My DIY Pedalboard

[GMC]

It looks like the FaderFox gear doesn't support power via midi port. So I can't put it on the input side of my Quadra Thru box. It also doesn't allow midi power through either. Which is a bit disappointing. It means that I'll need to look for a powered midi merge or a powered midi thru box and move my Quadra thru on.
I have it placed between my SA hub on output 1 of my Quadra Thru. This seems to work. I've currently got My SA H9's and then SA EQ2 followed by the return to the ES-5 on that channel. So far no conflicts. Until I get the midi routing sorted, I can't use my PC4 to control any settings on my Hog2.

Hey, it's mostly working now. I can turn a knob and my H9's mix blends in...nice. I have knobs that now control Bass, Treble, mix, low retain and output level controls on my C4, Spectrum and Lunar. I have a row of dials for my Aftershock that I'm not yet sure what to do with yet.

I just need to remember that most of the midi won't work until I power on my PC which is supplying USB power to my PC4. Until I get that bit sourced!

 

[GMC]

I'm wondering if anyone else on TB has an all digital midi controlled pedal board?

 

[Mr. voodoobass]

Yes but I’ve scaled it down some. Eq2+2x h9+2x hx stomp with a Morningstar mc6 to control them. But i did not really need and use all of it, so it’s down to 2x stomp with midi with the mc6. With the eq2 at the beginning but not connected with midi.

 

[Mr. voodoobass]

Forgot to add pic. Side board with h9’s and a bunch of delay and ringmodulators can be connected through the white hx, and it is in the loop of the black hx. Eq2 into comp and input of black hx, ch2 of eq2(keyboards) goes into fx return of black hx.

 

[GMC]

I noticed that too, I’m using your chorus presets as a base, but had to make a few tweaks (volume, treble, and lo retain) between my plain chorus scene and my “Sledgehammer” octave chorus scene. Sounds great though, and doesn’t take much to adapt it to different settings.

That faderfox thing looks great. I don’t think I’d want it on my board, but I could see myself getting one to sit on my desk (but I should really just get around to creating MIDI controller views on my ipad for my pedals instead).

You should post your Sledgehammer patches up on the community and put a rough instruction on Talkbass.

 

[Killing Floor]

That looks great. I have used Krylon either black or a sage so it keeps looking decent for a long time. Multiple coats and I have no worries. But yours looks good natural so an oil rub wound be cool too.

 

[basstalkname]

Your board looks really cool. Any sound clips of how you use it?

 

[GMC]

A few days ago I bought a Source Audio Nemesis on an impulse buy and integrating it into my board has been a bit of a headache, both from a midi plumbing and physical location. But it's in. I have a fair amount of re-cabling to do for the main USB cable paths and I now have new requirement of adding the Nemesis' output volume to a CC knob on my Faderfox PC4. That will be a little more complex as it will need a different Midi Thru hub.
Anyhow...first pass...it's in, it's powered, it has midi in and it's plugged in my chain between my Lunar and EQ2. It's currently plugged in as Mono in and Stereo out. So i need to order another cable for the Stereo out from my Lunar. My Lunar is now sourced in the undercroft...with a few of the essential controls mapped to my Faderfox PC4.
I have a new One Control USB PSU to provide power from my Strymon Ojai to a USB 5v for my Faderfox PC4...which is surprisingly heavy. I may swap this out for a smaller, lighter unit when one becomes available.

 

[Jek Porkins]

That is a drool inducing set up GMC! Been following this thread from years past and it's great to see it evolving!

 

[GMC]

New Red knobs have arrived for my Source Audio Nemesis. I think the red looks nice against the pedal's black.

 

[GMC]

Since I built my board back in Jan 2018, there's been a number of swap outs. Some of the cable routs and board holes were engineered for the pedals I had at the time. With the recent changes and additions to my board, some additional wood work has been long over due. It's a task I've put off for a long time, everything needs to be removed and unplugged. That's a few hours on it's own! It was great to get the chance to empty this board back to it's naked carcass. It's SO light when unloaded. There was a lot of dust and fluff in the corners that needed to be hoovered!
The new FaderFox PC4 has replaced my expression pedal (now off board) and the supports for the expression pedal needed to be removed so that the PC4 can sit in it's place. The right hand side wall needed to be cut down to allow better access to the PC4. The Top right and left edges of the side walls needed to be trimmed flush with the top hinged plate so that the H9's could sit flush or over step the side walls slightly since the EQ2 and Nemesis are slightly wider with their additional cabling than the preceding Mobius. It effectively means that the H9's are pushed slightly farther apart.
I wanted to move the two Strymon Ojai PSU units to the other side of the under-croft and I also wanted to rationalise the loop cable routes so that the Lunar, Quadra and Hub sit better. I had to remove the One Control USB PSU port. This thing draws over 2 amps and was starving some of the other pedals on my board. I have a Temple Audio USB converter coming, hopefully that will fare better. I added a Hog 2 foot controller to the under-croft too. I'm hoping this will help me manage my Hog2 pre-sets better and it more useful. Irritatingly, the Hog2 doesn't have a patch up / down midi control. Which makes it difficult to control using a midi controller when I want to flick though the patches on the fly.
I needed to expand one of the cable holes in the internal divider, this had to be done by hand with a coping saw, which took some time. The top plate needed one of the cable holes expanding and a new one cut. Some of the top edge needed trimming down to stop cable pinching when the lid is lifted. I also needed to drill 3 holes on either side for the new in / out cabling and expression in / outs that I'm going to solder up next week.

