The "Show your HX Effects pedalboard" thread

[phil_m]

Because, why not?

 

Here's mine:

 

 

The underside:

 

 

It's a Pedaltrain Novo 24. I have all the pedals on the top going through the Loop Expander and that's in one of the HX Effect's FX Loops. Those pedals are in turn controlled by MIDI (the Meris pedals get MIDI through the little Meris MIDI I/O on the right). Everything is powered by two Strymon Ojais.

[TRENDKILLCFH333]

Pedalboard is a custom made Pedal Pad. Everything is powered by a Walrus Audio Phoenix power supply with the exception of the vocal processor.   ODs are going through the Mesa Live Wire, into the HX Effects.  EQ is through FX Loop 2 on the HX Effects as I wanted quick access to EQ changes.  HX Effects controls my Mesa or Marshall.  

[Lucky13j]

On 6/29/2018 at 4:17 PM, TRENDKILLCFH333 said:

Pedalboard is a custom made Pedal Pad. Everything is powered by a Walrus Audio Phoenix power supply with the exception of the vocal processor.   ODs are going through the Mesa Live Wire, into the HX Effects.  EQ is through FX Loop 2 on the HX Effects as I wanted quick access to EQ changes.  HX Effects controls my Mesa or Marshall.  

 

 

WOW!! That HX isn't going anywhere!!

[MarcG28]

[mgrainger]

On 6/29/2018 at 5:31 PM, phil_m said:

Because, why not?

 

Here's mine:

 

 

The underside:

 

 

It's a Pedaltrain Novo 24. I have all the pedals on the top going through the Loop Expander and that's in one of the HX Effect's FX Loops. Those pedals are in turn controlled by MIDI (the Meris pedals get MIDI through the little Meris MIDI I/O on the right). Everything is powered by two Strymon Ojais.

 

 

Phil, do you have any issues with syncing the Decibel 11 to the HX effects? Since I swapped out my CS12 power supply and started using the Voodoo Labs PP2+ to power the Decibel 11 and my pedals and the Line 6 power supply to power the HX effects I've noticed the HX Effects boots up before the decibel 11 and for whatever reason the looper doesn't take commands from the HX BUT... if I reboot the looper everything is fine.... I'm assuming that when I had everything hooked up to the CS12 the HX booted up first then the Loop since I never had that issue till I changed the power supply.

[caberto1981]

Well, my pedalboard is in process of construction, I decided to go smallest as possible, just hxfx, mission exp pedal and a midi switcher for my amp channels, rev, eq, master, etc. I'll update when is getting done. 

[mbtainton]

Not the greatest pic but it’ll do. :)

 

[jstudio123]

Here's mine..........

 

My brief was to get my pedal board as simple as possible. I have a bit of OCD when it comes to pedals effecting the amp sound.....If I could I would have one lead going direct into my orange Rockerverb III100, but I need a wah, flanger, and the ability to turn the attenuator on and off on the amp.....Hence the helix Hx. It was basically the first multi effects unit I've seen that may be able to do everything I need.........

 

I use it in stomp mode, with a flanger, boost, delay, and wah all available on tap, and with one button called 'solo' which I use when playing live to act as a switch for the attenuator on the orange to turn on or off (off for a solo, on for rhythm - basically gives a volume boost). So Im probably using 10% of the Helix features, but it does the job. My signal flow is now - Wireless receiver into Helix, into amp...Simple.

 

The onboard effects are good enough for me to put my previous pedals on ebay, but I'm yet to be convinced by the expression pedal doing the wah thing. I will be holding on to my Custom Audio wah until I've played live a few times, but I think I may have to put this back into the mix.

