Big Tex Rig underway

[qtone]

First shots of the line up at Tone Ranch.
Look whos come to dinner...

[LeftyStrat]

First shots of the line up at Tone Ranch.
Look whos come to dinner...

Well I could certainly spend a weekend there bothering your neighbors.

You're in Dallas right? I used to live in Plano. If I still lived there I would offer to bring over lots of beer for a chance to try those amps.

Best I can do is offer you some virtual beer for more pics and clips.

[boldaslove6789]

More Progress on the rig... Still got lots to do!

Q-tone has been waiting years to get all this gear working all together

Rig consists of the following:

Rack

Furman Pwr Condish (x3, all with Pwr Filtering)
MXR Flanger Doubler
MXR 1000 Digital Delay (x2)
MXR 1500 Delay
TC Electronics M2000
Roger Mayer Rack Super Vibe
Rolls Rotohorn
Alex Lexicon (Reverb)

Pedals on Drawers:
Funky Munk Delica Fuzz (X2)
Funky Munk Munk Vibe
Funky Munk Delica Octave (Octavio)
Funky Munk Phat-N-Phunk Filter 3 (Mutron III clone)
Hartman Silicon Fuzz
Sweet Sound Ultra Vibe
Keely TS-9+
Westbury w20 Tube OD
Nadi TD-1
Strymon Timeline


Pedal Board:
Ground Control GCX Controller
RMC3 FL Wah
Ernie Ball Volume Pedal
Perterson Strobe Tuner
5 to 7 Midi converter Box with Amphenol thread locks
7 to 5 Midi Conveter Box (with Impedance Buffer Output)

Back of Rack:
Maestro Echoplex (EP3)


Amps:

Bludo High Plains Drifter (150w EJ voiced Dumble SSS clone)
Quinn SDO-Reverb (Shad's take on a Dumble Overdrive Reverb)
68' Marshall Plexi SuperBass
Frezel Blutone 50w (Dual OT)

Cabs:

Quinn: Oval Ported D-style 2x12 Ported with Tonetubby Hemp Cones (1 AlNiCo, one Ceramic)

Bludo Cab: Vintage 1968' Marshall 4x12 Basket weave "B" cab with 4x EvM12-L speakers

Plexi Cab: Vintage 1968' Marshall 4x12 Basket weave "B", "Super" Cab with 4x 68' Celestion 25w greenbacks

Frenzel cab: to be determined....

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[Mark]

Greg, only thinking of your health, but I'd lose the cigarettes. At the moment a friend is about to die from lung cancer, it's not a good look.

Now the health warning is over, the gear looks good, with the exception of the Hi Plans Drifter. I'm sure it sounds great, but I REALLY don't like that snake skin tolex.

[Aaron]

You can never have to many uni-vibe pedals
I'm guessing you won't be using this at local jam nights!!!!

[Structo]

Greg, only thinking of your health, but I'd lose the cigarettes. At the moment a friend is about to die from lung cancer, it's not a good look.

Now the health warning is over, the gear looks good, with the exception of the Hi Plans Drifter. I'm sure it sounds great, but I REALLY don't like that snake skin tolex.

Yeah, I didn't think smoking was all that bad until I had a heart attack...

Man, Greg that is some serious stuff!

I don't even want to add up the money that took to acquire.

Qtone are you a gigging professional?

[vibratoking]

Greg, just attended the funeral of my brother. Cigarette smoker and now cancer victim. If you can't quit for yourself, then do it for the those around you. On to the gear...

Impressive collection. I can't imaging why you are hooking all that equipment together? I guess size matters. I am sure you already know this, but you will most likely run into ground loop issues. Some of which may not be obvious. Not all of that equipment has ground lifts built in. Are you going to add them? If not, don't forget that the mounting rails can provide a ground return path that you may or may not be aware of. I have had to use nylon 'hardware' to insulate chassies, ears, etc... from the rail in the past. The path can be a bitch to find.

BTW, I have been using the GC Pro for years with an RJM RG16. Great unit, lot's of flexibility, and has been rock solid.

How are the amps going to be operated? All at once, stereo pairs, switched? I don't see any amp switchers in your list of gear.

Oh, and what are the MIDI converter boxes for? I only see one unit that needs MIDI on your pedal board, the GC Pro. I made a custom cable instead of a converter box, but you can skin a cat many ways. Also, why a MIDI impedance buffer? I run 50ft of MIDI cable with no problem. How much cable are you intending to drive?

[boldaslove6789]

Guys I appreciate all the concern, I must have put that pic up while tired last night...didn't intend on that being up but I appreciate the word none the less, thank you.


