Hey guys, just wanted to chime in from a technical standpoint.
This is VERY exciting for me, as like they said, NO ONE has seen the inside of his board in FORTY YEARS!! Even my "clone" is based on IF his pedals were stock or not and how I would think Pete approached the design for Randy's pedalboard!
I asked Nick Bowcott from Sweetwater about some things. He confirmed (as I had heard once before), that Randy's friend from Budgie (and also friend or Nick's) that at one time a roadie had dropped the pedalboard and it was not working right. They took it apart and I think it was "Big" John "J.T." Thomas (Budgie) confirmed to Nick that the pedals were epoxied or gooped!!
This could mean the pedals were modified and/or done that to hold everything in it's place. Nick also said they A-B'ed some off-the-shelf MXR D+ pedals with Randy's board and it did NOT produce the goods and sound the same! This may mean the pedal was modified!! If so, and the top management at MXR and Jimmy Dunlop reverse engineering the unit, they may be actually releasing a modified unit with the same spec Randy used!! If so, that is exciting (versus just releasing a stock pedal and painting it poka-dot or something)!!
As with the Marshall tribute amp....the family got the people that built them directly (Marshall....MXR) to reverse engineer the equipment and ensure correct. If this is not exciting to get closer to the actual tone....I don't know what is!!
The pictures Kathy provided, to me, mean a lot and tell me a lot from an engineering and technical standpoint. We can see the pedals are indeed fasted to the top directly (I put them on the bottom with disconnectable harnesses to the potentiometers on top as I was not sure and also, the stock pots were not long enough to go thru the pedal and pedalboard top, so longer shafted pots would be needed, or at least for mine).
I can see the jacks in the back and wire up, like mine, as well as the transformer to power it on right side, with the powerboard (I'm sure all caps are dried up and need replacement), and even a toggle switch (probably on/off) underneath!
I used a simple flip-flop approach with 555 timers and 2N3904/2N3906s transistors readily available at the time for the looper and shunting output to ground when inactive to ensure dead quiet. We see now, there are 6 semiconductors! CMOS chips were (4pc) Motorola MC14027B and (2pc) 40014 BPC CMOS chips. I'm sure same way to achieve end result, but different approach and Pete's was more complicated than needed to be!!
I was told by someone within the last 2 weeks to get Randy's sound, the D+ needed three changes removing 2 parts and increasing the value of 1! Pretty specific, but they didn't supply the background of why they thought that.
The chip pan has been at RARHOF for the last year and I believe thru October, so makes sense they got it back and able to do all of this now, and yes, Randy's birthday just passed.
"a Technician named Pete "Pedalboard" Holmes made Randy's pedalboard! The cost was £1100. Stuart Hopkins, their guitar tech at the time, delivered it to Randy at Clearwell Castle in England! Randy specified the pedals to be incorporated into the pedalboard." This was documented in Bob Daisley's book Off The Rails on Page 125.
This is very, very exciting. They will make bank, and people will have basically an exact copy of Randy's original pedal! We all should be excited about this. Photos and Videos, etc. are separate issues.
ref: -
https://www.guitarworld.com/news/jim-du ... 4-CFJTNIxA