Guitar Gear Forum

Dedicated megathread for pedalboards utilizing specialized inputs/outputs, 4cm and the inevitable ground loop hum that ensues. Feel free to post pics of current board as well as discuss any issues you may be having!

I'll start with my latest board. I'm using the Pedaltrain Classic 3. Other guitar player bought the Lichtlaerm Aesahaettr which I'm currently testing in place of my normal Kingtone Duellist. This is by far the biggest pedalboard I've ever used:


Current chain: Guitar > Peterson Tuner > CAE Wah> Kingtone Octaland > Lichtlaerm Aesahaettr >. Black Art Toneworks Revelation > SLO-100
FX Loop: Revv G8 > H90 > Collider > Spark

I also use their wheeled road case which is kinda lame because it's massive due to it also fitting their bigger boards. There is about an inch of excess room on top and also on one of side of the board. One good thing about it is the side pocket which fits my loom. I do run an extra piece of foam on top of the board to keep it from sliding around:




I am using BTPA inputs which are nice because they come with a Pedaltrain mounting kit that allows you to screw to the inputs directly into the board, no tapping required. They're also TS and TRS compatible so you they work with the SLO footswitch. They can be found here: https://btpa.com/pp-0012-04-thru.html




Worth noting if you're using a smaller PT board you may need to buy their feet riser kit (just taller rubber feet) so the inputs can clear the floor. While I didn't need the riser kit with the Classic 3, I bought it anyways so I could use two of the feet at the top to give my board an increased angle. This not only makes the wah pedal more comfortable for me to use but also accessing the top row pedals slightly easier. Though that last part may just be in my head.



One other small irritation is I couldn't mount the inputs flush with the side of the board because of where the welds are located:



The loom was custom ordered from Rattlesnake cables who I highly recommend. Their customer service is second to none. I order custom cables and they're usually made and shipped that same day! Hell upon my first order the owner sent me a video thanking for the order and let me know they were in the process of being built and would ship same day. Very cool.

One of the ground loop issues I have encountered is trying to run my Eventide H90 in it's own 4cm. So currently it's just in the FX loop chain. But ideally I'd like to run out from CAE wah, into H90, then out into the dirt pedals and then to the front of the amp, while also keeping the other H90 input/ouputs in the FX loop chain. This way I can experiment with some of the other H90 compressors and drives in front of the amp. Plus I noticed some of the phasers/flangers sound cooler in the front of the amp.

To help me combat this ground loop issue Cole made me a 1/4" female to male adapter with the ground broken off that I will try plugging in one of my FX loop cables into. I was thinking about using it with the Send cable but if someone has another suggestion I'm all ears! It arrived today but I have band practice tonight so I will have to experiment with it over the weekend.

Please note that for the first time in my life I have a noise gate on my board. The Revv G8 also courtesy of Cole because he loves me. All of the knobs are all the way down, and in the loop that's enough to kill the SLO preamp noise. Works great and I don't notice enough of a tone difference for me to care. The gate also took care of the ground loop hum but knowing it's there just gnawed at the back of my mind. Plus cable management with both the H90 in and the Revv G8 in 4cm was irritating me so I went back to just running them both in the loop. Speaking of cable management here is what it looks like currently:



I am using mostly Ernie Ball Flat Ribbon patch cables for the pedals because my other guitar player had a fuck ton of them already and I'm still experimenting with different pedals so I'm not sure exactly what lengths I will need (depending on if the pedals are top or side mounted). I will eventually order Rattlesnake path cables once the board is in a more finalized state. However, the cables going to the BTPA inputs are custom made from Rattlesnake, and I purposely had them made a few inches longer in case pedal order changes.

One other interesting detail: the Cioks DC7 and Expander power supplies are advertised as being able to fit in between the top rails of PT boards. However, specifically on the Classic 3 they only fit between the bottom rails. At first I thought this was kind of lame but now after dealing with my other guitar players board I think I prefer it. The added weight at the bottom is helpful with the increased angle from the taller rubber feet and cable management just seems easier with them at the bottom.

