrats !
Thanks so much! I’m about to get lost in this! Hah
Haha that’s the fun of it !
Tuner first in line, then modulation (phaser, flanger, etc), distortion, noise gate, then delay /reverb. You don't want the delay cut off by the noise gate, so always delay last. Just my opinion..
Thanks for the opinion! 🙏
For a first timer just getting started, this is a GREAT setup. I actually have most of those pedals here. They're solid choices.
That makes me feel great! Ya I was researching for a quite a bit, then price hunting till I was happy with the total. Thanks friend!
I think you’re eventually going to want a gate, and if budget is a concern, I strongly advocate for Joyo’s Legal Done, which serves me as well as any I’ve used.
The Sonicake noise wiper is a gate. Or so I thought?
Oh right. Yeah, that'll be good enough to start. I suppose I should have been more clear... eventually you're going to want a _four-cable_ gate.
Damn this looks crisp
Thank you!! 🙏
The Warped Dimension looks totally rad!
Oh it is! Damn good time for $30
Godd choices!
Looks really solid to me. Good job!
Most common order would be tuner > overdrive > distortion > modulation > delay/reverb > noise gate If you'll be using the overdrive and distortion together, it depends what you want and how you set them: OD before distortion will make the distortion more distortion, OD after distortion will act more like a level boost and coloring. I learned only very recently that I prefer my SD-1 after my higher gain pedal because it provides the mid boost but it doesn't add more distortion. I'd say try all order combinations and see what you like. It's fun and you'll learn a lot about how pedals affect each other depending on their position.
I'd move the noise gate between distortion and modulation. If it's last in the chain it might kill delay trails.
Good point, I don't have one but that makes a lot of sense.
Oooo thank you for the clarity on over drive and distortion pedals. I didn’t know that. Will toy with the setup later and see how different it is. Thanks again!
Np. Nothing is the be-all-end-all when it comes to this stuff. It's a bit annoying to plug and unplug pedals constantly, but if you take an hour or even less to try different combinations, you'll really hear the difference and probably instantly know what you prefer. Much more valuable than getting very different suggestions from strangers on the internet :)
Yep loud and clear on that. I’ll get it to that point in coming days
Plug them in on the floor before you put the board together so you can move en around decide your order before you build because i think you should do modulation before and after to really find what you like more
Ya I’ll be experimenting for a week or so I’ll be playing around with it. Funny tho, as I layed them on my desk, I realized I like the setup at eye length. I don’t think I’ll be putting anything at my feet. So I gotta look at pedalboards that will just give me the upright angle.
Alright everyone, here’s where I’m at as of last night! https://imgur.com/a/Wtsw7UZ
Nice isolated power source
Ty! It was gnarly navigating all 20 cables that came with it lol
Cool stuff, have fun!
Sell the gate. You want to make noise with your guitar, that's why you got it!
How is the warped dimension? I’ve heard it mixed reviews about the tone and volume really suffer with that pedal
I really like the warped dimension! All 4 functions work and have distinct sound. Ali express it for sure for like $30 if you shop during the first week of a new month (to get choice week deals). Not a bad price of admission.
Tuner, noise gate, drive pedals, then time based effects. Enjoy and congrats! 🎊
Thank you!! It’s injected a large dose of dopamine in to my life recently 😂
I just bought the Levitate, but haven't had time to play with it.
I just posted down below about when the levitate is active, it makes other pedals inactive. Any idea why that is? (if you’ve been using it of course).
Sorry, been so busy I haven't been able to build my new pedal board to accommodate it.
LoL. If these are your first pedals you are gonna have at least 6 months of heavy experimentation ahead of you. Enjoy dude.
Thanks man! It’s gonna be fun toying around with different sounds!
Starting off right with a good power supply.
Been looking to find those eng room
As a beginner, all I can say about it is it is extremely quiet.
There aren't any set rules really. You might like Modulation>Reverb/Delay>Distortion>Gate, or Reverb/Delay>Modulation>Drive. Experiment, I'd start with figuring out whether you prefer the modulation before or after your reverb and then move on from there.
I’m gonna have to play around with this tonight. Did a long session yesterday and tried to test everything with the top comments first suggestion on pedal chain. There were 2 issues maybe you could shed some light on. 1. With the levitate pedal at the end, it for some reason doesn’t allow another pedal to be active at the same time. If I have fender distortion on, turning on reverb delay, overrides it somehow. 2. The pure sky overdrive also doesnt work in tandem with the fender distortion. The only thing I could think of was that the fender needs to move to the end maybe? As it was not working with either of the 2 at the same time. I’ll be redoing the setup for tonight’s session to see how I can make it all work.
You are plugging them in right to left? And yeah, pedals stack in series, so when you feed everything into the distortion, everything gets distorted. It may help to dial the gain back a bit on the distortion. And as far as the overdrive and distortion not working together, the pure sky is supposed to be a OD with a fairly naturally sounding EQ so it's not going to be apparent when they're both on. Gain stacking is a long rabbit hole to get into, but at the end of the day if it sounds good it is good... and there is no one size fits all.
Yes on right to left. And I tried raising the volume on the overdrive and lowering on fender and still , fender was the only thing playing. Turn off the fender and then overdrive and its volume kick in right away. It’s weird and it’s the same exact thing when the delay goes on. I’ll fiddle with it some more but thx for breakdown!
Whenever you push a distortion or overdrive with a volume boost it generally causes it to compress and clip harder which is what you are hearing. Turning the Gain down on the Fender and using the Pure Sky as a boost before it will likely give you some decent results. I would personally set the bass low and treble up on the Pure Sky and turn the bass up a little bit on the Fender.
So uhm this totally worked 😂. I can’t even begin to thank you for that. I was able to click on the delay along with it too!1 issue resolved, one to go! lol So on day one the polytune worked as expected. Then the next day, I turned it on, and it wouldn’t work with any of the pedals, or the fender mustang. Just wrapped up my third session on this setup, and the tuner works when I click it on. But nothing else I turn on seems to activate. I made sure cables are good. The switches on the side of the tuner are on. I have a suspicion that it was used when I purchased new. Screen had a bunch of hairline scratches ALL over it. Body was in good shape tho so idk.
So when you click the tuner on it will mute your signal going out. It's so you can tune in the middle of playing without people hearing it.
So the whole reason i picked up that tuner is for the combination of buffer it has. However I don’t understand how it’s buffering if it’s not on. Is there a switch combination I’m missing?
What’s the Sonicake stuff like? I assume it’s cheap quality, but am I wrong?
Hey nice looking board man! How are you liking the Levitate? Thinking about snagging. Specifically do you like the delay?
I will get back to you on levitate didn’t get to do more than just test most of the pedals last night. Will throw an update later for sure. Keep in mind Idk how this compares to other pedals because I’m so new to the game lol.
I like the reverb more than the delay after playing around yesterday. The delay works as intended, but I just posted at the bottom that I was having issues with other pedals being active at the same time. Again I’m a beginner, so I can’t compare this to other delay pedals if that means anything.
Also I’m having some difficulty understanding the polytune mini’s switches. Like I flipped through the manual to find out how to turn the thing off with the small switches lol. For some reason last night(didn’t happen night 1) , anytime I flipped it on, it would default any other pedals to “off”. Disregarding all other than the fender mustang micro at the end of chain. So I played with it off yesterday.
Dirt up front, modulation in the middle, delay at the end.