Project opinion - flyrig vs multi-1590a board

[patricks]

Howdy everyone!
I'm toying with the idea of building a small gig-ready rig, and debating whether to build a flyrig-style all-in-one box or multiple 1590a boxes on a very smol board. Likely powered by a power bank with voltage doubler and LM7809 regulator +/- a smoothing capacitor or RC network for power supply filtering.
I'm sure people have done plenty of either, I'd love any opinions please. And pics of builds much appreciated!
TIA,
Pat

Flyrig:
Pros -
Simple all-in one layout
Single enclosure
No extra cables and power supply wires externally
No need for additional pedalboard (cheaper in total)

Cons -
Limited flexibility once built, not able to swap effects in and out without pre-planning
Set effects order (unless extra switching built in)
Problematic if one effects unit fails in a live situation


Multi-1590a board
Pros -
Flexibility, change up effects and effect order as you like
Use the smol effects on other boards
If a unit fails live just take it out

Cons -
More expensive (buy multiple enclosures, needs external cables to connect fx units, needs a dedicated pedalboard)

[ElectricDruid]

You wouldn't necessarily have to all either/or. You could do a bit of both, say by combining some of your favourite pedals into one box, but then leaving yourself options to add a few extra things in 1590As. I've seen some nice dual-pedal builds that even had an effects loop between the two pedals.

I've always fancied building a multi-fx pedal, but I've never done it for the reasons you mentioned. But it would be cool to do.

[bluebunny]

It's true that if you build a single pedal comprising effects B+G+M+R and you grow out of love with it, you go ahead and build another with D+M+H+T.  But you're addicted to this pedal-building lark, so it's not really a problem, right?   

[Ben N]

You might also consider a modular or semi-modular approach to give you a little of the best of both worlds.
Say, an enclosure designed for 6-8 fx, with a built-in bypass strip at the front, space & support for fx mounted on standardized aluminum panels, analog synth-style, on something like rack mount rails, and unsexy stuff like power w/ IEC connector, i/o buffers, and insert jacks all built in.
By semimodular I mean just a big box with more or less standard drill-outs for your desired pedal-type controls, and circuit boards mounted & connected in some fairly easily swappable manner.

[bluebunny]

I was trying hard not to think of a solution like that.  But now that you've mentioned it Ben, I can't shake it loose. 

I'm envisaging a 500-series kinda thing with a backplane and a (probably remote) footswitch array.

[blackieNYC]

I have built three 7-in-1 enclosures.  I do like them and will probably do another.  On my next one I plan to give myself a little more flexibility. I honestly did not design them as fly-rigs. I just threw random stuff in there. I have swapped a couple effects in and out and I really need to make that easier for myself.
-drill 4 holes for knobs for each effect.  Fill extras with plastic slugs, and borrow a hole from a neighboring slot if an effect needs 5 or 6 pots. 
- wire up power and ground distribution first.  Otherwise things get messy.  Also LEDs and stomps.
-maybe consider adopting a small connector as a standard for power, ground, and maybe audio I/O.
On one of my units, I put in jacks for every effect in and out.  With normally closed jacks on the inputs, so you don't need a patch cable unless you are changing the sequence. If a stomp switch fails, you won't be screwed.  You can patch around it. 
I like to put two power jacks - one on each end- for convenience in daisy chaining. 
There is a LFO type effect and a PT2399 in there with no leakage problems.  I have not had any problems with internal power distribution noise.  Each effect has its own RC filter on the power input.  I haven't tried any BBD or noisy clock stuff.  Might be fine.
I use some recycled enclosures for this.  Single rack mount gear gutted of its contents, with a blank panel covering up the holes.  With or without cutting off the rack ears. 

[Matthew Sanford]

I had a thought on a flying/modular rig with 4 audio buses for the effect in/out to make order switching easier...actually trying to work that idea into a strat pickup selector, figuring all in series got extra loud!

[Ben N]

I was trying hard not to think of a solution like that.  But now that you've mentioned it Ben, I can't shake it loose. 

I'm envisaging a 500-series kinda thing with a backplane and a (probably remote) footswitch array.

Yup. I can't take credit/blame; it all goes back to Anderton in EPFM and his old GP series.

[patricks]

These are some great ideas, thanks everyone!

@electricdruid great point, and I have had a hankering to build a "Swiss army knife" utility pedal on the backburner for a while now. I wrote like the EQD Swiss Things pedal https://www.earthquakerdevices.com/swiss-things
Thinking of a variation with simulated cabinet outputs +/- balanced outputs and a built in EQ section.

@bluebunny Ha! You got me! The addiction is real!

@BenN that's a great idea, as you said essentially a semi-modular synth but with FX pedals.
That meets all the flyrig and smol pedalboard options, AND satisfies the pedal building addiction 

@blackieNYC great tips, thank you!