Some notes on the pedals themselves:
The Octaland is the best Octave pedal I've tried thus far and I've tried a lot. It's crazy versatile (as far as upper octave pedals go) and I should really dedicate an entire thread to how badass it is.

I love the CAE wah. It's super smooth and doesn't quack like the traditional ways I normally use but that's precisely why I like it. It just seems to work with high gain and on my C Standard guitar I use the lower sweep setting. I was using the boost but since I added the Spark I no longer do.

Speaking of the Spark I love it. I especially like the momentary switch for quick lead licks I do in verses. I have been using the hot switches on the H90 set for a 3db boost and increased delay time for dedicated lead sections in songs, and technically I could also use a hot switch in a momentary setting like the Spark, but I just like having both options and the dedicated volume jump in the Spark.

Collider is almost redundant now but since the H90 only runs two algorithms at a time, I like having a backup Reverb and/or Delay. The H90 is the only digital delay/verb I've tried that I've liked as much as the Collider. Though to be fair I haven't spent time with the Strymon Timeline or Big Sky. The Collider just sounds and feels so natural to me. It FEELS especially awesome, very similar to the way the Belle Epoch feels on my vintage style board.

I'm only a week or so into the H90 and there is plenty more to discover but goddamn the Reverbs, Delays and Micro Pitch are stellar. I'm extremely impressed.

The Black Arts Toneworks is their monstrous Ritual fuzz and Superbass preamp in one pedal. This is for when I want to get my Sleep on and it's amazing, albeit hisses louder than a MFer.

And finally this Lichtlaerm Aesahaettr pedal my other guitar player bought... Not usually my style of pedal right? Well holy shit it's pretty fucking awesome. Takes the SLO into modern metal territory. Obviously I'm no expert when it comes to that sound but I trust my ears and my ears are saying it's awesome. It is obviously adding more gain, but it is another one of those pedals that feels really good, especially for leads. It's super clear and articulate, and seems to push a high gain amp better than my Duellist.

The Duellist adds too much of it's own color (duh), while the Aesahaettr as a clean boost just gives me more of what I already have (again, duh). The EQ (left) side is an extra bonus. I've been using it to add high mids for a grindier sound, kind of a HM-2-ish thing. I'm going to try it out at band practice here in about an hour and will report back. Honestly the SLO has so much gain that I don't really need it, certainly not any more saturation, but there is just something I like about it. Maybe it's all those years boosting the Superbass and it just feels familiar. And maybe I'm finally beginning to understand what you metal nerds have always been talking about when it comes to boosting high gain amps.

This is so awesome! I can't get over just how pro this board is!

Cole

I have been out of the business for years. But, if I am not mistaken, what Cole made for you in that plug adapter is usually refrred to as a "drain". It's a electrical dead end where noise/stray voltage goes to die.

As for the cable snake, that is high on my list. My cabling is a fucking mess. I need to suck it up and buy a snake once and for all.

That aside, your board looks tight. Nice work!

I will join, although my pedalboard is far less impressive


I've been using only 3 pedals, wah, boost and my DD-500. So my board is a Pedaltrain Classic Jr, with room to spare.




The pedals are connected to an ISO junction box, which has connections for the front of the amp, fx loop send and return. That's where I plug in my 3 channel loom. I don't switch channels on my Marshalls so a 3-channel loom is good enough for me.




The board end of the loom is always plugged in. I also attach a few inches of the loom to the bottom of the pedalboard, to avoid stress on the loom plugs. Basically the wires around loom plugs never move. Also it makes setup easier since I only have to connect the amp side.



The little LED strip at the bottom is also very important, it's a life saver when you need to troubleshoot your board on a dark stage.


