pictures of Randy's pedalboard

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The Flying Dutchman
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by The Flying Dutchman »

Shockwave wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 3:43 pm Should be a good opportunity to finally take some
decent pictures of Randy’s pedalboard. It will be on display along with the white Concorde at the RNR HOF for 1 year starting this fall.

It’s about a 10 hour drive from the Boston area so I think I am going to make a trip out there late in the year or in the spring. Just in case the exhibit is a little too far away I will bring a few gadgets so all sides except the back (if not standing vertical) will get photographed no matter what.

Image
That BIG Roland Volume pedal is Epic! 8)
Pedal board.jpeg
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equinox
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by equinox »

I was gonna ask what RNR HOF is, but I figured it out (Rock aNd Roll Hall Of Fame)!

That's cool, because if memory serves me, is in Ohio and like 4 hours from me!!! I'll search for it also and as this posting was 2 months old...maybe it's already on display or soon?!?? I will be taking a long ride or flight to take Hi-Res photos and besides the back I'm curious about, see if there is any screws on top indicating how Pete may have mounted things and if the pedals were directly mounted?!?

On a great note...I FINALLY got done with chores and Summer vacations and whatnot and tonight finished the routing for the signal path thru everything I'm going to use, so I can now, finalize mounting everything and finally wire it up!!! This is going to happen. Finally. And I will be working on it all weekend, this weekend!!

Cool about the Chinese knockoff. It sucks that Gibson priced them so high and limited and now have appreciated beyond MOST peoples pocket book. Likewise, who wants to deal with China? But I have to admit, I wanted the Gibson clone so bad, I likewise, bought one! Once you replace the nut and all electronics and make sure the frets and fretboard are level...you have the same thing for $550-750, which now the asking price of the VOS is North of $10,000, so sorry, but a no-brainer and see how mine finished out to finalize my Rhoads Rig. My '72 Natural is very close and a real Gibson....but I love Randy as you guys and had to get closer without breaking the bank.

Stay Tuned!
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by equinox »

I contacted ROR HOF last night and they got back with me this morning!
They provided the following feedback:

"The 2021 Inductees exhibit, including artifacts from Randy Rhoads, will open to the public on 10/22."

Soo, starting 10/22 is the timing and looking forward to stopping in and for the first time and checking out everything!! Can't Wait! :D
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Shockwave
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by Shockwave »

Kathy posted something today and I noticed down at the bottom were these tiny thumbnails in her photo roll that looked like it could be of Randy's pedalboard. So I took a screenshot and zoomed in and I would say its definitely photos of the inside of his pedalboard. The photos in general were taken within a couple days of them shipping his white Jackson and pedalboard off to the RNR-HOF (July 8th) So I imagine she took pics of everything inside and out for documentation sake.

Thumbnails left to right
1. Not sure what that is as there isn't much to go on.

2. His stereo chorus is to the far left and his flanger is to the right. It matches arrangement from top photos of the board, reversed of course since we are looking from the bottom. You can see the patch cables running from the pedal area to each pedal on the board.

3. The MXR Distortion is on the left with the MXR Stereo Chorus to the right. Notice the screw holes on the corners of the stereo chorus. It's definitely 3 knob MXR chorus as I have one myself. You can also see were the patch cable comes out of the pedal and into the lamp indicator.

4. Cut off and can't tell what it is, but looks to be part of the wiring harness.

There were about 15 thumbnails of the Jackons guitar that took up most of the screenshot. The last 4 thumbnails before it got cut off was what's below. She probably has tons of photos of the inside of the board!

I am surprised the original housings of the pedals were used. I figured Pete would’ve taken the guts out, nope. Looks like he just removed the knobs and fed the pot post through the top of the board then used the nut for each pot post to secure the pedal to the board. In general the wiring looks to be an absolute mess. No wonder why he had so many problems.

I asked her about the thumbnail pics and hopefully she replies! If she seems willing and ok I'll ask if she can release a few pics as it would mean the world to a lot of us to actually see the inside of the board.
09F01E3B-85E0-4EB1-814D-84325A112C25_1_201_a.jpeg
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by equinox »

Very Cool, thanks!

Yes, the pics since Thumbnails are in very low resolution, but appears to be photos of what may be the inside of his pedalboard, especially if obtained from Kathy.