[phil_m]

On 7/4/2018 at 10:14 AM, mgrainger said:

 

 

Phil, do you have any issues with syncing the Decibel 11 to the HX effects? Since I swapped out my CS12 power supply and started using the Voodoo Labs PP2+ to power the Decibel 11 and my pedals and the Line 6 power supply to power the HX effects I've noticed the HX Effects boots up before the decibel 11 and for whatever reason the looper doesn't take commands from the HX BUT... if I reboot the looper everything is fine.... I'm assuming that when I had everything hooked up to the CS12 the HX booted up first then the Loop since I never had that issue till I changed the power supply.

 

I have noticed the Loop Expander seems to be finicky about starting up. I'm assuming it has a large current draw at start-up, and if it doesn't get enough power, it shuts down. I've been leaving my HX turned off when I plug my board in and the just hitting its power switch after everything else has turned on.

[DodgeGB]

When I first moved away from using/micing my amp, I still had my Elektron Analog Drive and also my H9 on the board. I soon realised that between the HX and AA6, I had everything I needed.

I use the HX as my master, using MIDI to change presets on the AA6. The EV5 controls a final volume block on the AA with the Mission attached to the HX. HX Presets are changed from an iPad which calls up the correct patch when I select the song; the HX is normally in snapshot mode.

The whole thing is cabled up 4CM meaning I can place HX effects before and after the Amp sections in the AA and still come out of the HX into the Cab section of the AA as the final output into the desk.

The best part is I think I've only really scratched the surface of what these 2 can do together.

David.

[henrivalence]

My humble board.

Petty John Chime Drive in S/R 1.

Boiling Point in S/R 2.

Dunlop Volume(X)Mini for all the footwork stuffs.

I am fan of keeping things compact and lightweight.

HXEFX is an excellent solution.

This board will keep me occupied for a long time...beside from swapping out drives from my collection.

 

Henri.

 

 

[k-grimm403]

I have rearranged mine and am still waiting on 2-3 pedals. But I built this board to fit into my pt-jr case

[MarcG28]

On 7/5/2018 at 4:30 PM, phil_m said:

 

I have noticed the Loop Expander seems to be finicky about starting up. I'm assuming it has a large current draw at start-up, and if it doesn't get enough power, it shuts down. I've been leaving my HX turned off when I plug my board in and the just hitting its power switch after everything else has turned on.

 

so.... got the new CS12 today, wired it up to power my entire board... and no issues, everything boots in the correct order... so that was a happy surprise! 

[caberto1981]

So, I finished my pedalboard, is really small and light, not less pretty though. 

[ccouch7]

On 9/8/2018 at 5:33 PM, caberto1981 said:

So, I finished my pedalboard, is really small and light, not less pretty though. 

Really like this, looks killer! Who made the board itself?

[Scorpio2112]

Just got the LT a few days ago and starting out slow. I want to learn every aspect of this beast.

[caberto1981]

8 hours ago, ccouch7 said:

Really like this, looks killer! Who made the board itself?

Thanks! A friend of mine made it, with a little help from myself, I used to have a bigger pedalboard with individual pedals and a controller and I was looking for something smaller and more versatile. I have now all the effects I need and more, plus controlling all the features of my amp, a mesa boogie mark V. 

[spikey]

 

It's not really a pedalboard per say, as mine is more a studio only setup. I'm controlling all pedals (besides the Riverside) via midi with Helix. Still a work in progress. I split the midi with a Midi Merger and that way I can send/receive midi info from Helix and from "Nixie" to control the patches in all 3 pedals from the Mac or from Helix.

[ccouch7]

Version 1 -

 

Under the board -

 

 

Version 2 -

:)

[caledoneus]

On 9/8/2018 at 5:33 PM, caberto1981 said:

So, I finished my pedalboard, is really small and light, not less pretty though. 

 

I like that.   

 

Any chance your buddy would want to put some schematics/ plans out there for us other DIYers to try our hand at it?

[DodgeGB]

I'm not as attentive to cabling as most :)

 

After many iterations, I'm pretty settled now...I certainly don't want to go through the pain of reprogramming again.

 

The 2 H9's run between the Stereo outs of the HX and the AA6 and the HX is the heart of the system.  

