Pedal Board 2
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Here's the finished item
Below is the last stage of my old pedalboaI bought some 19mm marine ply and it took me about a day to draw out a design plan, cut the boards, rout the butt joints, glue and assemble.
Then it took a further day to cut out the top tier board, work out and route out the various wire holes and sand it all down.
Below is the last stage of my old pedalboard: If I put an ES-5 in there, I would loose most of the bottom row of analogue effects. So a 2nd Tier was the obvious choice. It alos allows me to hide a lot of the inevitable cabling.
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Pedal Board 2: A bit of a Journey In Jan 2018 I realised that my trusty Boss pedalboard wasn't going to service my needs any longer. I had just bought an Eventide H9 and I was looking to add a Boss ES-5 switcher / midi controller. Those two items alone would have taken up half of the old pedalboard. Then there was the increased wiring and PSU requirements. I looked for commerical boards, but i just didn't see what I liked. I was massively inspired by the Schmidt boards, but I didn't see the size I wanted. So I started sketching. Then I re-sketched and re-sketched again. I wanted to use a 18x16" foot print. I wanted dual levels. The 2 tiers, plenty of depth for cables and having pedals below. I wanted three rows of pedals too. I wanted a cut out for my expression pedal and I had plenty of room for pedal expansion too. At some point I wanted to add a EHX Hog2 and a second H9. I chose the Boss ES-5 because it was the most versatile switcher available and it was a lot smaller than the ES-8. I bought some 19mm marine ply and it took me about a say to draw out a design plan, cut the boards, rout the butt joints, glue and assemble. I chose a Boss case and PSU, although recently I have replaced the PSU with a One Spot 1.7A unit which is driving everything far better. I really like the input and output boards on this case, it means the effects pedals don't take a hammering every time I unplug my bass. The case packs up with the cover and it just works. It's got a great handle and I can pop the PSU and cables inside and shut it all up. I'm using various interconnects, EBS flats, Planet Waves Solderless and a number of Dunlop direct connectors (which are great). I've built a few pedals and I've added a few more Overdrives to my board this year. I'm at a place where I'm really happy with the results and every pedal has a specific purpose. 1) Input is into the Boss ES-5, The MXR BOD Octaver is in my first loop, it's a lush and organic sounding analogue Octaver. My EBS MultiComp compressor is in the same loop. 2) Next is my MXR BEF envelope Filter 3) Source Audio Aftershock - and awesome pedal that is totally digital but sounds totally analogue. 4) is my Eventide H9 5) my Strymon Mobius and Zoom MS-70CDR performing ambience.
The pedals fit really well and I'm liking the new layout a lot. I've not quite finished wiring all the pedals yet. I've been using Evidence Audio SIS solderless for a few years now and they are mostly great...but they do come loose over time. So I've been mightily impressed by the new Warwick Rockboard flat cables...really nice and available in a lot of different lengths. So I'm migrating over to them. They also have the slim-est angled midi plugs I've ever seen.
My old CDT tutor at school said that
every mature craft usually needs 3 design passes. 1st pass is the
paper design stage. 2nd pass is the actual build with slight tweeking
due to the naivety of the paper design. Then the re-work / rebuild
after using the thing for a few weeks. |
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Construction details: The Under-Croft |
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Here's a shot of the sprung hinges I've used, bought on Ebay very reasonably and took a few weeks to arrive from China. I looked for something very similar to type used on the Schmitt arrays.
These are the ball clasps. A bit tricky to line up. |
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These are the ball clasps. A bit tricky to line up. |
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Power Supply Here's the Strymon Ojia PSU that I am currenlty using. It's amazingly small and neat. My H9, Mobius, Aftershock, ES-5 pedals all get dedicated 500ma ports, all the rest are daisy chained from one 500ma port. It seems to be working well, there's no ground hum anywhere in the signal chain. Listening via a audio interface and a pair of headphones...it's very clean sounding. It's a bit if a tangle in there at the moment. Next month, I'm hoping to add a 4 port midi thru box to clean up some fot the Midi tangle. I've also bought a few straight midi plugs, so i can cut and solder some of my angle plugs and make some custom midi cables. I've found that the right angled ones tend to be great at one end of the run...and all wrong at the other end.
