Winston Psmith

Greetings, everyone. Sorry I haven't checked in lately, but my computer is seriously screwed up, to the point where I couldn't even stand to use it, or try to. If there's a ghost in the machine, it's a poltergeist, and the poor bastard is dangerously insane. I'll spare you all the interesting things that it does, but if it were a car, you wouldn't let your worst enemy drive it, for fear that there would other, innocent people on the road with them, and it. We have a handful of recent and older Macs, in varying states of disuse or disrepair, so I'm trying to Frankenstrat something that will work for a while. Nothing could tempt me to buy another Mac, at this point. If I had the $$$ for a new one, I'd pay some bills and buy a pizza with the change. If money were no object, I'd spend a few thousand on Music gear I probably don't need, and then I'd look for half a dozen used or refurbished Macs, and assign each one to a specific function, Music, Photos, Writing, Internet. I'm not a Gamer, YouTuber, nor Influencer, so I don't need the newest or the fastest, I just need something that mostly works. Getting a late start on a light day here, hoping your days are good!

Trying my luck here, see if this thing doesn't crash . . . Couldn't watch the video, so my apologies if I'm also going over things that are obvious. Quick take - PC (Program Change) Commands should be among the simplest and most direct forms of MIDI communication, even more so than Note On/Note Off. CC (Continuous Controller) Commands are generally more complex. Start out with the two devices disconnected from one another, and check which MIDI Channel each is set to, and that MIDI PC Commands are enabled in both. for simplicity's sake, you might as well set them both Send and Receive MIDI data on Channel 1, then turn them off, for the moment. If you're using a MFX as your Master Controller, connect the MIDI Out from the MFX to the MIDI In on the Catalyst, turn the Catalyst on first, then the HX. (Admittedly, this is an old-school approach to powering up a MIDI rig, where the Master Controller is the last thing you power up.) Ideally, when you switch Presets on your MFX, you should see that the Catalyst is also changing Presets. You may have to dive into MIDI re-mapping, making sure that Preset #1 on your MFX brings up Preset #1, so that your Patches line up with one another. If you've been busy tweaking Presets and moving them around within your devices, you may find that their PC #'s don't correspond to their position in your User Preset banks: the Preset you've stored in #1 might be sending a very different PC#, depending on where the original Preset was. You can, of course, set things up so that Preset #1 on your MFX brings up Preset #13 on the Catalyst, I find that it's somewhat easier to manage your Presets if the numbers align, as well. It also helps if your MFX has a good legible display, so you know that you're dialing up the Surf Safari Preset, instead of trying to remember which # is which Preset.

One difficulty would be sending each CC on a discrete MIDI Channel? I can't imagine wanting to send 16 different CC's to one device via one EXP Pedal or Controller? In theory, with enough MIDI Patchbays or Splitter boxes*, you could use one EXP Pedal, or other Controller to send CC's to 16 different MIDI devices, but you run into the reverse issue, figuring out which CC you want each device to Receive, and how to send multiple CC's, without a Sequencer, or something like it.

Not about this product in particular, but many Pedalboard-style MFX will also allow you to "assign" (Boss' term) the onboard EXP/Volume Pedals to send various MIDI CC commands from the MIDI Outs on the MFX. It's possible to design a group of User Presets that focus on the MIDI Control aspects of the MFX, essentially using it as a MIDI Footswitch Controller. I know that Behringer makes a MIDI Footswitch Controller with two onboard EXP Pedals, and a simple 1X4 MIDI Splitter box would allow you some of the same functionality as that Lake Butler Controller.

If you want something a little less "light industrial" looking, you could add something like this to the wood risers - Screw-on rubber bumpers 3/4 inch They'll also give you just a little bit more space for the power brick and cables. I use these - Cable tie base - with cable ties, to keep all my audio and power brick cables neatly bundled under my Pedalboards. You probably don't need 100 - yet - but FWIW, the 3/4-inch size fits perfectly under the rails of a Pedaltrain board. 1-inch bases are too wide to be completely invisible from the top of the 'board, but they're barely visible, and they work.

I'd be wary of folding legs on anything that I'm going to step on. I was thinking more of taking a 2x2 and cutting short lengths for risers.

Can't help with the Italia site, but this looks like the sort of upgrade you had in mind - Dano; Red "Crackle' Sitar - Sweetwater

Welcome aboard, and my respect on calling your space a "Music Room." (My own preferred term for my own Music space, because calling it a Studio would be hubris.)

Welcome, @Sparquelito! I've long been an advocate for the MFX-direct-to-FOH approach. Along with the ease of use, and much lower back strain, there's the fact that for most of us here in the Forums, few, if any, of the venues we perform at have the kind of space to justify hauling a 50 or 100-Watt Amp. Sure, I have fond memories of Rock Idols standing in front of Stonehenge-inspired backlines, but honestly, no one needs those things anymore, unless you're playing a stadium or an outdoor festival, and even then . . .

Sincere respect on building your own Pedalboard; those things are absurdly expensive, for what they are. Given that, my thought is to put some feet or risers underneath the 'board, to create enough space to mount the Power Supply underneath, clearing space for your pedals. Cheap and relatively easy solution. IKEA used to offer an inexpensive shelving unit called GORM. It looked a LOT like a Pedaltrain-style Pedalboard, but made of wood, and there are a lot of them posted online. Later on, IKEA switched to a design called HENJE, that, IMHO, looks even more like a Pedalboard. For some reason, the HENJE line is being discontinued as of July, so it looks as though most stores only have the entire assembly, rather than the individual parts? I got a 2-pack of the HENJE shelves for around $15, some time back.

Is your board large enough to try the "staggered" mounting I used on my Novo 24? It definitely saved me some space on that lower tier. My other suggestion would rely on your Amp having some kind of Channel Switching? Not the same as having two different settings for your DS-1W, but it would allow you to have different Gain or Drive levels for different tones.

Allow me . . . This is from a famous D.C. concert, way back when . . . One of maybe three songs that made me wish I was any good at Slide Guitar.

It doesn't appear so, not altogether. The three on the bottom left are Boss' original "Traffic Light" series, the Spectrum (I think it was the SP-1?), the OD-1, and the Phaser, the oldest of Boss' compact pedals. Way up in the uppermost corners, right and left, there are two PSM-5 Power Supply/Master Switches, with their boxes, mid-80's vintage. They were meant to work in Boss' BCB-6 molded plastic Pedalboard/Carrying Case. I had one back then, to go with my BCB-6. It powered 5 Boss compact pedals, and doubled as a sort of Master Bypass, where you could stomp on it and bypass, or engage, the Pedalboard. There are a few others that look like they're out of place, if it were meant to be a chronological line-up, like the deep red XT-2 Xtortion on the left-hand edge, with a Fuzz above it and next to it, but all in all, it's hard to be sure with the scale of the photo, and the glare on some of the pedals?

I have 2 Pedaltrain Pros (don't ask . . .) and they come in at 32 inches. Doing a quick layout check here, even with flat-head cables connecting the pedals, it would be an effort to get 20 compact Boss pedals on one Pedaltrain Pro. I can comfortably get 9 pedals side by side, with connecting cables. Late edit - This might be more helpful, a photo of a Pedaltrain Novo 24 where I staggered the bottom row of pedals to make more room. I managed to get 13 pedals on the board, arranged this way. FWIW, most of these pedals are right around the size of a Boss compact pedal, enough to make a good representation.

Much agreed. I have a number of "boutique" pedals that I picked up for decent "used" prices, by watching and waiting.