Yes, looks like the pedals if this is Randy's board are indeed mounted directly to the board from the underside and how I did it. Originally, I likewise pulled the board out and just mounted the PCBs to the bottom, but then said, no, as the grounded enclosure can help with RF, so changed gears and remounted back into their original enclosures and put into the pedalboard.

The individuals pedals are not latching, but momentaries and used to trigger some sort of looper. The pedals would be on all of the time and looper engage or disengage the pedals into the corresponding loop and likewise trigger the lamps on and off. What we don't know is what he used, some sort of flip-flop circuit or?!?? It doesn't matter reproducing it, just that a looper momentarilary triggered would be needed.

When seen in person, will be able to see if any screws thru the top needed to secure the pedals. They could be secured with just the pots, but that's not the good way to do it and should be secured thru the 4 screws. The issue is that the threads are on the bottom of the pedal, not top, soo I had to drill thru the pedal top side in the same location and tap the holes. Yeah, a lot of fabrication goes into making the pedalboard and why Randy paid so much (2,000 pounds) back in the 70s and if I was going to sell mine with all original 1977-1980 pedals, all of the labor, custom board enclosure and road case....I would probably have to ask $10k for it!! I'm not sure, I'll have to check if the pot shafts are long enough to go thru the pedals and then thru the pedlaboard! If not, the posts would have to be replaced with longer-threaded ones with the same values and style.

Looking forward to more information the visit to RNRHOF, and finalizing my board and making some clips (should be sometime during the holidays - 10/31 thru 12/31).

Thanks again for the pics and looking forward to new ones if obtainable.
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by equinox »

Ok, just got back from RNRHOF!

I was able to get ALL of the photos I needed!

Funny thing thou....I know crowd thins out at the tail end of the day, so was going to see everything, then finish with Randy's and the new inductee. But as I got started with the first floor, I got there earlier (10:30a) than my 11:00a ticket time and it was a light crowd! Soo, I changed gears and said...why don't I go to the Rhoads exhibit and take all of the photos I need, then start Floor 1 and work my way up taking my time? So, that's what I did and spent 5-10 minutes and took a total of 27 hi-res photos! I noticed it thinning out and got asked to "stop taking photos"! I knew the policy was...photos are ok as long as no flash and videos ok also, I believe. Basically, the official induction is not until Sunday and they were afraid of photos leaking to social media! I can understand that, but unsure why they left it open and said it would be open to the public?!?? I asked if I would just see everything before I left and spent another 60 seconds, then asked to take a couple more photos of an outfit from LL Cool J with an old ghetto box? They said, ok, just please do not pot, so I did and after left the room, barriers came up and NO ONE was allowed in during the rest of the day and probably won't until Sunday!! :O Soo, I basically got kicked out of the exhibit after being there for a total of 10-15 minutes!!! :lol:

I'm going to honor the pledge not to post anything until after the event, but will make a few comments.

1. The display looks FANTASTIC and I'm very happy for that! It consists of the following behind glass....i. the Jackson Concorde and road case, ii. the pedalboard and roadcase with the pedalboard rear (what I was most interested in) facing upward, so completely visible...finally, iii. a couple photos of Randy performing, iv. Randy's stage shoe/boots, v. one of Randy's back with chrome-studded guitar straps.
2. The pedalboard DOES have screws on the top-side (I will show and count later), but are NOT in the corners to mount the pedal enclosure, so wonder if for mounting the PCB's pulled out?!??
3. ALL screws, whether for the pedalboard enclosure, mounting, or EQ door are ALL old-school Standard type screwheads, not Phillips or other.
4. The 2 screws that hold the EQ door (which is on a hinge on one side) are standard head and significantly larger.
5. I know some Rig Layouts show the Wah as being either Cry Baby or VOX, but it IS a Cry Baby Wah on the board.
6. On the Volume Pedal-side of the board, there are EIGHT holes in the back with SIX 1/4" sockets (as I thought), one hole with nothing in it, then the "Input" jack, which is actually a male XLR-type balanced connection!
7. There is only ONE wire that goes to the Roland Volume Pedal! How could this be as there is an in and out? The wire sheathing goes thru the left whole and would contain the ground and IN and OUT wires and hardwired internally!
8. There are standard panhead screws on the side(s) holding thing(s) internally.
9. There are THREE holes in the back (as I thought). The one to the left-most whole is plugged. The other two are IN and OUT for the wah pedal with again, the sheathing (with wires in them) going THRU the 1/4" jack holes and hardwired internally!
10. Some of the naming of controls and lights are NOT like what has been communicated! example - Orange is BYPASS, not Master. It's FLANGE, not Flanger. D+ is: VOL and DIST, not Output and Distortion, Flange is: MAN, WIDTH, SPEED, not Manual, Width, and Speed. Chorus is: MAN, RANGE, SPEED, COLOR, not Manual, Width, Speed, and Regen. I'll need to relabel my board to be more appropriate.
11. It has always been shown that the pads on the switches are a solid block of black...they are NOT! They actually have vertical grooves in them!
12. Looks like the pedals and pedalboard are sitting on and may be fastened to a piece of wood within the pedalboard case.
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by stealaway »