 

[GMC]

The H9's now sit much better and don't compromise their Velcro every time I open the lid. The Faderfox PC4 is now sitting much more securely and doesn't wobble as I use it. The Lunar is now sitting on the base of the under-croft and not resting on top of a set of cables. The PSU move has allowed for a better distribution of power cable routes. The Hog 2 now has a foot controller, previously I had no room for it.
The new in / out jacks have been installed and look good. I've also noticed a much lower mains hum / noise in my signal...so the ground loops have gone.
Things still to do:
Solder up the expression jacks to the various units. Solder up the input and two output jacks. Get some more sticky cable ties to organise the mass of cables.
Before:

After:

 

[GMC]

A few detail shots:
Left side jack holes and upper edge trim

Right side jack holes and upper edge trim

Centre brace cable hole enlarged, for the new PSU cabling routes

Top plate hole enlarged for Nemesis and H9 cabling

New top plate cabling hole for the EQ2

There were shot before I sanded the router burn marks off.

 

[GMC]

I put everything back in...re-cabled...it's a bit of a mess and needs a lot of new cable ties to neaten everything. But it works and the slight ground loop hum has gone!
Everything in and working with the lid down, you can see the three in / out jacks under the left H9.

The current under-croft. The cables are a bit of an unmanaged mess at the moment.

The Lunar and PC4 are much better located now, plus I now have a Ho2 controller!

The relocation of the Ojai PSU stack went well.

Close up of the under-croft

 

[GMC]

One of the oddities with the EHX Hog2’s midi implementation is that it can’t do any patch up or down natively or via Midi CC. It can receive patch change (PC), no problems. I have a particular patch on my Boss ES-5 that has reassigned buttons so I can patch up and down one of my Eventide H9’s and I use this as an H9 centric patch to develop new H9 settings. I can’t do this with the Hog2 and the fact that it doesn’t have a display of any kind to show what patch I’m using makes the Hog2 quite difficult to manage. I have around 30 patches saved on my Hog2 and the only way I can access them is by making 30 different ES-5 patches.
Now that I have a Hog2 foot controller, that all changes and makes patch life a lot more accessible and easier to work. I can now bank up & down, recall any patch and see what patch I’m using via the foot controllers display. I’m hoping this will make my Hog2 much more useful to me and make it a lot more enjoyable to use.

 

[GMC]

A few recent photos, I had a tidy up in the "Undercroft" after some more cables and sticky cable ties turned up. I've soldered up the bass in jack cable, which is a lot neater now. I'm still waiting for a pair of cables to arrive for the two output sockets. I've also soldered up one of my Expression in jacks too. One more to go...although finding a TRRS 3.5mm panel mount socket is a little tricky. I'm planning on getting a 3rd expression pedal and attaching it to my Neuro Hub. So I can assign one via Midi CC on my ES-5 and one on my Neuro Hub. Then I need to make a box for the tree pedals to sit nicely in....

 

[GMC]

I'm having an office move around / rework and for a few days, my pedal board is relegated to the floor...don't ya just "love" that orange carpet...
I swapped over my EQ2 and Nemesis positions on my board. For such a small change it requires a surprising amount of re-caballing and logistics. So now my volume fades are before my Delay and Reverbs. Much better.

 

[robbroncs]

rather than liking every single photo, which i do....i'll just say, WELL F****** DONE! looks great. work of love really shows

 

[GMC]

I've had a small office move around and a new desk, so it's been a bit busy here in GMC world. It's all back together now. I took a shot of my office layout and my pedal board.
It's amazing I can fit so much into this small room. It's my work from home IT office, my photography editor station, my Gaming platform and my music room.

Here's my current pedal board signal path:

Expression (blue) is plugged into my ES-5 and routes anywhere via midi.
SA Expression is plugged into my SA EQ2.
I'm hoping to replace my Blue expression pedal with a 2nd SA dual expression pedal next month and making a 2 way (either / or) switch. So I can route the dual outputs into either / or my ES-5 or SA Neuro Hub. Then I'll make a wee box for them to sit in with managed cables.

 

[GMC]

A quick explanation of my board.
My first pedal in my chain is my SA C4, that's in Loop 1 of my Boss ES-5. Then in Loop 2
is my EHX Hog 2. SA Aftershock is Loop 3. One of Eventide H9's is in Loop 4. My SA Ultrawave is in Loop 5. All of these are in mono and their loop orders can change per ES-5 patch.
From there, my signal goes into my SA Spectrum. This is used mostly as a filter (or a sweapable LPF using an expression over midi).
Then my signal goes into my SA Lunar, which is my main modulator. Form here it's outputted in Stereo into my EQ2. The EQ2 has the SA Dual Expression pedal attached as a dedicated unit. I use this for Low Pass sweeps and Volume Swells, as well as EQ functions. Then I'm Stereo into my SA Nemesis delay and then finally into my 2nd Eventide H9, which is used for ambience. My Stereo out is patched bayed via my Eventide H9's output feeds. My Blue expression pedal (soon to be swapped out) is my Midi expression into my ES-5. Soon, I'm going to get a 2nd Dual Expression pedal and I'll build a 2 way out switch box for it. So I can switch on/off either of the dual outputs. One output will go to my ES-5 and the other will go to my SA Neuro hub. The idea is that I can have one expression pedal, but choose either / or outputs. I like the look of the Mission Expressionator. It would be nice to have just the one expression pedal feeding three switchable outputs.