Sirion
Well-known member
Some years ago I was talking and investing quite a bit in a permanent rig. During the interim I enrolled in college, meaning that my guitar playing has been cut down to a minimum. However, while all hopes of rock n' roll glory is gone (I even cut my hair short in December, although enough is left for no-one to suspect MPB 
), I'm finishing my bachelor's degree this spring, and I've done well enough to justify finishing my rig, so that I have a ready-to-go rig whenever some guitar work does come up. What is more, I have a friend who has been making pedals and even amps for a few years as a hobby/side income, which means that I have the possibility to do some interesting things.
This is the equipment I have at the moment:
Furman wireless
2xADA MP-1
Furman PQ-6 equalizers
Carl Martin custom modded DS-1 (courtesy of our own Visshuwissha… friend formerly known as Rid)
BOSS HF-2
BOSS DC-2
MXR Phase 90
Marshall 2x50 power amp, modified for EL34 tubes
Metro Amp replica cabinet, 4x Greenbacks
As you can see, I'm well on my way to get a stereo rig, but not quite. Getting a second cab is not an option at the moment, but the cabinet is in stereo; while the 4x25w rig is not an ideal combination with a 2x50w power amp, I doubt I'd ever need to turn the rig up loud enough to risk blowing them up.
As the rig may suggest, I'm a bit of a rack freak; despite the bad reputation rack set-ups have been given over the past decades I've decided to go with it for a couple of reasons; chiefly because I'm a clutz who better do everything to prevent anything from being screwed up or lost, and while I realize that this may seem contradictory to the fact that rack setups can be a pain to troubleshoot, I've yet to have any troubles with the rack rig I'm using these days, as opposed to regular rigs where I usually manage to screw something up.
So, onto the plan itself. I am going to get a 12U rack, and I will fit everything into it. I think I may as well describe the rig unit by unit:
1: Wireless receiver and pedals built into a rack unit, controlled by external control board (see below). Will also house a splitter run by said board.
2-3: ADA's dedicated to clean and dirty tones
4-5: Furman PQ-6
6: Noise Gate
7: Echo
8: Empty (Perhaps I'll throw in a tuner at some point, or some MIDI selection unit, see below)
9-12: Marshall power amp
(Things may be thrown around a bit. I may, for instance, decide to put the ADAs on top to facilitate the use of another amp)
A hypothetical cable set-up (pedal positions may be subject to change; I am a bit rusty when it comes to these things):
Wireless -> DS-1 -> HF-2 -> P90 -> Splitter -> ADAs -> PQ-6 -> Noise gate -> "Uniter" (see below) -> DC-2 -> Echo -> Power Amp
Question 1: Notice the quotation marks around "uniter". These days there are a lot of mods for the ADAs, yet they often work wonders with one channel only to impoverish the others, so making one dedicated to gain tones and the other to clean makes sense, especially since there is a slight but hindering delay when changing pre-set on them. However, I still wish to have the possibility to get a stereo chorus effect. The only way I can seem to get this is to "cheat" by using a line selector of sorts after the pre-ADA pedals, for then to unite them again so that they can both go into the DC-2 (one of it's chief strengths is that it appears to grow more prominent the cleaner the tone is, which is exactly the way most people use chorus). Are there any products that can serve the latter, "unifying" function?
Question 2: I will build the effects into a rack unit. I realize this offends some of the purists out there, especially since some of the pedals are getting rather old and unusual. The latter group I can assure that I will make sure everything done is reversible, in fact this is one of the reasons why I am doing it: I lost one of the earliest versions of the OD-1 at a gig a few years ago; by stationing the pedals within a rack I can prevent such things from happening again. The question, then, is how to activate them from afar. A friend of mine has been making pedals as a hobby/side income for years, and I am sure he could make an external solution like Steve Lynch has in the following video (skip to 5:35): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xdhk6ZZ_x0 , though nothing QUITE as advanced is needed. However, I'm also going to purchase a delay that I need to control in some way, and actually having the possibility to use the tonal flexibility of the ADAs would be nice, but not really crucial; like so many other people here I've come to realise that two amp sounds cover most bases, but one never knows. Therefore: are there any items out there today like the Rockman MIDI Octopus that can use MIDI to turn ordinary pedals on and off, or in and out of the tone chain? This is probably the most important question, as it will decide whether I should go for a pedal or rack (MIDI) delay.
Question 3: Any suggestions for delays? Are there anything I should explicitly stay away from? I'm a total neophyte at this point, so any advice is good advice really.
Question 4: I am going to need a power supply for the pedals. The plain vanilla one is the T Rex Power Station, but I've heard some complaints about excessive noise from them. Not that it is a major point really, since I need a noise reduction unit to calm down the PQ-6 anyway, but the less excessive noise, the better. What I've heard some commentators mention is that the DC-2 sounds better when it is run by a battery that is getting low on power. Are there any power supplies where you can experiment with this?