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EHX Hog 2: Under-Croft When I planned this board, I intended to have a EXH Hog2 under the top tier. It's a huge pedal (not sure I can even call it a pedal...more of a panel!). I wasn't intending getting one until later in the year, but one came up S/H for a REALLY good price and I figured that it was a really good deal. So My new to me EHX Hog2 arrived a few days ago in great condition, only to find that my pre-planned dimensions were 1cm too narrow (to fit under the hood). There would be complications if I moved the centre panel, so I decided to remove it and carve out some space for the Hog2 to slide in. One dusty and noisy hour later...the Hog2 is in place and seated very neatly and snug. The re-cabling and re-routing of the power, midi and audio cables took even longer! It's all in and working. I can tidy up some more in a few days. |
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A few more pictures. Once the cabling went in...every thing got real messy! This cabling is all working correctly but it's messy and needs tidying with custom length cables. The Hog2 only has a Midi in, so I needed a midi thu box to assist, which has added a bit more cabling complexity. So my next job is to source a few more longer cables and re-route the two that cross over the Hog2 and then work out some patch bay sockets to route the input and output cables to the casing and hard wire them to the ES-5. Then I need to cut up some more midi cables and solder up the other ends to make some custom length midi leads. The red lead is my output and the green is my input. It still looks neat with the lid down
:D I had to get a Midi Thru box because the Hog 2 only has a Midi in port, so I can't daisy chain it. The Midi Thru box (A Quadra from Midi Solutions) will also clean up the spurious midi data that comes from the Strymon Mobius. The Mobius really doesn't play well with other midi devices after it. |
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Latest DIY board pic. My new 2nd H9 is now loaded onto my board. Off came the Zoom MS-70CDR, which I felt quite choked about. Midi, power and audio is wired up and reasonably neat under to hood. That's the bit that took some time. I shoved my Mobius over an inch and at some point I'll need to re-route the cable access holes for it.
So my current path is:
Loop 1: Octaver followed
by Compressor.
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OK, I've spent a few hours trimming the cable routes on the top edge of the board, they've been catching on the back panel when I open up the top layer. I've taken all the cables out and re-routed them better, there's still a way to go before I'm happy with the cable routes, but it's getting there and a lot tidier than before. I've added a new shelf for the Midi thru box and Source Audio hub to sit on. I shortened my expression pedal cable and soldered an angled jack on it...that looks a lot neater and allowed me to remove a large length of coiled up and unused cable from the tangle of wires. I've cut and soldered some of the angled midi cables I have, I seem to find that they are often right and one end and then wrong at the other. So I've started to cut them and solder up new jacks to make custom midi cables. These work much better for me and they allow me to use the really cheap angled MIDI cables or the really nice new Warwick Rockboard cables that seem to have the same problem but are seriously low profile. I've fitted a really cool techno style handle that's similar to the style that Schmidt is currently using. I've secured the Strymon PSU in a better place and I've cut a hole for the IEC cable to plug through.
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Current board load out. I've swapped out the MXR Bass Octave Deluxe for a Source Audio C4. The black strap is just to hold the lid down when moving it about. At some point I'll design and build a proper lid or case for it. But that'll have to wait until I've moved house and unpacked the workshop again. I've been having some power issues
with one of my feeds. The Strymon Ojai has 5 isolated feeds of 500ma
each. Currently my ES-5 loops are: However, Midi wise: Power feeds:
In an ideal world, I would have the midi channels set the same as the Loop channels...and the power feeds. But alas, the SA Aftershock and Hub prefer channel 1. So that kind of throws that neatness out of the window. It also means that I have a crib sheet of the loops / Midi / Power numbers at hand because it's really confusing and easy to forget what does what and goes where. |
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A cup of morning inspiration! |
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Goodbye long term Mobius, hello SA Lunar A massive change, I've been growing a dissatisfaction for my Strymon Mobius. I'm awaiting the arrival of a Source Audio Lunar that I'm hoping will replace my Strymon Mobius. With the space liberated, I'm also hoping to slot in a Source Audio EQ2. My Strymon Mobius has served my modulation needs faithfully for several years. What I need in modulation are a great pair of Choruses: CE-2 and Multi, Phaser, Flanger and a great rotary. My Mobius also offers a good filter (that I rarely use) and an awesome harmonic tremolo (vintage Trem). In fact it's the trem and stunning rotary emulator that has kept the Mobius on my board for so long. All the other settings, I rarely use. The Lunar is an unknown quantity for me. I know that it's modulation abilities are very well regarded, especially with the fantastic low retain control (Low pass mixer). However, I have no idea how well the rotary will fair. I loose the trem option, however, Eventide have included a fantastic Harmadillo algorithm...so as long as I can get my head around it and program it right...I should be able to get everything I need from one of my H9's and the Lunar.
