pictures of Randy's pedalboard

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equinox
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by equinox »

GUITARIDOL5682 - when I said "Pete", I meant Homes, not Mertons.

I decided on going forward with what I know, so starting working on the pedalboard today!

I took a few pictures of it and imported it into a program to measure and figure out where the holes needed to be drilled. They are spot on!

I put in all of the true-bypass 3PDT switches as well and LED's and bexels and the Distortion+ potentiometers in their holes.

Tomorrow, I will use a Greenlee IEC punch and punch it for the 120V connector and install it as well and the Input and FX loop jack holes and mount the jacks.

I will add a power brick to the bottom. I have lockable pigtail hardness for the pots and PCBs. I will get rid of any stepdown transformers and supplemental components and instead us the power brick to supply the necessary voltage instead of the 120V in. The IEC and 120V function will only be to power the brick which will supply regulated power to the pedals as well as supply the B+ for the 3PDT switches.

I'll use standoffs and mount the PCBs to the bottom so holes will not be seen and clean looking on top.

I took a few pictures of the current progression. I'll take more tomorrow. Enjoy!
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equinox
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by equinox »

Ok, here is where I am at today!

Next: Need to figure out what to do about EQ. There are a couple avenues....

1. Pull board out and cut out hole and mount to standby's. The range would not be shown and I would still have to figure what to do about EQ door.
2. As a backup and in case I am going to do this...keep the EQ pedal as-is. I drilled thru the holes thru the front! With this, I could cut a hole, and mount the EQ directly to the back of the top!! This will work, but again, I would still have to figure out what to do about the door.

In either case, I need to cut a hole and it's not easy with a Dremel. One slip and you scour the A-class surface visible showing!! :O So far, I've done very well, but may look at finding some who can precisely cut it also (Laser or waterjet or something). Not sure how to ever start looking.

In any event, finished to day with the pots all mounted with pigtails, LED's and bezels and everything labeled! :) If I can figure out this EQ, All I would need to do is mount it and the rest of the PCB's and wire up everything. It's labor intensive and basically worked two 12-hour days to get it where it is now!!! Remember, there is no layout or blueprint for this. All unchartered territory, so slow and measuring and calculating and wiring and electronics work takes a lot of time. It'll be interesting to see how many hours I end up with and how much I would actually have to charge someone for something like this. I'm sure in the thousands if not $10k!! :O
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equinox
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by equinox »

The IEC is punched in the back as well as Seven jacks! It looks to me, there is the input, then 3 pairs with the outer ones used and not the center 2 (I'll post a pic tomorrow). There is a switch on the pedalboard for AUX (On/Off), soo, maybe for this?? I dunno, but just in case put in. If not supposed to be there, I can always, 1. just not use or 2. take the jacks out and terminate with black plugs.
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Shockwave
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by Shockwave »

Looks like it’s turning out great so far!

If you ever decide to build more to sell I want in the queue :)
equinox
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by equinox »

Shockwave wrote:Looks like it’s turning out great so far!

If you ever decide to build more to sell I want in the queue :)
Thanks! lol. You're not the only one!! I already had a couple people ask or to sell it! They're like...what's your price? It's not for sale. They're like...what's your price? It's NOT for sale. They're like...what's your price? I'm like, it's NOT FOR SALE. They're like...."EVERYONE'S got a price!!!" :O Hmm. Wonder what I could charge him?!??

I'll have to price it out when I get done and let you know what the cost was to produce, material and man-hours.

For the EQ, the direction is to cut a 2" x 3.5" hole, then mount the entire EQ to the underside. I contacted a few fabrication houses and since already powder coated and though durable, they wont guarantee the paint will chip with waterjet or machine, soo wont touch it. Since already powdercoated, laser is out. Had I realized, I would have just got metal from my metal fab. house, drilled everything, then powder coat to process. They could have even put all the holes in it. That's cool. I'm documenting were everything is and can order it precut/drilled on the next ones. When it's a flat plate before bending, they will probably waterjet or laser the holes true.

