As many will have noticed from t'other threads, I've recently ditched the Helix and gone back to pedals. After some time planning and lots of time waiting for deliveries, I'm finally almost there...
It all started with a guitar shop visit in Perth, where I picked up these two drives (Anarchy Gold Class and Selah Feather Drive). That made me realise that while Helix is amazingly powerful, I really enjoy the "tangible factor" of real pedals, which switches and knobs and lights, and I enjoy the process of trying out new things, and finding interesting new pedals in real shops, and that it's ok to have that element within a bigger hobby.
So I got planning, and once the Helix sold, went shopping.
In:
Pedaltrain 2
Whammy V (late xmas present - woohoo!)
Strymon Deco (birthday present - double woohoo!)
Digitech Supernatural (not 100% I'll keep this one but always fancied trying an ambient-type reverb)
Cleggy Small Stone
Empress Echosystem (still waiting on Thomann...)
TC Ditto (also still waiting on Thomann...)
...and a Strymon Zuma to power everything.
The plan is to grab a Gamechanger Plus Pedal as well, eventually, but I don't want to completely out-whelm myself with that on top of learning a new deco/delay/reverb/loop setup. I've already had mods and whammys before so no big learning curve there.
First came many many plans...
Comments
And a quick check with what definitely worked with my old board & layout to check my dimensions are correct
I think there will probably be room for another mini (or equivalent) on the board somewhere (below the Echosystem, most likely) if I find I'm missing it.
It's also likely that something here won't quite "click" and I'll end up re-jigging again after a few months in which case I'll look at my options
You should check out:-
http://www.pedalplayground.com/
It's a really great website for putting boards together, thats if you haven't seen it already.
I use the Gold Class as almost a preamp, so that and probably the Archer could move up if needed.
* Side note: I'm seriously unimpressed with Thomann. Andertons took two days to dispatch but charged me £20 to go from Guildford to Abu Dhabi and that parcel got here in 2 days. Thomann charged £50 and it's been stuck on "parcel will be transported to destination country" for 8 days, and now I'm at the mercy of our local post office. Now of course I've remembered having exactly the same thing happen a couple of years ago - a set of pickups that took 3 months to arrive
In an ideal world *everything* would be at the front but that isn't an option!
The Echosystem and Ditto are still not here. That package is stuck in customs hell and could take weeks. So I've decided to do the rest and leave as much space as possible for those.
Testing... The good news is the Zuma works perfectly and is super-quiet. I'm very confident it'll play nice with the other incoming stuff so cracked on with putting it together.
This is where the Zuma is less than impressive. It fits in the gap between the top 2 rails of the PT2. But that doesn't really work, because Strymon want you to spend extra on the brackets that they don't provide with the unit. And of course it won't fit in the front of the board either, because that would be too easy.
So... because I don't have any brackets and am not going to pay for international shipping just for 2 bits of blue-plated steel and some screws and generally consider myself to be a resourceful chap, I went to the local hardware store and found the cheapest thing I could that was between 5 and 10mm thick and would stick nicely to velcro.
Presenting some cut-off bits of PVC cable tracking! I'll probably grab some brackets next time I'm in the UK, but these work beautifully and cost about 2 quid and 5 minutes with a stanley knife. I've also glued the two sides of each track together so they won't fall apart with the weight of the PSU. Happy days!
Much better...
And it lets me keep some space to run pedals under the PSU if I need to
Test fit for spacing. Everything seems about right as per my plan, though to fit the Plus I think whatever is above it will need to go sideways, which makes me itch. The Small Stone is the obvious candidate, since it has 1 knob and won't confuse me, I'll worry about that later.
Everything in and signal cables wired. There's loads of space on the top row. The bottom will be tight once the ES and Plus are on, but I'm planning on building another booster into a 1590 which will help if needed.
Power wiring. I'll say one thing about the Zuma - it makes wiring extremely easy! I'll do a full tidy-up of the cables once it's all finished.
Testing! It's Alive! etc etc.
And worth noting the £50 Surfing Bear OD I picked up in Japan has knocked the Archer off the board. It's just a nicer sounding low gain OD, and sounds glorious into the Gold Class. I think the Archer will go in the next few weeks.
(I can link to the build thread but photobucket buggered the pics )
Interesting...wonder if that technique would work with the Ojai I have beneath my board: it's hanging in there using Velcro tape at the moment.
Currently have one on the board and one below deck, so could maybe even attach both below using PVC cable tracking.
@Lebarque The JM's guard is actually an original '65-ish one. It is stunning... I was going to go for Spitfire when I started the build, but this came up on here for similar money and I couldn't resist. It's a bit warped and I had to mod it a smidge to get it to fit (widen the pickup holes, bridge holes, and neck pocket opening), but no cracks. That sort of imperfection just adds mojo for me