), I'm finishing my bachelor's degree this spring, and I've done well enough to justify finishing my rig, so that I have a ready-to-go rig whenever some guitar work does come up. What is more, I have a friend who has been making pedals and even amps for a few years as a hobby/side income, which means that I have the possibility to do some interesting things.This is the equipment I have at the moment:
Furman wireless
2xADA MP-1
Furman PQ-6 equalizers
Carl Martin custom modded DS-1 (courtesy of our own Visshuwissha… friend formerly known as Rid)
BOSS HF-2
BOSS DC-2
MXR Phase 90
Marshall 2x50 power amp, modified for EL34 tubes
Metro Amp replica cabinet, 4x Greenbacks
As you can see, I'm well on my way to get a stereo rig, but not quite. Getting a second cab is not an option at the moment, but the cabinet is in stereo; while the 4x25w rig is not an ideal combination with a 2x50w power amp, I doubt I'd ever need to turn the rig up loud enough to risk blowing them up.
As the rig may suggest, I'm a bit of a rack freak; despite the bad reputation rack set-ups have been given over the past decades I've decided to go with it for a couple of reasons; chiefly because I'm a clutz who better do everything to prevent anything from being screwed up or lost, and while I realize that this may seem contradictory to the fact that rack setups can be a pain to troubleshoot, I've yet to have any troubles with the rack rig I'm using these days, as opposed to regular rigs where I usually manage to screw something up.
So, onto the plan itself. I am going to get a 12U rack, and I will fit everything into it. I think I may as well describe the rig unit by unit:
1: Wireless receiver and pedals built into a rack unit, controlled by external control board (see below). Will also house a splitter run by said board.
2-3: ADA's dedicated to clean and dirty tones
4-5: Furman PQ-6
6: Noise Gate
7: Echo
8: Empty (Perhaps I'll throw in a tuner at some point, or some MIDI selection unit, see below)
9-12: Marshall power amp
(Things may be thrown around a bit. I may, for instance, decide to put the ADAs on top to facilitate the use of another amp)
A hypothetical cable set-up (pedal positions may be subject to change; I am a bit rusty when it comes to these things):
Wireless -> DS-1 -> HF-2 -> P90 -> Splitter -> ADAs -> PQ-6 -> Noise gate -> "Uniter" (see below) -> DC-2 -> Echo -> Power Amp
Question 1: Notice the quotation marks around "uniter". These days there are a lot of mods for the ADAs, yet they often work wonders with one channel only to impoverish the others, so making one dedicated to gain tones and the other to clean makes sense, especially since there is a slight but hindering delay when changing pre-set on them. However, I still wish to have the possibility to get a stereo chorus effect. The only way I can seem to get this is to "cheat" by using a line selector of sorts after the pre-ADA pedals, for then to unite them again so that they can both go into the DC-2 (one of it's chief strengths is that it appears to grow more prominent the cleaner the tone is, which is exactly the way most people use chorus). Are there any products that can serve the latter, "unifying" function?
Question 2: I will build the effects into a rack unit. I realize this offends some of the purists out there, especially since some of the pedals are getting rather old and unusual. The latter group I can assure that I will make sure everything done is reversible, in fact this is one of the reasons why I am doing it: I lost one of the earliest versions of the OD-1 at a gig a few years ago; by stationing the pedals within a rack I can prevent such things from happening again. The question, then, is how to activate them from afar. A friend of mine has been making pedals as a hobby/side income for years, and I am sure he could make an external solution like Steve Lynch has in the following video (skip to 5:35): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xdhk6ZZ_x0 , though nothing QUITE as advanced is needed. However, I'm also going to purchase a delay that I need to control in some way, and actually having the possibility to use the tonal flexibility of the ADAs would be nice, but not really crucial; like so many other people here I've come to realise that two amp sounds cover most bases, but one never knows. Therefore: are there any items out there today like the Rockman MIDI Octopus that can use MIDI to turn ordinary pedals on and off, or in and out of the tone chain? This is probably the most important question, as it will decide whether I should go for a pedal or rack (MIDI) delay.
Question 3: Any suggestions for delays? Are there anything I should explicitly stay away from? I'm a total neophyte at this point, so any advice is good advice really.
Question 4: I am going to need a power supply for the pedals. The plain vanilla one is the T Rex Power Station, but I've heard some complaints about excessive noise from them. Not that it is a major point really, since I need a noise reduction unit to calm down the PQ-6 anyway, but the less excessive noise, the better. What I've heard some commentators mention is that the DC-2 sounds better when it is run by a battery that is getting low on power. Are there any power supplies where you can experiment with this?
