Verne Bunsen
Hero Member
- Messages
- 2,472
First and foremost I'd like to apologize for the title of this thread. It's really awful, I knew it and I did it anyway. Inexcusable, really.
Moving on... I've been entertaining the idea of building a new pedal board from the ground up to host my Helix and a few outboard devices, but it occurred to me that I can hardly get through my project list as it is. I switched gears, took some measurements and concluded that the Pedal Train Terra was the one for me at 42" x 14-1/2". This was the original mockup, verifying it had the real estate to do what I wanted (The wah wouldn't stay put because I had removed its rubber feet..). A promising start!
The Helix has a few rubber feet on the bottom that would interfere with securing it to the board:
I didn't particularly want to start taking the Helix apart, you never know when a screw is doing something structural on the inside, so instead I drilled holes in the surface of the board for the rubber feet to recess into, allowing Helix's chassis to sit directly on the board.
It was tricky getting the holes located and a couple had to be worked over a bit, but it's all hidden and it worked as intended. Helix nestled right in, with plenty of room for cable clearances behind.
For juice, I turned to my old VooDoo Labs PedalPower 2+. In addition to powering the outboard pedals, it will also power Helix through the courtesy outlet. Which means only one power cord for the board. Pedal Train sells a very slick bracket for mounting these power supplies to the board, worked a treat.
Instead of the velcro supplied by Pedal Train, I followed a friends advice and used 3M Dual Lock "re-closable fastener" (fancy term for super velcro...). It ain't cheap, but man it's good stuff. Very distinct positive engagement when you attach them and they will not let go. I used 2" on the board and 1" on the pedals. The white in this picture is the backing of the 1", which will be removed just prior to mushing the Helix onto it.
A few changes to the layout, but it's all good.
Wiring this board was a beast. I got most of it hooked up with standard issue patch cables of varying lengths, but I had to round up a Geroge L's kit to make some of the real long runs. There are still a couple of places where I'd like a longer cable to allow for cleaner wiring, but it's hard to justify another kit just to make it prettier. I did let my inner OCD out and got zip tie anchors to allow for routing things as cleanly as possible. Turned out pretty alright I do believe.
One of the biggest challenges was getting all of the plugs to physically fit in all of the jacks on the back of Helix, close quarters!
Ultimately everything came together just as planned, no big issues to troubleshoot, no unexpected hurdles. At least not any big ones. Signal path is Guitar -> wah (Fulltone Clyde) -> Helix -> FX Loop 1 (DigiTech FreqOut) / FX Loop 2 (Earthquaker Devices Bit Commander) / FX Loop 3 (Devi Ever Shoe Gazer with Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor) / FX Loop 4 (ZVex Fuzz Factory) -> XLR out to Atomic CLR. The two treadle pedals next to Helix are external expression pedals. Whew! I'm already kind of dreading the inevitable day when I'll want to change something, haha!
Moving on... I've been entertaining the idea of building a new pedal board from the ground up to host my Helix and a few outboard devices, but it occurred to me that I can hardly get through my project list as it is. I switched gears, took some measurements and concluded that the Pedal Train Terra was the one for me at 42" x 14-1/2". This was the original mockup, verifying it had the real estate to do what I wanted (The wah wouldn't stay put because I had removed its rubber feet..). A promising start!
The Helix has a few rubber feet on the bottom that would interfere with securing it to the board:
I didn't particularly want to start taking the Helix apart, you never know when a screw is doing something structural on the inside, so instead I drilled holes in the surface of the board for the rubber feet to recess into, allowing Helix's chassis to sit directly on the board.
It was tricky getting the holes located and a couple had to be worked over a bit, but it's all hidden and it worked as intended. Helix nestled right in, with plenty of room for cable clearances behind.
For juice, I turned to my old VooDoo Labs PedalPower 2+. In addition to powering the outboard pedals, it will also power Helix through the courtesy outlet. Which means only one power cord for the board. Pedal Train sells a very slick bracket for mounting these power supplies to the board, worked a treat.
Instead of the velcro supplied by Pedal Train, I followed a friends advice and used 3M Dual Lock "re-closable fastener" (fancy term for super velcro...). It ain't cheap, but man it's good stuff. Very distinct positive engagement when you attach them and they will not let go. I used 2" on the board and 1" on the pedals. The white in this picture is the backing of the 1", which will be removed just prior to mushing the Helix onto it.
A few changes to the layout, but it's all good.
Wiring this board was a beast. I got most of it hooked up with standard issue patch cables of varying lengths, but I had to round up a Geroge L's kit to make some of the real long runs. There are still a couple of places where I'd like a longer cable to allow for cleaner wiring, but it's hard to justify another kit just to make it prettier. I did let my inner OCD out and got zip tie anchors to allow for routing things as cleanly as possible. Turned out pretty alright I do believe.
One of the biggest challenges was getting all of the plugs to physically fit in all of the jacks on the back of Helix, close quarters!
Ultimately everything came together just as planned, no big issues to troubleshoot, no unexpected hurdles. At least not any big ones. Signal path is Guitar -> wah (Fulltone Clyde) -> Helix -> FX Loop 1 (DigiTech FreqOut) / FX Loop 2 (Earthquaker Devices Bit Commander) / FX Loop 3 (Devi Ever Shoe Gazer with Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor) / FX Loop 4 (ZVex Fuzz Factory) -> XLR out to Atomic CLR. The two treadle pedals next to Helix are external expression pedals. Whew! I'm already kind of dreading the inevitable day when I'll want to change something, haha!
ccasion14:
