This nails Mayer/SRV, heavy rock/metal, and has tons of capabilty for experimental/ambient tones. The only potential castaway is The Dude, which is excellent, but its tone overlaps some of the others a bit and those stack so well with each other.
The Pinnacle Deluxe has a standalone boost function that can be stacked with its gain channel wonderfully. The gain channel itself is just missing a pinch of mids, despite the dedicated midrange potentiometer. Still amazing stacked with the others and offers an amazing light crunch that works well with the split humbucker. Still that boost - it's nearly as good as the Maxon 808 and it sounds stunning running into it! Manliest blues tone around with the Tumnus, Maxon, and Pinnalce's boost engaged. It absolutely barks and its all dead quiet thanks to the amp's grounding scheme/layout and these Dimarzios, which are the best pickups I've had in any Strat ever - after thousands of dollars spent over the course of my musical career.
The G2G Custome OD is really sweet and this is from a couple dudes in NZ that don't get much love here in the States. Pity! There's something special about their OD linup. I formerly owned their Creamtone and foolishly sold it. You don't see any of their stuff come up on the used market for a reason outside of their apparent scarcity. These LOVE being pushed and boosted. There's a certain characteristic to their tone that I haven't been able to get elsewhere - a really saturated tightness with velvety mids that doesn't get out of control or sloppy.
Same deal with the little Tumnus - sounds like a slightly tweaked 808 and sounds amazing run into it. I keep the 808 near the end of the OD pedals for a final mid-lift for solos. Not sure I need that with the sweet midboost function on my amp. I HATED these types of circuits (clean tone mixed into the OD tone), but am glad I took another chance! The latest tweaks to my amp really allowed all the ODs on the front end to melt into the circuit and become one with the amp. The whole amp, with no fx on, feels alive in my hands. Makes the strings feel buttery smooth under the fingers. It's just a whole new world with this current pedal board now.
The Tone Press - wow. What an incredible parallel compressor. Very transparent. I have it set so it's just on - just noticeable and it really
Now that I've added a master volume to my amp, I don't think I really need this EP booster. It wil stay on the board in case I'm traveling and can't bring my head. It'll put a hurting on any amp that has a high-headroom inut stage. Otherwise, it'll stay as the final tone shaper on my board with the dial left on "0", which provides 3bd of clean boost for stepping out when needed.
Ah, the Dude. I have to come back to him. He's awesome at low-mid gain settings. Really chewy Dumble-ish tone. Doesn't really sound like anything else on my board, but gets kinda close hence the overlap comment. Great pedal for mild OD. I find it can get a little too compessed at higher gain settings, but that's some people's bag. I know it was mine for a long time.
The Diamond Delay does a really impressive analog/tapish delay with murky repeats. I keep mine set on dotted 8ths for lead/rhythm work.
The Nemesis is just freakishly amazing and useful. It's got some great sounds right out of the box and a decent app/os interface for deeper editing. I use this for spacey things, though it does digital and tape stuff like nobody's business. It just does everything perfectly, actually. The size is impressive for its capabilities. It destroyed the new Boss DD500 and managed to kick my old Gigadelay off the board. That's quite the feat.