Finally I use looms made by Pro Audio LA. The reason I like them is they use thin Mogami wires and 12AWG wrapping. So the whole thing coils up like a regular cable, which allows me to use the regular Classic Jr cases and keeps the board light and small. This is 20ft of loom coiled up and wrapped on top of the board! Pretty much the size of a single 20ft cable:



Board in its case and ready to go. I also have the Classic Jr soft case and backpack case, which I use when I am going to practice or playing locally and don't feel like carrying the hard case:






So yeah, the board doesn't look too impressive and it's pretty beat up now, since I've use the same board since 2013, just changed pedals here and there, so the board has a lot of road wear. But everything works and sounds great.

It still breaks my brain a bit to see you going with this type of setup but damn you did it in the most Shea way possible. Zero poverty and super fucking dope

Telemón evolution stage:

Midlife

“Engage”

GuitarBilly wrote:I will join, although my pedalboard is far less impressive


I've been using only 3 pedals, wah, boost and my DD-500. So my board is a Pedaltrain Classic Jr, with room to spare.




The pedals are connected to an ISO junction box, which has connections for the front of the amp, fx loop send and return. That's where I plug in my 3 channel loom. I don't switch channels on my Marshalls so a 3-channel loom is good enough for me.




The board end of the loom is always plugged in. I also attach a few inches of the loom to the bottom of the pedalboard, to avoid stress on the loom plugs. Basically the wires around loom plugs never move. Also it makes setup easier since I only have to connect the amp side.



The little LED strip at the bottom is also very important, it's a life saver when you need to troubleshoot your board on a dark stage.


Finally I use looms made by Pro Audio LA. The reason I like them is they use thin Mogami wires and 12AWG wrapping. So the whole thing coils up like a regular cable, which allows me to use the regular Classic Jr cases and keeps the board light and small. This is 20ft of loom coiled up and wrapped on top of the board! Pretty much the size of a single 20ft cable:



Board in its case and ready to go. I also have the Classic Jr soft case and backpack case, which I use when I am going to practice or playing locally and don't feel like carrying the hard case:






So yeah, the board doesn't look too impressive and it's pretty beat up now, since I've use the same board since 2013, just changed pedals here and there, so the board has a lot of road wear. But everything works and sounds great.

So explain the ISO junction box to me. How different it is from the inputs I’m using? I’m guessing my inputs are not considered isolated. I don’t know shit about electrical engineering.

Honestly that board is clean af. Way less shit to fail. I do like that you got that gucci Eventide Cioks you boujee bastard.

Also Billy is that one of the DSL with DSP reverb and if so do you use and like it?

Dave wrote::fap:

It still breaks my brain a bit to see you going with this type of setup but damn you did it in the most Shea way possible. Zero poverty and super fucking dope

Post your board and loom ya jabroni!

TurboPablo wrote:I have been out of the business for years. But, if I am not mistaken, what Cole made for you in that plug adapter is usually refrred to as a "drain". It's a electrical dead end where noise/stray voltage goes to die.

As for the cable snake, that is high on my list. My cabling is a fucking mess. I need to suck it up and buy a snake once and for all.

That aside, your board looks tight. Nice work!

Interesting, I was unsure if the cable was just considered a “ground lift?!” But as mentioned I don’t know shit about fuck.

Are you using FX loop on your current rig? IIRC you have a JCM 800 right? Lots of companies out there will make looms for you. I forget the company Dave used but I think his was actually $100 cheaper than Rattlesnake. Rattlesnake got them aesthetics though.

Epic



what is a loom

Here's my "board" with my 4cm loom:

Telephant wrote:
So explain the ISO junction box to me. How different it is from the inputs I’m using? I’m guessing my inputs are not considered isolated. I don’t know shit about electrical engineering.

Honestly that board is clean af. Way less shit to fail. I do like that you got that gucci Eventide Cioks you boujee bastard.

It's pretty much the same thing. I believe the isolation is just some rubbers around the jacks to ensure that the metal casing does not conduct the ground from one pair of jacks to the next.


