Chat about Equipment Info
 #34814  by 1960strat
 
I an finally going to break down and get a gcx unit. But i have everal questions. 1) How do you guys use your tuner and wahs with the unit? 2) do you have any favorites in terms of enclosure units? I want to be able to put all my pedals and the gcx together. 3) There are two switchers a ground control unit and a ground link unit. Do you use them together? what does this add?

Thanks for the help

 #34815  by strumminsix
 
I replied to you via GearHeads. But here it is again for the benefit of others....


Hi! Hope this helps:

1) How do you guys use your tuner and wahs with the unit? - Don't use a wah but you could use a rack wah or go: Guitar > Wah > GCX input. I use a rack tuner and do a send to the tuner without a return so it automatically muted via GCX technology.

2) do you have any favorites in terms of enclosure units? - I use a RoadReady effects rack. It is less shallow than the standard rack which cuts down on weight. I put my pedals on a shelf that I completely vecro'd.

3) There are two switchers a ground control unit and a ground link unit. Do you use them together? - Yes they can be used together or independently. There is also a ground control Pro. Or you could use other MIDI switchers. It all depends on how hi-tech you would like to be and how much tap dancing you'd do. I like the GroundLink and don't mind tapping.

Also, if you do a shelf I recommend using thumbscrews for the rack so you don't need a screw driver to remove the shelf.

Here are some pics (not current line-up of FX):
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v173/ ... lation.jpg

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v173/ ... howoff.jpg

 #34865  by deadguise
 
I'm planning to get myself a GCX soon, however, I do have a problem paying an equal amount for the ground control pedal board. Would a Johnson J12 foot controller work instead?

 #35175  by 1960strat
 
I have all the components for the rack, but when i got the shelf unit for the pedals it came with two reinforcement bars over the top which rendered it useless as the pedals can fit under the bars. What type of shelf rack are you guys using to hold pedals in a rack mount rig.

Also bought a power conditioner for good measure.

 #35176  by strumminsix
 
What type of rack? FX or amp

I use a flat stationary shelf. I think Raxxess?

 #35193  by myoung6923
 
I had surface mounted mine. I made a panel out of plywood, painted it black, drilled 2 - 1" holes mid panel and covered the face of it with velcro. I then mounted it on the face of the rack and stuck my pedals on there. I left just enough space above and below the panel to route cables. I also routed cables through the 1"holes. This worked life a freakn' charm!. On the rear of the panel I mounted a Voodoo Labs Pedal Power Plus power supply to run DC power to the pedals.

I like this system as opposed to everything on a shelf because it's easy to adjust things on the fly - everything can be up at hand level and clearly visible.

Works great but you need a decent size rack to do this.

Here's a pic:

Image

 #35194  by High Peaks
 
Hey Myoung,
I see the mixer on the bottom. Did you feed your mics into it, then go to the board with a Left-Right stereo mix?

 #35197  by myoung6923
 
No - I needed some kind of pre-amp to boost up the signal from the pre-amp out on the twin into my QSC power amp. The input sensitivity on the QSC is too high for the low output signal from the twin. So I had 3 options - somehow boost the signal from the twin's pre-amp out, mod the QSC to lower the input sensitivity or put some sort of pre-amp in the middle just to boost the signal a little. The mixer was a cheap and effective solution.

 #35198  by strumminsix
 
Mike - how heavy is your rack? What size stages do you play?

 #35201  by myoung6923
 
well, I split from my last band last Oct and am in the process of getting a new one going - so, I'm not playing on ANY stages at the moment. But I had switched to mainly using a pedal board. The unit wasn't too heavy - the power amp was 27lbs. It WAS bulky though, so it was a bit awkward to lift by yourself - I could do it but it wasn't fun. WHile the whole unit is tall it doesn't really take up that much square footage.

Some of the stages that we played were plenty big to bring this kind of stuff - some were tiny and I had to adjust.

I switched to the pedal board for a couple of reasons... an awful lot of complaints from band members that the rig was "intimidating"... whatever that is..., ease of setup/teardown, easier to troubleshoot and finally - I like the tone through the power tubes. I found my tone without them to just be too clean - the tubes (with the bias set just right) add just a touch of grit along with the clean tone at a pretty high volume.

I do miss the big rig though for ease of adjusting effects. It drives me nuts trying to stoop down to the floor to tweak an effect mid-song. Sometimes you can't do it at all and you struggle through a song knowing full well that it could sound better if you could only - just - turn that knob....

I keep thinking about building a smaller version, without a power amp - something that could sit on top of my speaker maybe. One more project for the future...

 #35203  by 1960strat
 
Wow this is great stuff. Myoung, I went with a 6 U rack with wheels, figures that was small enough. I wouls love to know if you used the ground controller, how you had the fx running in the back, whether you used amp awitching, how your tuner was set up, also can you combine fx loops in the gcx with the ground controller? sorry for the barrage of questions.

 #35207  by strumminsix
 
1960strat wrote:Wow this is great stuff. Myoung, I went with a 6 U rack with wheels, figures that was small enough. I wouls love to know if you used the ground controller, how you had the fx running in the back, whether you used amp awitching, how your tuner was set up, also can you combine fx loops in the gcx with the ground controller? sorry for the barrage of questions.
You weren't asking me but I'll tell you what I use it to do:
- buffer my input
- mute to the tuner by sending w/o a return
- controlling my tremolo comig on or off by send w/o in

GCX relays in pedals in order 1-8. Controllers can do a variety of on/off combos but not re-order the pedals.

What size rack did you get depthwise? FX or amp?

Here are some pics of my back:
Image
Image
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 #35509  by 1960strat
 
I am amazed by how much was muddying up my sound by going through pedals not true bypassed. This GCX thing is worth it for that alone. incredible.

 #35513  by myoung6923
 
1960strat wrote:Wow this is great stuff. Myoung, I went with a 6 U rack with wheels, figures that was small enough. I wouls love to know if you used the ground controller, how you had the fx running in the back, whether you used amp awitching, how your tuner was set up, also can you combine fx loops in the gcx with the ground controller? sorry for the barrage of questions.
I did use the ground controller. I did not use amp switching. The effects I pretty much had the out from one channel go to the in of the next. For the tuner: I just plugged into the straight through jack into he front, ran the cable out from the other side up to he tuner - the output from the tuner I ran into the input for loop 1. So when I pushed the mute button on the tuner the entire signal was silenced. I could either tune up audibly, or hit the mute button and do it silent. Nice and easy.

And, like strumminsix already said - no, you can't combine loops with the ground controller - they con only be physically combined on the GCX. However - keep in mind that when activated, the signal will go in the order that they are wired and be combined that way. So if you turn on say 3, 4, 6 and 7 - then those 4 will be combined. It's jest dependant on how you have it wired up.