I recently acquired a Series 1 Rectoverb for a very good price. Only thing is: it didn’t come with a footswitch. The Series 2 have ¼’’ jacks on the back panel so one could just use a regular 3-button footswitch and be done with it. However, the Series 1 amps don’t, I’m stuck using a 5-pin cable.
This has been quite a project. Not that it’s complex but mostly because there basically no info anywhere on the web (even though I spent quite some time searching). This is why I’m posting it up here in detail. Maybe someone somewhere will eventually need that info and be able to find it here hopefully, and not go through all the trouble I did.
Replacements for the Series 1 FS are only available through Mesa (none of the usual replacement switch guys like switchampdoctor, blacklabel or voodooman make them) and Mesa doesn’t ship to Canada. Ordering through a dealer was problematic to say the least and I’m more the “Well fine, I’ll do it myself” kinda guy anyways.
Other detail: the Series 1 and 2 Footswitches aren’t interchangeable (found a few testimonies of guys who bought Series 1 FS by mistake).
So, I went hunting for a schematic to help me with which pins do what. In the end, it was the fine folks at Mesa that helped by very generously providing the switching schematic. I though for sure there were gonna be little errors to throw me off in there (what Mesa is known for) but in the end, there were none.
Enclosure: I didn’t want to use a 1590BB Hammond enclosure, they’re too small to allow 3 switches without having to be very careful not to step on two switches at a time. Blacklabel have found a way around this by placing them in triangle… I think it looks goofy. I bought a Hammond 1456FE2, 6.5 inches wide was just enough to fit three switches without being too huge and the sloped design looked quite nice too.
Switches: I used standard latching DPDT switches that I use for pedals.
Cable: I needed a 4-conductor cable. Believe it or not, procuring this was probably the worst part. Up in my neck of the woods, nobody had this. Every distributor I found on the web charged ridiculous shipping charges or could only sell in rolls of 500 feet. I could’ve used some cat5 network cable but it’s too rigid for my tastes. Finally found some antenna-motor cable for a reasonable price on ebay in roll of 50 feet. Gives me enough to make a nice 7’ cable for home use and 15’ for live gigs and have plenty left if need be.
Got some male and female 5-pin connectors from China and off I went.
[continued]
This has been quite a project. Not that it’s complex but mostly because there basically no info anywhere on the web (even though I spent quite some time searching). This is why I’m posting it up here in detail. Maybe someone somewhere will eventually need that info and be able to find it here hopefully, and not go through all the trouble I did.
Replacements for the Series 1 FS are only available through Mesa (none of the usual replacement switch guys like switchampdoctor, blacklabel or voodooman make them) and Mesa doesn’t ship to Canada. Ordering through a dealer was problematic to say the least and I’m more the “Well fine, I’ll do it myself” kinda guy anyways.
Other detail: the Series 1 and 2 Footswitches aren’t interchangeable (found a few testimonies of guys who bought Series 1 FS by mistake).
So, I went hunting for a schematic to help me with which pins do what. In the end, it was the fine folks at Mesa that helped by very generously providing the switching schematic. I though for sure there were gonna be little errors to throw me off in there (what Mesa is known for) but in the end, there were none.
Enclosure: I didn’t want to use a 1590BB Hammond enclosure, they’re too small to allow 3 switches without having to be very careful not to step on two switches at a time. Blacklabel have found a way around this by placing them in triangle… I think it looks goofy. I bought a Hammond 1456FE2, 6.5 inches wide was just enough to fit three switches without being too huge and the sloped design looked quite nice too.
Switches: I used standard latching DPDT switches that I use for pedals.
Cable: I needed a 4-conductor cable. Believe it or not, procuring this was probably the worst part. Up in my neck of the woods, nobody had this. Every distributor I found on the web charged ridiculous shipping charges or could only sell in rolls of 500 feet. I could’ve used some cat5 network cable but it’s too rigid for my tastes. Finally found some antenna-motor cable for a reasonable price on ebay in roll of 50 feet. Gives me enough to make a nice 7’ cable for home use and 15’ for live gigs and have plenty left if need be.
Got some male and female 5-pin connectors from China and off I went.
[continued]
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