 

I use the AA purely as an Amp Sim and HX Blocks can run before the AA6 Amp or between the AA6 and the Cab (ie - what would be a 7CM with a "proper" amp)  - before it goes out to the 2 H9's.

 

The Roland controls final volume and the Mission is into the HX and con control HX and/or the H9's - I've got the odd preset where it controls all three at once :)

 

Having said it's settled, I have one fx loop spare in the HX and it's always just sitting there, winking at me...I've no idea what will go in there, but something will one day.

 

[phil_m]

I revised my HX Effects board once again over the weekend... I keep on getting rid of stuff, although I did make a few additions. I decided to take some of the things I had on my Stomp board and put them on this. I've found that I've been using my Stomp mainly as a standalone pedal when I use it, so this just makes more sense. I did have the Meris Enzo and Polymoon, the Chase Bliss Tonal Recall and Brother, and the Wampler Dual Fusion on here before. Those were all run through a Loop Expander and controlled by MIDI. I found, though, that the MIDI aspect just became too tedious for me to want to bother with it. Also, I found that I really like the dirt on the HX Effects just as much as the analog dirt. So what I decided to do was to use the DMC.micro as two additional stomp so I can control two dirt blocks in each HX Effects preset. That way I can focus my snapshots on everything else. This will be much nicer once 2.8 comes out with the whole snapshot ignore feature thing.

So here it is. This is the first time my board has been 100% digital, well, maybe ever.

 

[DodgeGB]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who gave up on the CB Brothers... :)

[phil_m]

2 hours ago, DodgeGB said:

I'm glad I'm not the only one who gave up on the CB Brothers... :)

 

Yeah... I liked the way the Brothers sounded, but ultimately, I didn't think it sounded much better, if at all, than the drives in the HX Effects. I thought it would be cool to control it via MIDI, and I did, but, man, having a bunch of MIDI pedals that are essentially black boxes as the presets go is hard. You'd almost need to set up and Excel spreadsheet to keep track of everything. That's something I have no interest in doing... The other thing that really annoys me about the CB pedals are the little dipswitches. I understand they wanted to have a bunch of parameters that could be edited, but they are a pain in the butt to actually move.

[chrismkane]

Spoiler

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[ajb1965]

That looks good.  What type of board is that?  I'm having a tough time finding on that's 'just right'.  24x14 is ideal, but the only one I can find in that size is the PT Novo 24.  I was hoping to find one with better cable management or an IO panel like the Rockboard or Friedman have.  The Rockboard 4.2 is a hair too small, and the 5.2 is way too big :(.  I can't find any specs on the shelf size on the Friedman, just the overall dimensions.

[chrismkane]

22 minutes ago, ajb1965 said:

That looks good.  What type of board is that?  I'm having a tough time finding on that's 'just right'.  24x14 is ideal, but the only one I can find in that size is the PT Novo 24.  I was hoping to find one with better cable management or an IO panel like the Rockboard or Friedman have.  The Rockboard 4.2 is a hair too small, and the 5.2 is way too big :(.  I can't find any specs on the shelf size on the Friedman, just the overall dimensions.

 

Hi, this is the middle sized Friedman board. It is very nice. Two levels and cable management is sweet. Also comes with the Wah ramp that you can move around if you desire. I bought four boards before this one was the perfect pedalboard for me.  The Waggi Pedalboard was odd...I sent it back...But I still have the Accel Pedalboard (Pictured) that is pretty cool.

[roscoe5]

This may be my future pedalboard :)  This Temple Pedalboard system looks great for Helix.  This guy's Temple Helix board is ome of the best I've seen for full size Helix floor.

 

 

 

https://youtu.be/9iDVPobGzEg

[ccouch7]

Version 3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[CoreyS]

My board in it's current (final?) state.  The compressor, Sub n Up, drives and volume all come first in the chain.   HX Effects handles all of the other effects and sends midi control to the AA.  The AA is the amp sim, plus a bit of "always on" plate or spring reverb.

