Pealboard build Log - Chuchu - With Demo

[Chuchu]

Hi all,
I finally made the decision of buying the PBC and for the last couple of days I've been planning the layout of the board and programing the PBC. I've built a few boards throughout the years and this time this is the most organized way I've done it. I've remember sitting on the floor for hours figuring out how to layout all the pedals on a my boards. That was too many hours wasted and unnecessary back pain.

So I decided to use Affinity Designer for Mac to sketch the whole board. I'm no graphic designer whatsoever I just try to use common sense and logic.
I found pictures of all my pedals and tried to translate their dimensions to pixels. That way I was able to see how the "final" product would look like and to move them around until I decided what was going to work best for me.

At the moment I just took apart the old board and I am about to start wiring the new one but I'm still missing the some stuff like the TRS plugs for the stereo loops which I'll try to make myself using Switcchgraft 236 plug and two Lava Mini ELC cables. I'm not sure how that is going to go but I'll be logging everything here. I'm also missing the MIDI cables, I think I'll be receiving them in a day or so.

I think I will be showing some things that will give some ideas to those on the same boat. Some of those things will be related to USB and to MIDI cables and probably Expression pedals, we'll see.

P.S Sorry for the many watermarks.

And here the board without wires.

Before putting all the pedals together I had the PBC on my desk with a Strymon pedal going through the configuration with the Editor. Getting a basic understanding of how the whole thing operates and what is capable of.
Note: Years ago I had a Liquid Foot+12+ so I'm a bit familiar with the concept but it's been so long that I'm still getting used to it, besides that board didn't last too long.


Here is how the power and signal will be distributed. I'm using a Mondo at the moment but will probably go with the Strymon Zuma when it comes out.

 

[rjmmusic]

Looks cool! You'll probably save yourself a lot of headaches in the future with all of the planning you're doing now.

 

[Chuchu]

Update:
As much as I love the Strymon BlueSky and think that it sounds better than the BigSky I went with the BigSky because of the preset features and of course the variety of reverbs. I had it on my other board but was thinking of getting rid of it and use the BlueSky for this board but.. I guess I'll use it again on this one.
Also I added the Voodoo Lab HEX underneath the board to output its loop1 (piezo) to a DI, on loop2 is the Empress Heavy Distortion pedal and loop3 to another amp. I did notice that the Empress Heavy sounded weird, like if it lacked of headroom. I am not sure if it's because of their buffer or what. I do use the buffers from the PBC all the time except when using the Fuzz. I will try bypassing the HEXs buffer and see..
The HEX took me a while to setup and get it working correctly. I learned that when I'm not using any of its loops I need to send a PC to turn off all of its loops. I know this might sound kind of obvious as that's how the strymon pedals are acting as well. The reason why I didn't notice that with them was because they are all inside their own loops so even if one of their presets is engaged, if its loop is not on I won't hear the effect. Simple but took me a be to apply the same concept to the HEX. So all my presets send PC 0 to the HEX except the ones I do use its loops.

My experience with the PBC for far has been a learning process for the most part. This is the first time I experience a parallel FX loop, and it's amazing! I love it! I can hear the tone of the amp like if there was no effect connected to it but a then you hear the effects right with your tone.. not your tone through the effects.. if you know what I mean. It's great! The buffers.. oh god, if I turn them off I definitely lose headroom and high end.

The Editor and the way the PBC works.. is a bit new to me. On my previous boards I used banks as songs and used to create the presets based on the songs. I used to go bank by bank and create different presets based on the songs I was going to play. Now with the PBC I create a long list of different presets (you have to take advantage of all the sounds you can get from each of your pedals, be creative) and from there use choose what I need and assign them to each song. This makes me think of the PBC or its software as a multi-effect unit such as a L6 POD, AXE, 11R etc where you have a bunch of different pre-made presets and you can scroll through all of them. It takes a bit to get an understanding of how the software (meaning the Editor and actual software in unit) works but once you get it it's really powerful and useful!

Is it perfect, hm.. well it depends. The actual unit is solid and well engineered, very clever and useful features. The software is extremely powerful but it is still a work in progress. Also only someone who knows it entirely could give you a really good feedback about it imho.

I dislike how after editing a preset on the PBC it takes me to bank1 or "Presets" page instead of taking me back to the preset I was editing. But I think it's kind of the nature of the software or how it's setup. The "Exit" button in the edit mode is calling the preset page (I think), how can it call back the last bank or preset you were on? how would it know? Not sure. Also, when going to Edit mode by pressing switch 1 and 3, you always end up going up or down a preset before entering to Edit mode. I understand that it's because your are pressing preset buttons and once you press one it immediately engages that preset and it's almost impossible to press the two switches at the exact time. Do we want to add a delay on the preset buttons to help this? mmm I don't know, I want my presets to engage as soon as I step on the switch. If that's an option, should it be only on switches 1 and 3?.. I don't know if I want to give them up.. not sure. The tuner is ok, not sure if it's the software or the screen but it's just no optimized.. yet?
There could be work arounds for the things I "dislike" but for me to learn them means I have to spend more time learning the software. A lot of the "issues" we report are not really issues but lack of understanding how the software works. It just takes time.

End of Update.

 

[Chuchu]

Update 3:
TRS plugs are easy to find but what about a "mini" TRS plug? I've searched and have seen some but nothing the size of a Lava Mini ELC or similar. That's why I wrote to Mark from Lava Cable and told him that he should make it a project, to make a TRS Mini ELC cable or adapter.
I know it would be hard due to the size of the plug but, I believe that anything is possible. I even dared to draw a the adapter just so he gets an idea of how it would look. It could just be a starting point. Here:



Anyway, so I basically made mine but with a Switchcraft 236 and Lava cables. See attachments:

Hopefully some time soon we will have a TRS mini plug made by a company. We'll see.
Strymon Timeline and BigSky are able to run in stereo now.
End of Update.

 

[Chuchu]

Finally a demo of the board!! It only took me like a year!

Hope you all like it!

 

[Sleestak]

That's a nice build. It's always worth the time to carefully lay out the board in software, and to carefully plan all the routing / programming.