Now there's some good detailed detective work!!! :mrgreen:
Can't wait to see some good quality photos!!!
You were very lucky with all that. And a good thing you went to take photos of Randy's stuff first!!! :lol:
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by equinox »

As promised...here is a link to the photos I took!

Special Thanks to Shockwave for tipping me/us off that the pedalboard would be on display!

I'll be heading back, probably next week and with some friends and with a pro camera (Nikon, Canon - 35mm, 60x optical zoom) and take much more photos, in higher resolution (though I have what I need), and include photos of the Concorde and other artifacts!

Look for my pedalboard to finally be getting finalized in the near future followed by clips! :D

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by GUITARIDOL5682 »

Link is not opening..
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by stealaway »

Thanks for sharing!!! Very good photos!!! :)
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by equinox »

Try this link. Let me know if anyone has any issues.

Ok pics. The next set and visit will be excellent!!

Anyone know what king of connection that 2-pin INPUT connection is?? Is it an XLR or something different? If XLR....then how did he hook his guitar into it? 1/4" to XLR (balanced or unbalanced) and why would he do that instead of just 1/4"??

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... PT-eN_MFO4
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by equinox »

Just like I thought and with in fact all of the screws on the front face of it...the pedals were disassembled and installed in the enclosure!
Thanks for adding that little bit of knowledge under the hood and part of why the pedalboard being soo noisy. The pots are not mounted on the board, so a betterment would have been for Pete to keep in the pedal enclosures, use long-shafted pot and mount directly to the enclosure by the pots, so pedals act like ground faraday cage me thinks.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ewsoLN ... sp=sharing
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by Shockwave »

I’m still going with the pedals are in their original enclosures. The picture I posted above from Kathy’s instagram is definitely the inside of Randy’s board. If you want I can post the original un-cropped photo which shows these are part of her camera roll right next to the white Jackson. She was documenting the condition of the equipment prior to shipping it to the HOF.

Also not sure if you have seen this interview from last year but it explains a lot about Randy’s board.

The Mystery of What Really Lurked Inside Randy’s Pedalboard
On Monday, October 13th, 1980, at Malvern Winter Gardens, I was fortunate enough to witness Randy play on Ozzy’s first UK tour. To say that I was blown away by what I saw that night would be a massive understatement! His playing, tone, and stage presence were all incredible — I knew I was watching a man destined to become a legend.

The opening band on the whole European leg of that tour was the criminally underrated and overlooked Welsh power trio Budgie. Shortly thereafter, I became friends with the band’s guitarist, “Big” John (JT) Thomas (now sadly deceased — RIP, mate). As an added bonus, while John (JT) and Randy became close friends on that tour, I learned a lot about Mr. Rhoads both as a musician and as a man.


One of the many fascinating things John shared with me concerned Randy’s now-mystical pedalboard. “It started acting up after a roadie dropped the bloody thing,” John recalled when I interviewed him several years later. “All the techs had looked at the board and drawn a blank, so Randy and myself decided to give it a go ourselves.” Before they started “tinkering” though, the pair sensibly decided to get duplicates of the five pedals that lived under the hood of Randy’s behemoth black board. But, when they hooked up the newly purchased pedals in the same order (Roland Volume Pedal –> Vox Wah Pedal–> MXR 10-band Graphic EQ –> MXR Flanger –> MXR Stereo Chorus*), to their bewilderment, they sounded very different from the originals.