Currently
my ES-5 loops are: However, Midi wise: Power feeds: Sound wise, there's a lot to discuss.
The Mobius is a lot more featured than a Lunar offers in terms of
selectable modes. One of the attractions that the Mobius offers is
a User Interface that is intuitive and easy to navigate on the fly.
Probably more so than most larger digital panels. It's got that big
mode dial that is very easy to operate. I can call up a patch using
my Boss ES-5 and then spin the dial to any one of it's nearby modulation
settings / patches. This is fast and easy to use, but can be a bit
irritating if the specific chorus I'm looking for is patch #2 and
I've jumped in at #47. With 12 clicks on the dial...that's a lot of
tuning. Of those 12 modulation options, I found some were more useful
to me than others. I like the d-bucket and Multi Chorus options. Both
are nice and clear chorus sounds. However, the tone control is useless
on bass and the mix is a parallel blend and not so useful on bass.
If I loose some low end and dial in the mix, It waters down some of
the chorus effect too. I've often felt that a variable LP filter on
the clean side would fatten up the loss of low end that chorus effects
often cause. But that's not on offer on the Mobius. Enter the Lunar
with it's Low retain control....guys are SA...this needs to be assignable
to one of the unit's 4 device knobs. No bassist needs the Mix control
on the Gemini. Next on the Mobius dial is the Flanger setting, that I hardly used. In all my Boss ES-5 patches...I have only 1 with a flanger. The mobius offers a lot of different flanger settings. To be honest...I found one that I like and then looked for something similar on the Lunar. One slot 3 loaded on the 6 patches list...tick. The Rotary on the Mobius is amazing.
It's easy to use and by hitting the tempo button it can flip between
2 speed settings. It's one of the best rotary sims I've used, the
Lunar has two Resonator effect types, they don't thrill me as much
as the Mobius offerings. I found a cloud patch "lesliemr"
and once I dialled in the control a bit more...I've got it to a place
where I like it. It's not quite as good and the Mobius if I'm honest...but
it's close enough and I can assign the speed knob to an external midi
expression pedal...nice. However...there are better sounding rotary
options on my nearby H9. Sonically, I suggest that the Lunar is slightly better on bass than the Mobius. The Phaser is simply better. But I've not yet found any Chorus pedal (and I've tried a few) on bass that really knocks it out of the park for me. I'm often left with a sense of "mehh". That's not directed at the Lunar or Mobius specifically, I think that these class of effects operate best with frequencies that the bass doesn't produce much of. I think the Lunar's Chorus options are slightly less "mehh" for me. I've found a pair of Chorus sounds on my H9 that are stronger than both the Lunar and Mobius. "Classic Chorus" on the Vintage Delay Algorithm and "Boss CE-2" in the Chorus Algorithm. The "Tumbleweed" setting on the "Tremolopan" Algorithm is fantastic too. For me, adding the EQ2 was a necessity and was the main reason for pushing the Mobius off my board. It was a land grab and I needed the space. I was happy with the Mobius' sounds and functions, but now that I've integrated the lunar and EQ2 in to my board and patches...and I've worked around some of the holes left by the Mobius...I'm not actually sure I'll ever miss it.
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My Lunar now sports some rather fetching Blue aftermarket knobs
My Aftershock as a setof matching black ones and my C4 a set of Silver ones |
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Welcome to The Ultrawave!
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