 

The board itself is on the large size as it was constructed when I was using an M13.

[LullingSounds]

On 6/29/2018 at 11:31 PM, phil_m said:

Because, why not?

 

Here's mine:

 

 

The underside:

 

 

It's a Pedaltrain Novo 24. I have all the pedals on the top going through the Loop Expander and that's in one of the HX Effect's FX Loops. Those pedals are in turn controlled by MIDI (the Meris pedals get MIDI through the little Meris MIDI I/O on the right). Everything is powered by two Strymon Ojais.

 

Actually I have some issues in the MIDI Chain with the Chase Bliss MOOD. I use the HX as my MIDI controller. Works perfectly with the Volante and Big Sky.

But somehow I can’t save and recall any presets for the MOOD. Meris and CBA are pretty much the same regarding the MIDI setup.

So. How did you make the Meris pedals work in your MIDI chain?

 

Board:

 

 

Underside:

 

[ccouch7]

Version 4

 

 

 

 

 

[batchelor57]

I"m a bit late to the party but I've just completed this latest version on my board with HX Effects and DSM Humboldt Simplifier at its heart.

 

Signal path is:

Guitar>HX FX>Noise Gate>Deluxe Comp>HXFX Loop1 Send>1938 Home Run Comp>Greenchild K818(Klon & Screamer)>Keeley Phat Mod(BD-2)>Catalinbread DLS>TC Spark>Simplifier Input>Simplifier Effects Loop Send> HXFX Loop1 Return> HXFX Minotaur (Boost)>HXFX Chorus/Phaser/Univibe etc(Stereo)> HXFX Delays (Stereo)>HXFX Reverbs>HXFX Stereo Outputs>Simplifier Effects Loop Stereo Return>Simplifier Stereo Out to Amps/FRFR/DAW.

All powered by a Strymon Zuma with a Mooer Isolated Distributor....

 

Second stripped down rig is just the HXFX to a pair of Fender Princetons.

[CoreyS]

Recently updated - pedalboard 2.0

 

[BrokenDreamRocks]

[ian_90]

On the board

• Preamp: Two Notes Le Clean
• Power supply: Voodoo Lab Pedal Power Digital 
• Audio cables: Van Damme XKE 6mm unbalanced
• Audio jacks: KMMK SPS5 SquarePlug. Straight Mono Jack. 1/4", 6.35mm
• Audio jacks: KMMK SP550-S SquarePlug. Pancake Style Jack. TRS Right Angled 1/4" 6.35mm
• MIDI cable: One Control OC-MHC-30
• Power to helix: Voodoo Lab Current Doubler Adapter PPAP into Voodoo Lab 5.5mm/2.1mm centre negative DC cable trimmed to fit 5.5mm/2.5mm straight barrel push fit power cable plug (rated for 5A, 12V)
• Power to preamp: Voodoo Lab 2.1mm centre negative DC cable trimmed to fit 5.5mm/2.1mm straight barrel push fit power cable plug (rated for 5A, 12V)

Pedal board

• 18mm marine plywood
• Cable Tie mount 12.5x12.5
• 3M dual lock
• 20mm aluminium extrusion (1mm thick, 18mm inner). 18mm inner dimension is actually slightly tapered, so it was banged on with rubber mallet and is not going anywhere.
• StarTech.com 1-1/4in Dia. Self-Adhesive Rubber Feet for PC Cases

Case

• SKB iSeries 2015-10, 3i-2015-10BC

Notes on pedal board

• The power supply is rated for 1.6A, and currently draws all of it (1.1A from HX Effects and 0.5A from Le Preamp) so it runs very hot. To be replaced with CIOKS DC7 or Eventide Powermax eventually.