On to the rig, no it is not intended to be gigged with, its a studio rig that will be flexible enough to work with other gear if need be.

There are doubles of some equipment, if they don't cut the mustard when the rig is finished and remote A/B access is possible, some of these effects will be taken out, or replaced by some kind of modern equivalent.


There are 3 GCX rack switchers, 2 for rack FX, Pedals, and the last if just for amp switching alone.

The Quinn and Bludo will both have break out boxes to access the amps Ftsw;able functions via the ground control.

Yes each amp can be remotely switched on or off via the Voodoo Lab direct acces controller, once all is set up, i will make a preset for a preferred group of amps or tone or effect Q-tone likes as his main 1st Bank of presets.

Yes, some amps will be "ON" with another amp "ON", at any given time.

Example :

Lead tone:

Bludo with Tube driver (or) tube screamer
Quinn on OD with PAB
Superbass with Fuzz face

or another preset may be:

Clean tone:

Bludo clean no PAB
Quinn Clean No pab
Strymon timeline on, using both amps in ((Stereo)


Yes I am building a Impedance input buffer, I was very appointed by the built in Buffer's the GCX racks have and decided to build my own buffer'd that are quite a bit more transparent and hit the input of D-style amps mucho better.

The box on the pedal board converts both the Midi 5 pid GCX, and a guitar signal into a 7 pin Midi cord (with an isolated conductor for the guitar signal). That 7 pin Midi cord will go to the rear of the rack where there is a 7 to 5 Pin Midi convert box that receives, and has an Input impedance buffer that is set at unity gain.

The reason for the buffer the guitar signal goes through a RMC3 Wah, a passive Ernie Ball volume Pedal (which the Ernie Ball's just kill high end content), not to mention the 20 Ft of cord length.

i felt that to not make the guitar signal to be as clear as i can would be a shame....

[M Fowler]

Looks great guys and I am very interested in how all this goes together.

Keep the photos and notes coming.

Mark

[vibratoking]

That's alot of equipment...good luck with the setup.

The reason for the buffer the guitar signal goes through a RMC3 Wah, a passive Ernie Ball volume Pedal (which the Ernie Ball's just kill high end content), not to mention the 20 Ft of cord length.

From your description, the buffer appears to be on the wrong end of the cable length. Don't you want the buffer on the pedal board to drive the cable length? But, I am quite sure you know what you are doing.

If the EB volume pedal is killing high end, why use it? I use my EB volume pedals as expression pedals connected to the GC Pro expression pedal inputs. They are configured to control the volume of my rack effects through MIDI mapping. I control 'raw' volume' from the guitar and effects volume from the EB pedals. You may or may not want this, but it is something to consider. It works great for live gigs because every room needs a different amount of effect. I also like to bring the effects up and down during songs. But you are in a studio situation so YMMV.

[ER]

I would also recommend patching in a setting where you have a delay dry-out to stereo effect (light chorus and/or reverb is nice) on the OD amps left and right (link their OD relays to switch at the same time) with wet SSS delay set to very short delay time with the SSS clean in the center with the 4x12 EVMs. Dial in the milliseconds on the clean amp till it blends into a huge wall of sound.

Instead of distinct tones from individual amps it's more of a palette with varying shades and degrees where the whole is greater than the sum.

Tone and spaciousness from the stereo amps and girth and definition from the middle clean amp blended into a shimmering cascading wall of sound. When the air becomes electric, Marshmallows, etc. etc. etc.

Looks like fun!

-E

[Structo]

Thanks for the description Greg!

Some serious horse power there fo sho.

The reason we mention the cigs is because we care about you and your future.

I've conquered a lot of addictions over my life.
Tobacco is a hard one. I quit many times only to start back up again.
I hate to say it but I really enjoyed smoking and I was good at it.
This time I believe it will stick.

Check out the newer drug, Chantix. It works.

[Cliff Schecht]

I found one of those MXR 1000 Digital Delays at a Goodwill for $5 many moons ago (as well as a Furman Compressor and MXR dual EQ). It's fun, goofy effect and can get out of control quickly if you start cranking knobs. What are you using them for Qtone?

[boldaslove6789]

From your description, the buffer appears to be on the wrong end of the cable length. Don't you want the buffer on the pedal board to drive the cable length? But, I am quite sure you know what you are doing.

There is no noticeable difference if the buffer is on the Pedal Board or in the rack so I'm just going to put it in the rack. I just set the Buffer to Unity gain and leave it.

[telentubes]

Awesome gear ya got displayed.