And yeah, I've been using less effects these days. I don't like dry guitar sounds, so I need a delay in there. The DD-500 also has a modulation section for some basic chorus sounds. That is good enough for live. I've noticed that, with effects, a lot of the subtleties get lost in a live mix anyway. So I'm keeping it simple these days.

Telephant wrote:Also Billy is that one of the DSL with DSP reverb and if so do you use and like it?

Yes, this one has the DSP reverb. I didn't like it originally because it's a subtle reverb, even when maxed out. Coming from the spring reverb of the JCM2000, it was underwhelming. But after playing this amp for a while, I actually grew to like it. It's a clear sounding reverb that doesn't get in the way of your playing. I think Marshall made the right choice.

That said, I don't use it much. I use delay and I was never able to make reverb and delay sound good together in a live setting. Weirdly enough, delay alone sound wetter than delay + verb when you listen through a FOH system. The reverb tends to wash out the delay repeats and then the reverb itself gets lost in the room natural ambience. So I decided to use delay only on my live tones.

But whenever I don't feel like plugging in my board at home and just go straight into the amp, I use the reverb to add some ambience to the tone, so it's good to have.

spawnofthesith wrote:Epic



what is a loom

It's a multi-channel snake, basically.

GuitarBilly wrote:

spawnofthesith wrote:Epic



what is a loom

It's a multi-channel snake, basically.

Bunch of cables going to and from your board to amp in a sheath, essentially. All your cables in a flexible conduit.

Dave wrote:Here's my "board" with my 4cm loom:

Simple. Effective. Gay.

RyanDistortion wrote:

GuitarBilly wrote:

spawnofthesith wrote:Epic



what is a loom

It's a multi-channel snake, basically.

Bunch of cables going to and from your board to amp in a sheath, essentially. All your cables in a flexible conduit.

Ya to put in retarded Shea terms it's just multiple cables with a wrap around them. I found pretty quickly after gigging my new rig that trying to wrap up 500 cables after the set was far too time consuming. This helps setup/tear down go a lot faster.

GuitarBilly wrote:

Telephant wrote:
So explain the ISO junction box to me. How different it is from the inputs I’m using? I’m guessing my inputs are not considered isolated. I don’t know shit about electrical engineering.

Honestly that board is clean af. Way less shit to fail. I do like that you got that gucci Eventide Cioks you boujee bastard.

It's pretty much the same thing. I believe the isolation is just some rubbers around the jacks to ensure that the metal casing does not conduct the ground from one pair of jacks to the next.


And yeah, I've been using less effects these days. I don't like dry guitar sounds, so I need a delay in there. The DD-500 also has a modulation section for some basic chorus sounds. That is good enough for live. I've noticed that, with effects, a lot of the subtleties get lost in a live mix anyway. So I'm keeping it simple these days.

Telephant wrote:Also Billy is that one of the DSL with DSP reverb and if so do you use and like it?

Yes, this one has the DSP reverb. I didn't like it originally because it's a subtle reverb, even when maxed out. Coming from the spring reverb of the JCM2000, it was underwhelming. But after playing this amp for a while, I actually grew to like it. It's a clear sounding reverb that doesn't get in the way of your playing. I think Marshall made the right choice.

That said, I don't use it much. I use delay and I was never able to make reverb and delay sound good together in a live setting. Weirdly enough, delay alone sound wetter than delay + verb when you listen through a FOH system. The reverb tends to wash out the delay repeats and then the reverb itself gets lost in the room natural ambience. So I decided to use delay only on my live tones.

But whenever I don't feel like plugging in my board at home and just go straight into the amp, I use the reverb to add some ambience to the tone, so it's good to have.

Ok figured the the Junction box was probs pretty similar to what I'm using but wanted to ask.

