Reckless Technology

VST plugins / The Pedalboard

Plugin

Reckless Pedalboard

v0.21

A board for the other twenty Reckless plugins: chain them in any order, split the signal into two lanes and join it again, and switch each pedal with its footswitch. Your host sees one plugin.

The Reckless Pedalboard plugin panel.

From the user guide

Building a board

Signal enters at IN on the left and leaves at OUT on the right. A fresh insert starts empty; a saved session brings the board back whole.

A board: Gate and Drive, then a split with Mod above Delay, from IN at the left.
A board: Gate and Drive, then a split with Mod above Delay, from IN at the left.
  • Add: click a socket (a dashed circle with a plus) and choose a pedal. Up to sixteen pedals; the same plugin can go on more than once.
  • Play: each pedal is a miniature of its panel with its two most-used knobs at working size, an LED lit while it is in, and a footswitch that fades it in or out over 20 ms.
  • Move: drag a pedal to any gap. Drop it on another pedal (REPLACE) to take its place, or off the top or bottom of the board (REMOVE) to delete it.
  • Right click a pedal for Open, Replace with and Remove.
  • Open: double click a pedal for its whole panel in a drawer, with CLOSE on the rail above it and the pedal’s footswitch, large, centred below it. The panel grows out of the pedal as it opens and shrinks back into it as it closes. The level strip and tuner stay in view.
A pedal: its two most-used knobs, the LED and the footswitch.
A pedal: its two most-used knobs, the LED and the footswitch.

A long board wraps onto a second tier. Adding, moving or removing a pedal dips the sound for 5 ms, so rewire between takes; footswitches and knobs never dip.

Splitting and merging

Choose Split from a socket to place a splitter and a merger with two lanes, A above B. The splitter’s plate sets the mode: L / R (lane A the left channel, lane B the right), Parallel (both lanes the whole signal, summed at half each) or M / S (the middle and the sides). The merger has a level and a PAN per lane. The shorter lane is delayed to match the longer one. Right click the splitter or merger to remove the split; its pedals return to the chain.

A split: the splitter's plate on Parallel, lanes A and B, and the merger's levels and pans.
A split: the splitter's plate on Parallel, lanes A and B, and the merger's levels and pans.

Macros, MIDI and keys

Macros. The host cannot see the pedals’ knobs, so right click a knob and assign it to one of eight macros, or to the Inverted list to run it the other way, then automate the macro. The macro strip under the board names each macro’s knobs; right click a macro there to invert or remove a link.

MACRO 1 turns the Drive's Gain and, inverted, the Oldsverb's Mix.
MACRO 1 turns the Drive's Gain and, inverted, the Oldsverb's Mix.

MIDI. Every Wah on the board hears the board’s MIDI, so it follows an expression pedal on CC 1.

Keys. A Gate, Comp, Vocoder, Amp, NAM or Wah wears a KEY jack. Drag a cable from it to a pedal upstream, to IN, or to SC (the board’s sidechain input), or click the jack and choose under Key from. The board sets the pedal’s key switch for you. A key must come from upstream, or from the other lane of the same split.

The Gate, its KEY jack at the top right.
The Gate, its KEY jack at the top right.

The tuner

The tuner sits in the level strip and listens at IN. It shows the nearest note, the frequency, the cents off (amber within three), and a strobe that drifts right when sharp, left when flat. It starts off: its own footswitch, at the foot of the column beside it, switches it on and off. AUTO MUTE, at the column’s top and on by default, silences the board while the tuner is on, as a tuner pedal does, so you can tune quietly mid-set; type the pitch for A into REFERENCE, under it. The chevron bar under the strip folds the strip away.

The tuner on: E2, 12.6 cents sharp, with AUTO MUTE, REFERENCE and its footswitch beside it.
The tuner on: E2, 12.6 cents sharp, with AUTO MUTE, REFERENCE and its footswitch beside it.

Presets and starting again

A board preset is the whole rig: every pedal with its settings, the splits, keys, macro links and the board’s own controls. Each pedal’s drawer also has its plugin’s own PRESETS plate.

The PRESETS menu opens with two fresh starts: New empty board, every setting back, and New board: Amp, Cab, Space. Both take the pedals off, so they ask first unless a saved preset keeps them.

Controls

The first four rows are what the host sees.

ControlRangeDefaultWhat it does
Input, close up on the Reckless Pedalboard.Input-12 to +12 dB0 dBGain ahead of the first pedal; the IN meter reads after it.
Level, close up on the Reckless Pedalboard.Level-24 to +12 dB0 dBOutput level after the last pedal; the OUT meter reads it.
Footswitch 1 to 16, close up on the Reckless Pedalboard.Footswitch 1 to 16on / offonEach pedal’s footswitch, numbered along the signal path.
Macro 1 to 8, close up on the Reckless Pedalboard.Macro 1 to 80 to 100 %0 %Drives its assigned pedal knobs over their whole range.
REFERENCE, close up on the Reckless Pedalboard.REFERENCE430 to 450 Hz440 HzThe tuner’s pitch for A; click and type.
AUTO MUTE, close up on the Reckless Pedalboard.AUTO MUTEon / offonMutes the board’s output while the tuner is on.
Tuner footswitch, close up on the Reckless Pedalboard.Tuner footswitchon / offoffSwitches the tuner on or off; its LED lights while on.
Merger level, close up on the Reckless Pedalboard.Merger level-24 to +12 dB0 dBEach lane’s level into the merger.
PAN, close up on the Reckless Pedalboard.PANL100 to R100L / R: hard left and right; else centrePlaces each lane in the stereo field.

Tips

  • The whole amp is Amp, then Cab, then Space, as New board lays it down; add a Gate in front for hum.
  • The board reports its chain’s latency and tells the host when it changes.
  • In an L / R or M / S lane a stereo effect is heard in mono.

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