Do you know what type of board you are going to use? Are you building it or buying one?
I'm buying one - Looking at Pistola and Blackbird boards. Fairly simple set up - power, amp and guitar inputs.Do you know what type of board you are going to use? Are you building it or buying one?
May i suggest a good Canadian company who does awesome work?! I got a pre-made board from these guys and they modified it to accommodate what i wanted to add free of charge! You can get a lot of different custom options like IEC power connections, mono orstereo ins/outs, slots or holes for cabling, and if something you want isn't listed just contact them and i know they would do it for you! Larry is a great guy to deal with! Really reasonable prices too!I'm buying one - Looking at Pistola and Blackbird boards. Fairly simple set up - power, amp and guitar inputs.
Thx - keep in mind that the tuner will be controlled by the 1st loop of the quartermaster. The loop provides for silent tuning (thegigrig provides the appropriate plug).I always want to have my TC Polytune on the first row.
It's a quick and easy access to a "mute" as well as tuning between songs if necessary.
I suggest you take your piece of cardboard and try placing the pedals something like this and see if you like it.
You might even be able to cut down on the size of your board.
Unless you're using a store-bought board of a predetermined size, that is.
Remember, you only need 0.5" to 0.75" of clearance between pedals that touch each other.
None, if there are no jacks.
The room you are leaving is overkill and unnecessary.
I'd prolly be able to fit two more pedals on that cardboard.
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Some people do that and I like to isolate each pedal for the sake of tone. The quartermaster unit has a flip/flop function that is fairly useful as well. I may experiment but my experience with isolated loops has been great. The Diamond is closer to me for the tap tempo as opposed to the LA Sound boost which will at most times, be simply on.People don't actually do that, do they?
Use one loop to turn on/off one pedal?
Surely I must be misunderstanding you about that, Granny.
I use the loop to isolate each pedal - there are various opinions on this and it boils down to ymmv. I appreciate the comments and may experiment.The thing about FX loop/pedalboard patchbays like this is that the whole point is that you can set up sub loops of 2 or more pedals that you can kick in with a single footswitch vs fumbling around trying to hit 2 pedals at once. If you're not doing that you're just adding noise (sure there's the convenience of having all the switches right there and easy to reach, but that can be accomplished by having a single row pedalboard as well; no need for extra cable and jacks). Think about how you can leverage the quartermaster better; are there pedals that you often use in combination (e.g. the boost + one of the overdrives or the subnup + the other OD or the mobius + delay) and group them that way if that is indeed the case.
You can totally squish it all in more and use a smaller board (even with the cable management) but it is a good idea to leave some room for expansion (you look good in that regard).
I used to own a MIDI Pro 8 which did exactly as you described. I gravitated 95% of the time towards 4-5 sounds and decided to get a QMX and simply isolate each pedal (like the Midi Pro) but add a bit of tap dancing. The flip/flop option will help quite a bit (see link).I found a number of demos for switchers but none so far that seem to explain WHY to use a switcher.
I guess it all boils down to how many different sounds you want to achieve for getting "your" sound.
Theoretically, the way you have it set up you could get 256 different sounds but that would mean a shit-load of dancing to get them all.
With your switcher/looper you could have 8 preset sounds and each one could consist of one or more pedals simultaneously.
You could even run more than 8 pedals if there was a combination of 2 or 3 pedals that you always use together.
Just connect them in series and assign that series to one input on your switcher.
I don't know anything about your unit but a good one will provide isolation in each loop so the noise thing would be no different than how you plan to use it.
Only the pedals you want to use would be engaged in any given loop and the others would be isolated from the signal path.
The way most guys use a looper is to assign however many pedals they want to use to achieve a particular sound, all to one loop.
Then they will make other sounds and assign the appropriate pedals to other loops.
It means that if your main rhythm tone consists of say, a compressor, OD, chorus and a little bit of delay, you can switch all of those in/out with one toe-tap.
If you want an alternate rhythm tone that has no time based f/x, you just create another loop without them.
You can combine any set of pedals you like and assign them to a loop and access that combination with one toe-tap.
The idea is to prevent the tap-dance that you have to do when you switch from a main tone using 2 or more pedals to a lead tone that uses 3 other/different pedals.
In that situation it would be 5 toe-taps per change, so 5 to switch to lead and another 5 to switch back.
Imagine doing all of that with 3 lead breaks in a single song.
The looper just makes the changes so much simpler and faster.
So you can concentrate on playing rather than having the distraction of having to keep a continuously changing running inventory in your head of what you have engaged and what you don't.
With your looper it looks like you have 8 loops.
That should be adequate for most situations.
Here's an example:
You could have two clean tones, one dry and one wet.
Then you could have two slightly overdriven tones, one dry and one wet.
Then you could add two medium gain tones with two options.
Finally you could have two high gain tones with two options.
That could be your 8 sounds.
Or you could make any 8 tones you want and they'd all be accessible with a single toe-tap.
Again, the question is ... how many tones do you really need?
Isn't 8 enough?
I use the loop to isolate each pedal - there are various opinions on this and it boils down to ymmv. I appreciate the comments and may experiment.
not at all, it's a guitar forum and suppose to derail! I am going to try what you are suggesting - I was super happy with my tone and noise levels when i had the MIDI Pro 8 which isolated each pedal - that unit did something to my sound compared to daisy chaining each one. I am intending to use one pedal for one loop (send/in return/out for each pedal). I've asked the guys at thegigrig their experiences with users (i suspect it will be "it depends").OK, so you're not actually assigning one pedal to one loop.
That confusion was due to a slight misunderstanding on your part.
You are assigning one pedal to one input on the looper and that's fair enough.
The inputs are not the loops, though.
They are just the inputs.
The loops are the "programs" if you will.
You do have the ability to create loops but you're choosing to use the unit only for switching individual pedals off/on.
I have no idea why anyone would choose to do that but it's not the point.
That's your business so I'll leave you to it.
Looking back, your original post only asked for opinions on layout.
I did address that.
I apologise for subsequently derailing your thread with all this other stuff.
My bad.