Do you use the chorus on the DD-500 for just cleans? As for Delay + Reverb, I have been going back and forth. I only use a subtle amount of plate style verb with super low pre-delay and decay. Just enough to add some ambience and width. But I'm thinking I may turn the verb off tonight at my gig. I asked about the DSP verb cause I remember really liking the DSP berd on the Fuchs ODS I owned for a minute and have yet to play one of the new style DSL's.

Dave wrote:Here's my "board" with my 4cm loom:

What do you use the volume/expression pedal for?

There's a lot of cool gear here . I'm sure I posted some of these before, but I'll play.

The first picture is the overall view. The board was custom built by Nice Rack Canada (a great company to work with) and includes two custom pedal snakes that have cables for amp in, amp send/return, amp control (channel switching), guitar in and power (one is 25' for stage, the other 8' for Madison Spare Bedroom). This board is used with a Friedman BE-50 Deluxe that sits on an Avatar 2x12 with Celestion 25w Greenbacks. You can also see the custom flite case(s). There are two, both with wheels and they were built to stack for ease of storage in MSB. The second case is for the FC-12 board that goes with my Axe-FX III digital rack. I'll add pictures of it in a separate post. The second picture shows the board in the custom case. The third shows the storage area for the pedal snakes underneath. I have an image file that shows the wiring diagram and the routing for the splitter box if anyone is interested...

IndyWS6 wrote:There's a lot of cool gear here . I'm sure I posted some of these before, but I'll play.

The first picture is the overall view. The board was custom built by Nice Rack Canada (a great company to work with) and includes two custom pedal snakes that have cables for amp in, amp send/return, amp control (channel switching), guitar in and power (one is 25' for stage, the other 8' for Madison Spare Bedroom). This board is used with a Friedman BE-50 Deluxe that sits on an Avatar 2x12 with Celestion 25w Greenbacks. You can also see the custom flite case(s). There are two, both with wheels and they were built to stack for ease of storage in MSB. The second case is for the FC-12 board that goes with my Axe-FX III digital rack. I'll add pictures of it in a separate post. The second picture shows the board in the custom case. The third shows the storage area for the pedal snakes underneath. I have an image file that shows the wiring diagram and the routing for the splitter box if anyone is interested...

Bruh this is an extremely clean setup! One expression for FX the other for volume0 ?

And damn the bottom compartment of the case for the loom is fucking genius. Way better setup that the PT case.

I'm guessing the fx in the FX-8 are pretty stellar? I've never actually seen one of those in person.

Telephant wrote:What do you use the volume/expression pedal for?

Mainly as a volume pedal to cut signal when switching guitars, but can also be a wah controller or expression pedal for various functions.

Honestly I just had it sitting on a shelf and it fit on the pedaltrain so I threw it on. I really don't need it or the pedalboard itself since i'm just using the HX with the Mesa .50 cal.

Telephant wrote:
Do you use the chorus on the DD-500 for just cleans? As for Delay + Reverb, I have been going back and forth. I only use a subtle amount of plate style verb with super low pre-delay and decay. Just enough to add some ambience and width. But I'm thinking I may turn the verb off tonight at my gig. I asked about the DSP verb cause I remember really liking the DSP berd on the Fuchs ODS I owned for a minute and have yet to play one of the new style DSL's.

Not only for cleans, I use it for rhythm and leads as well. I'll make a quick clip of it.

Yeah, I noticed this thing about Reverb when we started to video our gigs. Watching the videos later, the parts where I had the reverb on actually sound drier than the parts with delay alone. Then I noticed guys like Lynch and Vai do the same thing with delays only so I stopped using it.

Telephant wrote:
And damn the bottom compartment of the case for the loom is fucking genius. Way better setup that the PT case.

I'm guessing the fx in the FX-8 are pretty stellar? I've never actually seen one of those in person.

I had the FX8 for a while. It sounded amazing but it was a bit overkill for my needs. But oddly enough, just last night I was thinking I should buy another one eventually. They're getting cheaper these days.