A buddy said he would Bridgeport and cut the holes for me. If I'm worried about chipping, I can just Dremel very, very carefully. Hope to have done tomorrow night and can wire this thing all up this weekend!
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Shockwave
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by Shockwave »

equinox wrote:
Shockwave wrote:Looks like it’s turning out great so far!

If you ever decide to build more to sell I want in the queue :)
Thanks! lol. You're not the only one!! I already had a couple people ask or to sell it! They're like...what's your price? It's not for sale. They're like...what's your price? It's NOT for sale. They're like...what's your price? I'm like, it's NOT FOR SALE. They're like...."EVERYONE'S got a price!!!" :O Hmm. Wonder what I could charge him?!??

I'll have to price it out when I get done and let you know what the cost was to produce, material and man-hours.

For the EQ, the direction is to cut a 2" x 3.5" hole, then mount the entire EQ to the underside. I contacted a few fabrication houses and since already powder coated and though durable, they wont guarantee the paint will chip with waterjet or machine, soo wont touch it. Since already powdercoated, laser is out. Had I realized, I would have just got metal from my metal fab. house, drilled everything, then powder coat to process. They could have even put all the holes in it. That's cool. I'm documenting were everything is and can order it precut/drilled on the next ones. When it's a flat plate before bending, they will probably waterjet or laser the holes true.

A buddy said he would Bridgeport and cut the holes for me. If I'm worried about chipping, I can just Dremel very, very carefully. Hope to have done tomorrow night and can wire this thing all up this weekend!

For cutting the eq door it’s shouldn’t be a big deal. Any jigsaw with a quality metal cutting blade will do the job. I have done it many times on panels for some high end project displays. If you want to do it yourself on really heavy gauge steel and also have a very clean look, then you want to have two outlines. And inner square to cut that gets you to about an 1/8” of the final opening. Then file the remaining 1/8” away. Personally I would get a very thin layer of gasket and wrap the edges of the opening anyway, you won’t see anything then and don’t have to be 100% perfect,

Just practice on some existing material of the same type. Key is to go slow and don’t let the jigsaw bounce at all. If the steel is not flimsy it won’t be an issue either way.
equinox
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by equinox »

Shockwave wrote:
equinox wrote:
Shockwave wrote:Looks like it’s turning out great so far!

If you ever decide to build more to sell I want in the queue :)
Thanks! lol. You're not the only one!! I already had a couple people ask or to sell it! They're like...what's your price? It's not for sale. They're like...what's your price? It's NOT for sale. They're like...what's your price? I'm like, it's NOT FOR SALE. They're like...."EVERYONE'S got a price!!!" :O Hmm. Wonder what I could charge him?!??

I'll have to price it out when I get done and let you know what the cost was to produce, material and man-hours.

For the EQ, the direction is to cut a 2" x 3.5" hole, then mount the entire EQ to the underside. I contacted a few fabrication houses and since already powder coated and though durable, they wont guarantee the paint will chip with waterjet or machine, soo wont touch it. Since already powdercoated, laser is out. Had I realized, I would have just got metal from my metal fab. house, drilled everything, then powder coat to process. They could have even put all the holes in it. That's cool. I'm documenting were everything is and can order it precut/drilled on the next ones. When it's a flat plate before bending, they will probably waterjet or laser the holes true.

A buddy said he would Bridgeport and cut the holes for me. If I'm worried about chipping, I can just Dremel very, very carefully. Hope to have done tomorrow night and can wire this thing all up this weekend!

For cutting the eq door it’s shouldn’t be a big deal. Any jigsaw with a quality metal cutting blade will do the job. I have done it many times on panels for some high end project displays. If you want to do it yourself on really heavy gauge steel and also have a very clean look, then you want to have two outlines. And inner square to cut that gets you to about an 1/8” of the final opening. Then file the remaining 1/8” away. Personally I would get a very thin layer of gasket and wrap the edges of the opening anyway, you won’t see anything then and don’t have to be 100% perfect,

Just practice on some existing material of the same type. Key is to go slow and don’t let the jigsaw bounce at all. If the steel is not flimsy it won’t be an issue either way.
Thanks. I'm going to have my buddy with a ton of experience cut it out on the Bridgeport. It's Aluminum, not steel. It's 32" wide and steel was like 4 times the weight calculated, so went with a very thick Aluminum (.100").

