New board and PBC

[RSica]

Hi friends,

Just wanted to say hello and thank you for having me here as a now PBC user. I've been a longtime rack user with midi loop switching system(Voodoo lab) and had been building my pedal collection to create a pedalboard that would fulfill the tonal palette of my "refrigerator" rack but with portability. It had to accommodate the wet/dry/wet setup I prefer but with only 3 single 12" speaker cabs that could provide the wall of sound at lower volumes. Mission accomplished !

My wife graciously gave me an early Christmas present which started the ball rolling in the Pedaltrain Terra 42. I had been using 2 SKB PS45's previously so this condenses my collection to one board. Keep in mind this is a work in progress and the photo is just the final positioning of effects on the pedalboard. Wiring is next and I'm awaiting a bulk order of Disaster Area GH B52N solderless plugs to retrofit cables that I had custom made for earlier boards that have Switchcraft pancakes on both ends: the pancakes won't work with the PBC

Anyways, I'll keep you posted as I progress with this build....thanks in advance !

Best regards,
Randi

 

[rjmmusic]

Looks good so far! Keep us posted on the progress!

 

[RSica]

Thanks my friend ! Parts to finish the build are filtering in this week: today the bulk order of 20 BH B52N plugs arrive(Disaster area).
I have another PSU coming to take care of the H9's(Truetone CS-7). In the next couple of days there are cable tie hold downs coming, and I decided to use a patch panel by Best-Tronics to make connections to and from the board much easier, including power.

This is my final pedalboard build and will be once and done: can't wait to start working with the PBC. I always loved the clean, open and pristine sound I had with my rack and the VooDoo Lab switcher and midi controller(although to run my time based effects in parallel I had to add a stereo mixer).
The PBC is the best of all worlds function wise.

Randi

 

[Meanoldfireman]

Looks great so far. I think you'll quickly find the PBC will give you the flexibility you could only dream of with a GCP. The Voodoo labs folks make great products and have always been very helpful, they just really haven't updated and improved their MIDI offerings.

 

[Goodwood Audio]

The H9 is killer.

Great board!

 

[RSica]

Hi my friends,

Wow, it's certainly been awhile and I apologize for a lack of updates. After all the necessary pieces arrived to complete the board, life and lack of time stepped in the way of completion. So here's where we are at: When I mentioned this would be the final build for this guy, the time away also had me researching a way to reduce the number of modulation effects with one outstanding unit and also add compression and an additional channel of Plexi sound. So now the assembly begins today and hopefully will be finished by next weekend.

Gone are my venerable Electric Mistriss, Stereo Electric Mistriss, Small stone and Boss Compressor.

Added to the smorgasbord are a Strymon Mobius for all the necessary mod effects, a Cali 76 Deluxe compressor(UREI 1176 studio compressor in a pedal), a Fire Carpe Diem which is one of the best Plexi emulators I've heard of the multitude out there, and lastly a Strymon Deco. The Deco was never a thought until I ran across demo's. I like the ability to warm up your sound and the tape flanging and chorusing is authentic, not the same as the Mobius's styles, but also it's ability to widen the stereo image is phenomenal sounding.

I now have three flavors of crunch onboard which effectively gives me 4 channels. I wasn't sure what my main amp would be, but decided to keep my small rack(Ten space w/ only 5 spaces used, fairly light) which contains a Carvin Quad X preamp and an Eventide Eclipse: Eclipse runs in the stereo Reverb loop of the Quad X. Going to run W-D-W setup.

Guitar into pedalboard: into Wah then into PBC, then Heptode Virtuoso phase shifter (Maestro PS1-A recreation), Dejavibe, Carpe Diem, OCD, Bogner Ecstasy Red and Echoshifter.

Out of PBC into the Cali 76 Deluxe, then to the clean channel of the Quad X. The Clean channel of this preamp has tons of headroom and provides the base to my sound. With the additional 5 band EQ you can really dial in your sound.

The effects send of the Quad X comes back to the board and into the volume pedal, then into the stereo section of the PBC feeding the Deco, Mobius and 2 H9's. The stereo outs of the PBC go back to the rack and feed a BBE Sonic Maximizer and then into an ISP Stealth stereo power amp feeding 2 1x12 Carvin enclosures with Celestion G12T-75's for the stereo L-R wet sides. The Quad X dry out feeds the power section of a Marshall JMD 501 combo with a Celestion Vintage 30 aboard.

So today I started the pedalboard: installed the power supplies and the Bestronics front patch panel with inputs and outputs and board power input. I then put together the board layout and did away with the original Velcro which I wasn't happy with and switched to Scotch "Extremely Strong" 10lbs mounting fasteners in a 10ft roll. I had little faith in the Velcro holding in certain situations: this Scotch stuff, wow, I held the board upside-down and everything stays solidly attached....outstanding stuff !

Next project is routing power to each device, then wiring the pedals into the PBC. Hopefully I won't be another 5 months keeping you guys posted..LOL You'll find some pics below of the "so far". Thanks and talk to you soon

Best regards,
Randi

 

[rjmmusic]

Looking good! Now the real fun begins.

 

[RSica]

Welp, we're gaining my friends. With Good Friday off and taking the schools Spring vacation off, I embarked yesterday on wiring up the board so I can move on to the next phase. Power and pedals are now successfully wired up and finished. I've wired up my previous boards(homemade and SKB PS45's) and had previously made a slew of patch cables with Switchcraft 90's already installed. I have to tell you, I was totally amazed with the BH B52N's I retrofitted them(31 in all) to the existing patch cables and the new "insert" cables I used for the stereo effects section and they have to be the easiest, most foolproof end ever ! I checked each with my multimeter after each initial B52N install and had connection on the first try every time. So much easier than the hours of soldering I did years ago. Worth every penny of the $5 a piece they cost versus the massive reduction in time required to solder 1/4" ends on cables, and they work either straight or at 90 degree angles.

All I have left to do now in the coming days is update the PBC to the latest software, the laptop to the latest editor and start getting it setup and programmed. In the meantime I hope I don't bore you with pics, but here are a bunch of the finished wiring both top and bottom. I'll post at a later date once the PBC is setup, programmed and knocking my socks off. Many thanks to RJM for such a great pedalboard tool for the guitarist, and the many companies who post there work here as I have read and absorbed their great work for my own project, but most of all, the knowledge and inspiration of my former bandmate and friend Rob "Moon" McGeoch, as years ago he set me up in a stereo setup(circa79-81) that was modeled around what Steve Morse was using at the time, and from this always striving for the ultimate in hi-fi stereo guitar sound.

Best regards,
Randi

 

[rjmmusic]

Looks great!

 

[Steve Gerick]

Massive pedal board. It looks really good. I'm building something similar to your setup, so I really appreciate you sharing your journey. I've been modeling what I want to do off the wiring diagram on page 21 in the PBC manual, but to be honest I've had to research and dig around for information on how to "operate" the rig. I'm using three different amps in my rig. A Fuchs Blackjack 21 for the dry amp and a Marshall DSL 40 for the Left Stereo and a Vox A/C 30 HW for the Right Stereo. I'm hoping that with the configurability the PBC gives me I can also use these amps individually on a preset/song by preset/song basis.