It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Subscribe to our Patreon, and get image uploads with no ads on the site!
Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
Comments
My head said brake, but my heart cried never.
The Boss board is finally complete!
The board is 4 cabled into my DSL via the GT-1000 which it also controls via MIDI meaning I can also replace the preamp with a model from the GT-1000.
The SD-1W, DC-2W, CE-2W and DM-2W are all my respective favorite pedals of their type. The BD-2W is good, but is really there to make up the numbers and would be replaced with an FZ-2 if they weren't so stupidly expensive at the moment.
You could argue having a CE-2W and a DC-2W is crazy overkill, but they are both amazing and quite different from each other. (The DC-2W is thicker and more phasey)
The modulations and delays are in loop 2 of the GT so they can be switched in and out.
The GT-1000 is used for Reverb, Noise Gate, Compressor, Wah, Overtone, DS-1X and fun stuff like Terra Echo.
My head said brake, but my heart cried never.
Damn, mate. That is a fabulous board. Either straight into the PA or into an amp, front E d or in 4CM, that covers everything.
Thanks, I'm really pleased with it.
Yeah that was the plan. I wanted something that could easily do a non MV amp, a 4CM switching amp, or into the PA (Theoretically it could do both at the same time with the "sub out" on the GT-1000)
OK – I’m not a woodworker and had never done anything like this before but it was very easy. First step was to bring up a side view of the Schmidt Array 350 from their website and enlarge it to real size on my computer screen. Then taped tracing paper to the screen and drew a pencil copy template of the side panel. Took the tracing paper and transferred the shape using my wife’s dressmaking magic stuff onto the kitchen cutting board. Did this on the cutting board twice to get two sides. Then cut out the two sides from the cutting board. The cutting board already had curving side edges so it was easy to get the curve without having to carve it by carefully positioning the template to use the curves. Cutting boards are great because they are immensely strong but thin so the profile is always good and not too chunky like wood would be. Black ones are even better as no painting needed. Then drilled the holes in the side for the Neutrik barrel jack connectors. I already had these as I used them on a previous board but they are fairly cheap. They were perfect because they need no soldering, are made of metal and are very strong and formed the support for the top tier Nano. They also have little click things which stop the jacks coming out unless you press a small button so they are gig fail-proof. There is also a cut out for the IEC power connector and a similar cut out for a USB connector on the other side so that I can edit the HX Stomp without having to take it out.
Next step was to take the other cutting board to use as the base and cut it to length. Then you need a strong framework to turn it and the sides into a box. There are various cheap ways to do this with connector blocks but I hit on the idea of taking another Nano which I happened to have and sort of cutting it in half lengthways (without keeping the middle section) and putting one bit at the front and the other at the back. This gave me the exact size for the whole thing to accept the top tier Nano and also gave me a perfect rectangle to drill and screw the sides into. The screws are self tapping for metal and hold the thing together really solid. The Schmidt Array design is really clever as they use the cut of the sides to form feet which means that the base needs to be raised a bit by about an inch at the back and quarter inch at the front – no big deal.
The offcuts from the cutting boards gave me the front panel and the 2nd tier base. I then drilled a hole in either side of the top tier Nano and slid a thin threaded steel rod through. I had this from my kid’s old trampoline for some reason but you can get it from B&Q for about £4. You can see from the pic where this goes through the top middle of the sides and that allows the top tier Nano to be swiveled up to give access to the inside once it’s all finished.
Then I went a bit overboard with the cowboy tolex which was very easy. Just spray the cutting boards with carpet contact adhesive and cut and fold the tolex. Took a wee bit of practice but there was nothing to it. The Volante’s dinner jacket uses double sided tape which comes off easily so it doesn’t wreck it.
The whole thing is powered by a Cioks DC7 which sits under the ES 5. The idea was to have a board that could be entirely analogue which is the middle tier and digital stuff like the HX Stomp can be punched in if wanted and moved about in the chain to where it’s needed by the ES 5. The Volante allows loads of tweaking on the fly if wanted. The ES 5 allows the middle tier drives to be unbuffered and buffering to be added for the digital stuff. The tuner is completely out of the chain. Everything works using the ES 5’s midi.
That’s basically it – because it was lockdown I had plenty of time to work it out but it was dead easy. Hats off to the Schmidt Array people. There’s a lot of thought gone into their design and their stuff is head and shoulders above anything else out there but I think mine’s relic look maybe has a bit more attitude.
My head said brake, but my heart cried never.
https://flic.kr/p/2mxK9bt
*An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.
I assume you need the volume knob somewhere between zero and full up?
Since I can't turn it off to set it at unity like I did with the EP-Pre (although I tried to alternate between the two to try and get them as close as I could) I just sent an email to Peter Clinch to see how different it is from the pedal in terms of the volume knob.
I actually just came from rehearsal and something wasn't working right. I checked and I had the Broadcast and the Pico running at 9V and the Supatrem at 18V!
Put the Supatrem back at 9V, Pico at 12V and Broadcast at 18V and everything sounded perfect. I think my guitar was a bit louder than what it used to so, maybe the volume on the Pico-Pre is set a bit over unity.