We'll see how it fairs out. Will be taking it slow. Stay tuned.
equinox
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by equinox »

Got the EQ hole machined on a Bridgeport. Looks great. Now I will fork on mounting and wiring everything up! Looking forward to it!! :)

fyi - lines are drawn by pencil so can erase right off. Need to clean surfaces from the machinery and metal shavings.
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by equinox »

Here's the input and loop jacks. As I said, I think there are SIX, not four, like in the Rig Layout. Randy just used the outers. Not sure what the middle were for. Maybe the AUX on/off, but he never used that function?!?
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12-3.jpg
footpedal - rear.jpg
equinox
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by equinox »

made the final cut on the back and cleaned all of the oil and stuff off. Here's how the EQ will look installed (something like this).

tomorrow, I'll start installing and wiring up. cant wait to get done! :)
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Shockwave
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by Shockwave »

Any updates? You were firing off updates daily it seems. Hopefully you didn't get electrocuted :)

Since my earlier comments on Randy's wah I have been paying more attention to the live shows and found some very interesting things regarding this. I found that he used his wah pedal a ton more than I have ever thought he would, or noticed before. You need to focus in on his guitar only as the difference in sound is not blatantly in your face like at the end of I don't know or the middle sections of COTG during some live shows. But once you know what to listen for you won't believe it's been right there the whole time.

He did not rock the wah pedal at all during these times but used it as a filter as he did on the albums, just a lot more! I am even more convinced that Randy had the ability to switch his wah in and out of the effects loop with that wah off/on switch pedal, this absolutely had to be the purpose of it. The two wah sounds he had live are 1000% different and the this is the only explanation I can make of it (loop vs non-loop placement).

What I am going to do is take one of the live songs and break it down and provide time markers where he clicks the wah on and off again. He was leaving it on for entire sections of songs when playing live! Very cool to hear and notice this after almost 30 year!
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

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Shockwave wrote: What I am going to do is take one of the live songs and break it down and provide time markers where he clicks the wah on and off again. He was leaving it on for entire sections of songs when playing live! Very cool to hear and notice this after almost 30 year!
I think he used his wah only a couple of times a show.
Listen to the seminar, someone asking there if he's using a wah in the Crazy Train riff because they think they hear a wah there, his answered with 'No, just picking" in reality he is playing subtle pinch harmonics there that give some people the impression he is using a wah there. People who just picking the notes aren't getting that effect. They think he probably uses a wah there. BIG PART of Randy's sound is his use of those subtle pinch harmonics. He is doing it everywhere. Someone like Zakk Wylde is doing the same but much more exaggerated as an momentary effect, so very noticable, that's his style. Randy did it (imo) with much more taste where lots of time you don't notice it unless you really pay attention. It sounds cool and you can't tell easy why it sounds so cool, thoses subtle pinches do make a difference. Someone like Randy was a master with that, you can pinch like the ground tone is completely gone while only hearing a high pitched squeel, BUT you can also pinch while leaving the ground tone almost fully intact and only have a very little upper harmonic effect. That's what Randy did a lot of the time. Yes sometimes he did those exaggerated high pitched pinches as well, like in Paranoid, but not that much.
Just what I hear him doing FWIW.... I could be completely wrong of course! :P
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Shockwave
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by Shockwave »

