# Finished my new pedal board - first change up in 7 years!



## Jimi D (Oct 27, 2008)

I've been alternating running two boards (a "large board" pedaltrain jr and a "small board" mini, each with an M9 on it and a breakout volume pedal and sometimes a wah) alongside my Mark V footpedal for the past seven or more years (I had built these boards when I was still using my TSL60). These were great setups but they did take up quite a lot of real estate, and with my band situations morphing over the past 12 months or so, I felt like it was time for a refresh. I wanted to reduce my footprint somewhat by getting rid of the volume pedal and making it so I wouldn't have to bother with the amp's large 8-switch pedal if I didn't want to. I also wanted to simplify my setup by not having to wire up extra pedals (like the volume and wah). The challenge was that I really need a volume pedal, and I also wanted to add a convenient wah, neither of which is a traditionally small pedal... Anyway, after some thought and lucky pedal acquisition, including a couple I discovered on the For Sale ads here, this is what I came up with:












Signal chain: guitar -> Hotone Soul Press mini wah -> Turbo Tuner -> Xotic SP -> Archer -> OCD -> Secret Freq -> H2O -> T1M buffer -> Mark V input -> Amp Loop out -> EWS Scott Henderson Subtle Volume Control -> M5 -> Amp Loop In -> ears...


I've set it up so the pedals I reach for most frequently during a song (as opposed to between songs) are on the first row. The Mesa Amp two button foot switch can control full channel switching (1/2/3) or Channel/Solo (1/2, solo boost) on my Mark V, depending what band I'm playing with. All of it is wired to the amp using a Pedal Snake with three mono lines for the audio signal and a TRS to 2Xmono line for the footswitch. One power supply means one plug powers everything...












I picked up the PowerFactor for a good price used with the intention of mounting it under the Pedaltrain Jr. Unfortunately, no where on the Internet does anyone come out and tell you that you can't mount a PowerFactor I under a Pedaltrain Jr. without modding it (in fact, all the stuff I read prior to purchase kind of implied the opposite, and the seller wasn't going to disabuse me of my delusion)... so anyway, I had to mod the board slightly... I drilled four pilot holes to mount the power supply, which didn't quite clear the floor with the original feet, so bought a set of 7/8" rubber feet from Home Hardware which I cut down to about half their original height and glued to the existing Pedaltrain feet using Lepage's Super Glue for All Plastics. I used this method on my modded PT Mini board with the M9 on it, and it held up fine for many years, so I'm not worried about the feet coming off. Of course, there are much cleaner cable routing options available, but I always liked electrical tape for it's ease of use, flexibility and re-usability...


Anyway, everything seems to be working as expected... I'm going to give it a full test at rehearsal tonight... as an aside, this is the first board I've run in the past 23 years that doesn't have a Full-Drive 2 of some variety mounted on it, so it feels a little weird...


----------

