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I say "finished" because a guitarists rig is never really done, is it? I know myself too well to say it's done. Last time I said it was done two days later I added the Soldano SP77 to it haha.
I got sick of my mismatched cabs and wanted a matching rig that was all rack based, midi controlled and stereo. So the first step was having some custom cabs made and a matching headshell for my EVH 50w. Thankfully Anthony at Stage Craft cabs was up to the job and every time I asked about something custom I wanted for the cabs the answer was "yes". From the size and spacing of the stripes, the tolex, the grill cloth (same as the EVH cabs), the style of metal corners, the type of casters and rubber feet, everything I nit picked over was done as requested. He hit it out of the park and even went beyond my requests and striped the cabs fully down the back panels, I can't thank Anthony enough for the great job. The pics may not show it but it's not a half ass job of tolex but up against tolex for the stripes these were done right with routing for black string pipe that was used between the black and white tolex sections. Since the cabs were brand name free with no badges I was free to name them whatever I wanted so I decided to stick with the racing stripe car theme and had some '71 Dodge Demon fender emblems drop shipped to Anthony to install on the cabs to finish out the look. I loaded the cabs with all the speakers I had from my mismatched set of cabs I was using before so they have two EVH greenbacks on top and one V30 and one H30 on the bottom. I had planned on switching the H30s out at some point for two more V30s but it sounds so good as is I think I'll just leave it as is.
The signal path for the rack has confused the heck out a few people I've showed it to (pic of the signal routing below) but it basically boils down to the preamp in the EVH 50w and the Soldano SP77 sharing the EVHs power amp and the Fryette Power Station to run one at a time in stereo. I have to also give a big thank you to Ken at Soundsculpture for answering a bunch of questions for me since his ABCadabara pedal is what makes sharing the G-Major 2 with both preamps possible. The EVH and Power Station both being 50w 6L6 ended up being a perfect pair for this application and the Power Station is also great for when I sub in my JMP or Vibrolux so I can attenuate them and give them and FX loop.
I have the SP77 set for very clean with no breakup even from a bridge humbucker and for a lower gain (*low gain for me) from the second channel which can be boosted with the Green Rhino for another level of gain. The EVH is setup up to break up when hit hard on the clean channel or be clean when you go to a neck pickup or roll back volume. Hitting the clean channel with the Rhino also adds another great low gain tonal option. The blue channel is set for more gain than the SP77 and even more with the Rhino pushing it and then finally the red channel which has absurd gain to begin with and certainly doesn't need a push from the Rhino. So, loads of tones.
I built/modded three different pedals to control the DCR-2SR rack wah. The gold one uses the stock Hot Potz II pot. The EB volume pedal took a bunch of cutting and drilling and wiring to work but it ended up my favorite with a huge sweep, it uses a Bourns pot. Finally the chartreuse one uses and EVH pot. They all sounds drastically different despite having the rack wah set the same for each one. I've msotly settled on using the EB with it but the EVH pot pedal is also quite good too.
Here's the routing diagram for those who are curious...
The last piece of the puzzle I think will be a dedicated OD pedal for the SP77, the Rhino is dialed in for the EVH and while it works good for the SP77 set like that it would be better with its own dedicated pedal. So I'm thinking I'll ditch the PH-2 for a second Rhino (unless I can find something I like better, haven't so far) dialed in for the SP77 and may rack-rehouse them in a 1U enclosure to finish off the last slot on the top of the rack.
I got sick of my mismatched cabs and wanted a matching rig that was all rack based, midi controlled and stereo. So the first step was having some custom cabs made and a matching headshell for my EVH 50w. Thankfully Anthony at Stage Craft cabs was up to the job and every time I asked about something custom I wanted for the cabs the answer was "yes". From the size and spacing of the stripes, the tolex, the grill cloth (same as the EVH cabs), the style of metal corners, the type of casters and rubber feet, everything I nit picked over was done as requested. He hit it out of the park and even went beyond my requests and striped the cabs fully down the back panels, I can't thank Anthony enough for the great job. The pics may not show it but it's not a half ass job of tolex but up against tolex for the stripes these were done right with routing for black string pipe that was used between the black and white tolex sections. Since the cabs were brand name free with no badges I was free to name them whatever I wanted so I decided to stick with the racing stripe car theme and had some '71 Dodge Demon fender emblems drop shipped to Anthony to install on the cabs to finish out the look. I loaded the cabs with all the speakers I had from my mismatched set of cabs I was using before so they have two EVH greenbacks on top and one V30 and one H30 on the bottom. I had planned on switching the H30s out at some point for two more V30s but it sounds so good as is I think I'll just leave it as is.
The signal path for the rack has confused the heck out a few people I've showed it to (pic of the signal routing below) but it basically boils down to the preamp in the EVH 50w and the Soldano SP77 sharing the EVHs power amp and the Fryette Power Station to run one at a time in stereo. I have to also give a big thank you to Ken at Soundsculpture for answering a bunch of questions for me since his ABCadabara pedal is what makes sharing the G-Major 2 with both preamps possible. The EVH and Power Station both being 50w 6L6 ended up being a perfect pair for this application and the Power Station is also great for when I sub in my JMP or Vibrolux so I can attenuate them and give them and FX loop.
I have the SP77 set for very clean with no breakup even from a bridge humbucker and for a lower gain (*low gain for me) from the second channel which can be boosted with the Green Rhino for another level of gain. The EVH is setup up to break up when hit hard on the clean channel or be clean when you go to a neck pickup or roll back volume. Hitting the clean channel with the Rhino also adds another great low gain tonal option. The blue channel is set for more gain than the SP77 and even more with the Rhino pushing it and then finally the red channel which has absurd gain to begin with and certainly doesn't need a push from the Rhino. So, loads of tones.
I built/modded three different pedals to control the DCR-2SR rack wah. The gold one uses the stock Hot Potz II pot. The EB volume pedal took a bunch of cutting and drilling and wiring to work but it ended up my favorite with a huge sweep, it uses a Bourns pot. Finally the chartreuse one uses and EVH pot. They all sounds drastically different despite having the rack wah set the same for each one. I've msotly settled on using the EB with it but the EVH pot pedal is also quite good too.
Here's the routing diagram for those who are curious...
The last piece of the puzzle I think will be a dedicated OD pedal for the SP77, the Rhino is dialed in for the EVH and while it works good for the SP77 set like that it would be better with its own dedicated pedal. So I'm thinking I'll ditch the PH-2 for a second Rhino (unless I can find something I like better, haven't so far) dialed in for the SP77 and may rack-rehouse them in a 1U enclosure to finish off the last slot on the top of the rack.
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