The Flying Dutchman wrote:
Shockwave wrote: What I am going to do is take one of the live songs and break it down and provide time markers where he clicks the wah on and off again. He was leaving it on for entire sections of songs when playing live! Very cool to hear and notice this after almost 30 year!
I think he used his wah only a couple of times a show.
Listen to the seminar, someone asking there if he's using a wah in the Crazy Train riff because they think they hear a wah there, his answered with 'No, just picking" in reality he is playing subtle pinch harmonics there that give some people the impression he is using a wah there. People who just picking the notes aren't getting that effect. They think he probably uses a wah there. BIG PART of Randy's sound is his use of those subtle pinch harmonics. He is doing it everywhere. Someone like Zakk Wylde is doing the same but much more exaggerated as an momentary effect, so very noticable, that's his style. Randy did it (imo) with much more taste where lots of time you don't notice it unless you really pay attention. It sounds cool and you can't tell easy why it sounds so cool, thoses subtle pinches do make a difference. Someone like Randy was a master with that, you can pinch like the ground tone is completely gone while only hearing a high pitched squeel, BUT you can also pinch while leaving the ground tone almost fully intact and only have a very little upper harmonic effect. That's what Randy did a lot of the time. Yes sometimes he did those exaggerated high pitched pinches as well, like in Paranoid, but not that much.
Just what I hear him doing FWIW.... I could be completely wrong of course! :P
It never cross my mind that a wah would be used on crazy train, I don't hear one in it all. The pinch harmonics I know about and use myself in that style as it gives it sort of that wah affect when done subtle. Randy was great at it though.
equinox
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by equinox »

He guys. Sorry, got tied up with a TON of things...house, vehicle stuff.

ok. I'm off as of today until 1/2, soo have a couple weeks off and although a few things to do, will only take me a couple days to do, soo I'll have time to finished the pedalboard (along with other things).

I also got side-tracked. I built a "tribute" head like 7-9 years ago that got the amp/OD tone with just the head, but decided to re-wire it and just make it a 50-watt version with a master control. The end result....same thing as the big brother, but you can turn the damn thing down. I designed a customer 1x12 slant cabinet and had one speaker in it, then decided to put an extra Altec I had in it. Ther result...spot-on amp/cabinet tone! :) However, the cab is black and the head is white, soo, thinking about havnig my guy build me another cabinet in white!! We'll see. I'll probably have the pedalboard done next weekend and will then post results and photos.

On a seperate note, looks like I posted a photo previously, but found a good photo of the back of the pedalboard in Bob Daisley's book I purchased a couple days ago (For Facts Sake). You can clearly see when facing the pedalboard, there are 8 equally spaced jacks on the left side and 3 things on the right which looks like 2 jacks and a fuse holder! - fyi
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Shockwave
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by Shockwave »

equinox wrote:He guys. Sorry, got tied up with a TON of things...house, vehicle stuff.

ok. I'm off as of today until 1/2, soo have a couple weeks off and although a few things to do, will only take me a couple days to do, soo I'll have time to finished the pedalboard (along with other things).

I also got side-tracked. I built a "tribute" head like 7-9 years ago that got the amp/OD tone with just the head, but decided to re-wire it and just make it a 50-watt version with a master control. The end result....same thing as the big brother, but you can turn the damn thing down. I designed a customer 1x12 slant cabinet and had one speaker in it, then decided to put an extra Altec I had in it. Ther result...spot-on amp/cabinet tone! :) However, the cab is black and the head is white, soo, thinking about havnig my guy build me another cabinet in white!! We'll see. I'll probably have the pedalboard done next weekend and will then post results and photos.

On a seperate note, looks like I posted a photo previously, but found a good photo of the back of the pedalboard in Bob Daisley's book I purchased a couple days ago (For Facts Sake). You can clearly see when facing the pedalboard, there are 8 equally spaced jacks on the left side and 3 things on the right which looks like 2 jacks and a fuse holder! - fyi
Nice!

Regarding the jacks on the right side next to the fuse holder. I would say that is a folder but I think the jacks are actually toggle switches. I noticed this a couple weeks ago on a couple other pics of the pedal board. If they are in fact toggle switches I would guess one is for the power of the board which makes sense as it’s right next to the fuse holder. The other switch would be to toggle the wah pedal in and out of the effects loop chain. Just a guess of course but it would answer the question of how he was able to get those two completely different wah days live.
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