My new PBC/10 pedalboard, the old FAMC one it replaced, and the mini LT board...

Piplodocus

Piplodocus

Well-Known Member
Thought I'd post my pedalboard journey over the last decade or so...

So, I recently broke this baby up, cuz it was just too impratical. It went through many revisions and this was it's final state. Absolutely rammed from bottom to top with stuff. 2 FAMC LF Jr+'s. MIDI controlled Voodoo Labs PX-8 (so can instant access anything, but MIDI switches everything next patch), MIDI clock across lots from the DAD Smartclock. Modded the Subdecay pedals with a little opto-isolator to external tap jack so it also taps them so they sync to everything. RJM mini effects gizmo on the right under the Fuzz Probe and MIDIBox, so 13 loops + MIDI switched pedals.
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FAMC have disappeared off the face of the earth though, so no updates anymore and the editor doesn't work with Apple Silicon Macs. Tap never worked properly for me and neither did MIDI clock. Hence smartclock. But it was still amazing, but just far too heavy. Was just too big and weighed a ton.

The Delay/Reverb and Mini Amp Gizmo live in the rack. They didn't fit on that board above anymore, can be completely MIDI controlled, and are in the amp's loop, so why run extra long cables back to the board and back? So that's here:
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So the cable loom runs from this to the pedalboard and will switch either of the Diezels via MIDI, but RJM MAG switches all the Bogner XTC channels and stuff when using that.

Then when I joined a new band a few years back I downsized that heavy board as that band is far less prog. Was stupid carrying it around to hardly use anything off it. So made a little board with LT on and small VL switcher. That was planned a lot more of a short term affair, but actually used it for years. I recently shrunk it a tiny bit more so it fits in the little case (hence wrong pedal switch labels still!). So that looks like this:
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LT remote out taps tempo to the modded Quasar DLX, VL Pedal is MIDI controlled again like the big board above. LT also sends MIDI clock to the Timeline in the rack. So with that rack/loom I can use any of my amps, and switch between a little or big board. So all the best ideas of the big board too, but condensed into a mini size.

But recently decided to do more prog stuff again. Thought I'd design a new medium size board to get custom built (although I do all the cabling/programming myself - they can just build me the custom box). But got a little carried away and it got big (by normal standards). Still a lot lighter than even the empty case of the old huge one though. But this baby is great. Does nearly everything of the old board, but far more portable. It makes a huge difference. So that, which again just plug into the same rack, looks like this:
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Already gigged it friday (although some of the wiring is still a little untidy). It's great. Also has 2 amp outs, and obvs the PBC will flip phase on a preset-by-preset basis, so I can use 2 multi-channel amp heads and them always be in phase (as well as iso for the second amp).

So that's where I am at the beginning of 2024! Always got the rack with me so have delay and reverb and tidy power and loom to the pedalboard, can use any of my amp heads, 2 if I want, and can take either the lightweight board for straight up rock or simple stuff, or take the "Board of Fun", for all the swirly, spacey, filtered, synthy, wobbly, arpeggiated, or fuzzy sounds too.
 
Things I did/learned with the PBC you might find helpful:

Where I was previously used to most or all of my pedals having instant access (because they were in a midi controlled loop switcher with dedicated buttons) on the old board, I initially found it a bit fiddly getting into and out of the loops page on the top left and was getting a little frustrated based on how often I wanted to jump in there. So I had a eureka moment and just put the loops page bottom right. Totally transformed that mild annoyance to being absolutely fine for me. So I learned I personally need loops next to my right foot and on the bottom row, not top row with my left foot. Don't be afraid to move buttons to suit your workflow people! That's why these things are great!

I have 4 or 5 presets per song. First 3 are always clean/crunch/heavy, as then I always have familiar ground. Some are slight variations to be more song specific, but are generally all generic enough to work with most stuff. I don't normally need more than 2 extra song specific presets, but can break the first 3 button rule on an odd song without any harm. Also I have resend preset on 2nd press. Then I can stuff all sorts of fun and nonsense on, assign expression and generally go mad, but hit the button again and it's back to save sound, without having to change everything back button by button.

Use MIDI clock. It's daft to have a delay preset that's only one tempo and why tap a CC tap to one pedal when you can sync a number of them and they'll stay more in sync.

Top left of main presets page is delay on off. Programmed on/off per preset, but means I can always add/remove delay to any of the presets in that song if I'm just jamming something.

Top right of the PBC is song up/down. No hold function as I may want to hold to scroll fast.

Top 2 centre are default to a whammy expression assign, and a tremolo on off usually, but use preset-specific local pages to change these based on preset if I want a different button or 2 for that preset.

External buttons are tap bottom right. Songs all have preset tempos, but if the drummer gets carried away and we're faster than usual, you can tap the song tempo up or down! Or just set the tempo of a jam.

Top right external is the IAs page for the Strymons in the rack or grouped buttons that assign the expression pedal to different things. But I can also get to it via long pressing the loops button (holding that stores preset on any of the other pages though), or the top left delay if I prefer. If I'm on that page it's back to loops (rather than the bottom right return to presets page/store).

Hold 1 = tuner

Hold 2 = amp channel page. Has a grouped set of buttons to chose the amp channel and of solo boost is on for the Diezels via MIDI, or the Bogner via the Mini Amp Gizmo. Far easier to use a preset page for amp channel, since I only need 4 channels + same with solo boost for the Diezel Hagen (and 4th channel just repeats 3rd channel of the Bogner or Diezel Herbert). Then I can easily change amp channel if I want to easily re-program a preset on the fly without the editor (and simplifies the editor too generally).

Hold 3 = the outs, phase flip, buffers and setlist (although I normally just change that from the menus by holding 1+3). Moved from stock position cuz I may have an IA button on the top row for some patches which is momentary and I want to hold.

Any of the pedals on the loops page that have MIDI control have their own page too - hold that effect and goes to the page for it (in the case of the SuperEgo button it takes me to the 8-step page since that's what is controlling some of it). Some have more useful buttons than others based on MIDI implementation. But the Empress tremolo 2 and Enzo don't have many presets, and I don't use many, so the pages for them have a few presets I can choose from and easily save to that preset, and expression assign (tremolo 2 expression does depth, or toggles it to speed and turns it off syncing to MIDI clock (unassign exression to tempo and it swiches follow MIDI clock back on).

I also learned make sure your page buttons are set to momentary. Had a weird thing otherwise where every few presses it would say the page on the display but not go to it.

Generally I ended up where purple = preset. Green things are on. White is an expression assign. Cyan is an IA on/off button. Yellow are song up down or buffers/outs. Red are page (and usually store if held)

So most of the time live its just running everything and switching it all via presets, but all set up so it's most easy to access, control or change anything if jamming or writing.

Hope that's interesting or gives you some food for thought. :)
 
Oh, and I never seem to get any sense out of my Chase Bliss Brothers or Bliss Factory saving to presets 1 or 2. Maybe cuz these are also the switch presets? Dunno, maybe I should ask CB? But I just run all the patchs for both of them where preset 1 = PC 101, preset 2 = PC 102, then preset 3 = PC 3, 4 = 4, etc, and number normally all the rest of the way up. Then it all just works fine and I can happily store the on/off state + settings on that to a unique PC per preset.
 
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