“So, we started taking his board apart and discovered that all the circuitry had been set in some sort of resin,” John continued. “So, there was nothing we could do. Maybe his pedals had been modified, or maybe there were some line boosters or even filters added, which could’ve explained the difference, too — there was no bleeding way we could know!”

Granted, “potting” electronics in epoxy resin is often done to protect components from moisture and vibration; and it can also improve insulation, thus reducing interference, too. That said, it is also done on occasion to hide a circuit or component secret or three! Intriguing stuff, as Randy’s pedalboard, and especially his use of his MXR Distortion + and 10-band Graphic EQ, definitely lurked at the very heart of his highly revered tone.
https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/remem ... reverence/
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by equinox »

Appreciate the link. It suggests the electronics had a resin or gooping. As a tech and engineer, I get it and that actually just reinforce the fact the pedal electronics were taking out of the enclosures! The goop helps to keep things in place.

Besides the 14 standard screws that hold the top of Randy's enclosure on, there are 6 screws for the EQ (4 for mounting and 2 for the access door, 2 for the Distortion+, 2 for the Phaser, 2 for the Chorus and another 2 pretty wide apart, which I would think may be for the isolated power supply circuit. From the RNRHOF, we can see there are additional pan head screws on the volume pedal side holding additional things.

All in all, the information suggested is the pedal are out of their enclosure, else where the holes are would be going thru the pedals themselves and in that, PC boards. I looked where the mounting PCBs holes for each pedal are compared to screw holes in the enclosure and none of them match up!!

We will never know 100% about the pedalboard unless at some point we get a look under the hood and I doubt that will just ever happen (though wish we could and blueprint the design). One way would be to get direct feedback from Pete Holmes, but I haven't seen anything in regard to him or if he is alive or dead. I've looked for 10 years to find the guy, but don't live in England and so far come up empty. If we could get a hold of him and get an interview, maybe like on Tone-Talk with Dave Friedman and Marc...that would be perfect, but again, don't even know if the guy is alive. I know Dave personally, so can ask him and pitch the suggestion.

As indicated, the original Rig Layouts out there and in books missed out on some of the things like 7 jacks in back instead of 5 and labeling of jacks, etc. However, 2 of the 7, I never seen Randy have any wires hook up to them, so never used and why they might have streamlined it. Hell, one layout had a VOX Wah pedal and as we can see, Randy had (at least until he died) a Cry Baby on his board. Randy's board has the one XLR jack, which you would think would be for the input and one of the 5 jacks, but again, photos out there suggest Randy's guitar is not hooked into that jack! Soo, where does it go in?!?? The actual pedalboard as I said have the XLR (not labled), Receive, Send, Receive, Send, Amp and Out labeled, which doesn't make too much sense as what is switching the Space Echo and Delay tip to ground turning it on and off?!?? So, I have to take some assumptions based on what is known and the layouts and signal path. But, the tone is from the type to guitar (Les Paul), Pickups (Super 74 with Alcnico 3), head which is basically a JCM800 with a 4.7nF bright cap, 417-8H speakers, EQ with settings voicing it a certain way, but also boosting the signal, Distortion+ for additional gain, saturation and sizzle, and when turned on, certain color such as the Chorus (which he use a lot) and Phaser. That's the formula.

A couple other guys that played thru the board to contact would be: Bernie Torme (dead), Brad Gillis (Speak Of Tour), Wolf Marshall (did a Layout). We can try and get more information from those cats. I think I may have reached out to Wolf, but got nothing. I'll have to check.

Time is running out thou...the people not already dead are getting old and don't know when their time is up, so should keep trying while we can.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ignKkR ... sp=sharing
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Re: pictures of Randy's pedalboard

Post by equinox »

Looking forward to finishing my pedalboard this week and see if I need to troubleshoot or anything, but should be getting it done this week (but I said that many times...ugh, just soo busy). Not sure if I communicated also, but not only the pedalboard, but had a custom flight case made also!! So, will be the complete system. Going to paint the appropriate block(s) on both to complete them also! Stay Tuned, as always! :)

Oh, and was, of course...why not post the original and hi-res photos?!!?? Make it happen.
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