Notes on Two Notes Le Clean preamp

• The MIDI cable sends a program change from the HX Effects to the preamp to put it into "cold fusion" mode automatically when a preset is loaded. This command is sent as an instant command on each preset.
• The Le Clean has two channels and can combine them in series ("hot fusion") or run them in parallel ("cold fusion"). I originally believed that Le Preamp could produce 4 channels of increased gain staging - clean, crunch, "cold fusion" and "hot fusion". However this is not the case, since getting "cold fusion" to work with "hot fusion" is impossible - when the gain and fusion knobs are setup to allow a natural increase in gain from clean, crunch and hot fusion, these settings cause the cold fusion to become incredibly loud and unpleasant.
• I also found that the settings required for getting "cold fusion" or "hot fusion" to sound their best required pretty odd EQs, compromising the sound of the clean and crunch channels when used on their own.
• Therefore, the options I had were:
• clean and crunch; or
• cold fusion; or
• hot fusion.
• The HX Effects has so much gain staging options that it just wasn't necessary to bother with multiple channels anyway, so I use the Le Clean as a single channel preamp and base everything around the "cold fusion" mode which I think sounds the best. Cold fusion allows for a rich clean that is just on the edge of breaking up, and therefore takes pedals from the HX Effects very nicely. It requires a very non-intuitive EQ to sound its best though.

Notes on tone/presets

• The preamp is EQ'd to sound great clean without any drives. Rather than getting lost in all the IR options, I opted to audition the the Line 6 Allure pack, which all sound very different. I settled on the 90's Cali V30 (Mesa 4x12).
• I use 5 different presets, the only thing different between them is the distortion pedal. I auditioned lots of combos and eventually settled on the Timmy as the basis, using the Pete Cornish method of putting higher gain before it. The theory didn't always work though since some distortion pedals have very strong EQs:
  • Timmy -> Zendrive (both sound good but this order sounds less muffled)
  • Timmy -> King of Tone (lots of mids this way round but other way removes all the bass)
  • Carvin legacy -> Timmy
  • Tube screamer -> Timmy
  • OCD -> Timmy (lots of mids but other way is too mid cut)
• Screamer and KOT sound the best. KOT has very subtle gain build up which is great for clean playing (e.g. at church). Screamer just sounds very pleasantly balanced and not distracting - not too bright, muffled or boomy, and can get really heavy when the gain is turned up, which is what I use snapshot 2 for.
• Snapshot 2 contains different settings for the Timmy and distortion pedals. Generally I drop the level of the overdrive and distortion pedals and turn up the gain to compensate. This enables snapshot 2 to function like a gain boost. The Xotic EP boost on footswitch 6 provides a volume boost, and I can combine them both if required.

Notes on snapshot toggle

• By assigning a HX Snapshot command to my footswitch to change to snapshot 2,  I can push footswitch 3 when I'm snapshot 1 to move to snapshot 2, then press it again to go back to snapshot 1. This enables me to toggle the gain boost on/off using a footswitch just like the volume boost. HX snapshot command is a 2.90 feature, so isn't in the manual.
• Toggling between snapshot requires setting "Global settings>Preferences>Snapshot reselect" to "Toggle prev". This is a 2.80 features so not in the manual either.
• I also ensure that "Snapshot bypass" is "off" for all my blocks, which is configured under the "Action" menu. This ensures that toggling between snapshots doesn't mess with any block on/off settings. This is a 2.80 features so not in the manual either.

 

 

[ccouch7]

Version 5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[CraigGT]

I'm noticing quite a few Volantes on those boards, great aren't they?

 

Craig

[Blocka1]

Here’s mine just want to swap out the Ibanez for a nano Russian big muff and want to get a wiretap or the new ditto plus as a way to save ideas. I’m playing mostly in the bedroom these days so liking to headphone amp and using the B7K model as my “amp”

[C4TH]

Pedaltrain Classic 1 - HX Effects - Digitech Drop - Digitech Bad Monkey - TC Electronic The Quintessence - Dunlop Mini - Morningstar ML5 - Fender FRV1 - Boss SY-1 - TC Bona Fide - All powered by Voodoo Lab PP2.