[Herman van Aartsen]

Hi Melodica-Me,

First of all, I was happy to see that you’re one of the Monsters of Melodica. I looked a lot at youtube-movies before actual buying a Melodica, in my case a Melodion. It is for movies like yours that I decided to buy one. I also, like others that do not know the Melodica quite well, was somewhat prejudiced. The only Melodica’s I knew for almost a year back were the plastic ones you could buy at a local toy store with an also plastic sound. In my current playing I still meet people with this same idea of the Melodica. Luckily, they are more than surprised by tonal quality and versatility of current (more expensive) Melodica’s. Now I’ve got two, the 44H and the 24B. The latter one is another story as far as playability is concerned. Why Hammond? Well maybe because I was a Hammond Organ player for quite a while but mainly because of the integrated mic, playability and the sound.

Having said that, I’m very happy with your answer and I’ve got some additional questions 😉

When playing I connect the 44H to two Strymons. The Mobius for Chorus (getting a more accordion flavor – this is the first one in the chain, i.e. where I plug-in the Melodica) and the Big Sky for Reverb. Both can be controlled by an expression pedal that gives me lots of soundscaping possibilities during a live gig. As I can read from your post is that some sort of preamp is preferred.

I also have the Supro Drive. This active pedal is capable of preamping and of course creating overdrive if the gain is very open. This one can also be controlled by an expression pedal which controls the gain. This behaves like a kind of volume control. I don’t have this one (yet) in the chain because I’m bit worried about changing the quality of the sound to much – I like some subtle changes.

But now the question. Yes, I can use it that way (to be honest, I didn’t think of that before), but I think it should not be the first one in the chain. I would think of: Mobius > Supro > Big Sky. But then it misses the point of being a preamp to the chain.

Any experiences with that? Or would you still advice to have a passive expression pedal for volume control? If yes, where is it in the chain? If yes, then an additional preamp is needed? If no, what is the best place for the Supro in the chain?

Many thanx again!

With regards,
Herman