[Ben N]

Back in God-knows-when, Craig Anderton did a 2- or 3-part series in guitar Player laying out a switching system for, IIRC, 8 pedals and rotating them through several series and parallel slots using rotary or DIP switches. Anybody know where that might be available on the Interwebz? It's kind of an outdated model in the era of microprocessors, but it might provide some food for thought as patricks contemplates & formulates his grand plan, taking the Swiss Things idea to its insanely logical conclusion.

[patricks]

Oooh, I like this! To the interwebs!

Edit: is this it?
https://generalguitargadgets.com/effects-projects/boosters/effects-order-switcher/
It mentions Craig Anderton and effects order switching.

I do have a PDF of Electronics Projects for Guitar somewhere, too...

[Ben N]

Edit: is this it?
https://generalguitargadgets.com/effects-projects/boosters/effects-order-switcher/
It mentions Craig Anderton and effects order switching.

No, although that is a handy gadget too. This thing was insane: IIRC four or five series fx slots and two or three parallel slots, and any fx in the system could be routed to any slot. He imagined it in a rack, with remote footswitching (using the remote footswitch in EPFM, 'natch). Probably more complexity than anyone actually needs, and at the end of the day you're still limited. But there maybe something useful there for you, if you can find it.

[amptramp]

We have had threads on modular effects before and order-switching has sometimes been the major issue - if you have separate units connected by patch cables, you can get any order you want.  But suppose you have the input and every effect output plus ground connected as a parallel bus and you have rotary switches to connect each effect input and the unit output to rotary switches that can select one signal from this bus.

I would bet the single enclosure and rotary switches would be a cheaper and more reliable method of implementing a pedal chain than separate enclosures plus input and output jacks and jumper cables for separate effects.  Also, if you want to eliminate an effect, you just don't select it as an input, you select ground instead for unused effects.  If you need to change the order of the effects for the next song, it's a lot easier to do it on stage if you just have to reach down and turn a rotary switch rather than unplug units and plug them back in in a different order.  You could still have 3PDT stomp switches for each effect for switching during the middle of a song.

You might have to guarantee that the effects have a high input impedance and low output impedance for effective switching, but that is a good practice anyway.  It is also a good practice to have input buffers and output buffers for each effect with all controls between them so that items like tone controls cannot be affected by what effects you connect to.

In the end, this is going to be like comparing an all-in-one stereo system to a component stereo system.  The advantage of a component system is that you can upgrade a tuner, say, separately from the rest of the system and you don't have to buy a complete new system every time you want an upgrade.  But most musicians stick with a particular effect for most of their music and if they need, say, two different fuzzes, they can both be installed as separate modules in the one big box with the usual switching.

[r080]

I built myself something I intended to be an an all-in-one a couple years ago (TS, boost, delay), but I have second thoughts about it now. Here are a few things I did or did not fully consider:

-You may still need to put it on a small pedalboard if there are things you are missing. In my case, I need a tuner, and my amp doesn't have reverb.
-Choose your enclosure height carefully. I easily fit everything into a 2.5 inch tall case (1590DE), but that puts the switches up pretty high once it is on a pedaltrain.
-Normalling jacks!
-There was some guy who used to be a very prolific builder of multi pedals who had a great suggestions I did not follow - build a single purpose multi pedal, i.e. all the drives or all the modulation you might need to play your favorite artist's music.

[marcelomd]

The flyrig idea is good ONLY if you have few effects, use them only in one order, and don't change that setup often. Like "This is what I need for my set and I won't be experimenting".

Otherwise you end up with a board that is as big as a discrete pedalboard.

The intermediate solution is something like Pete Cornish's boards:

An enclosure with the pedals you like pre connected, power filtering, etc. You still have to open it to change order or circuits, but it's more flexible than a big board with everything.

[patricks]

This is all great feedback, thanks so much everyone!
I'm going to need to sit down and sketch out a few variants, and see what I like best.
And then build all the variants, cos diyfx "hobby" = addiction 😄

[ElectricDruid]

I was trying hard not to think of a solution like that.  But now that you've mentioned it Ben, I can't shake it loose. 

I'm envisaging a 500-series kinda thing with a backplane and a (probably remote) footswitch array.

A while back there was this little system - The Biyang Livemaster:


The effects are plug-in modules, so you buy the modules you want. They had a reasonable range of clones of standard stuff. The base unit was available in several lengths, and although it couldn't do order-switching, it did have memories, so you could recall a particular set of effects for a given song or whatever. Also the amp-switching module and an external loop module (shown in the image) meant you could add amp effects and other non-Biyang stuff into the chain and still retain the programmability.

All in all, a very neat and tidy little system. Ultimately doomed like all of these things seem to be, but perhaps one day someone will manage to do what Doepfer did for modular synths and create a format that other people pick up. Trouble is, when Doepfer did that, there *weren't* any cheap modular synths around, so he had an empty playing field. For pedals, the field is crowded already.

TBH, I think the Eurorack format or something very close might be pretty good for pedals. The rack rails and power supply (+/-12V, proper bipolar power and *headroom*! Yay!!) are all worked out for you already, and the only thing left would be to deal with the In/Outs and the switching. You could do that with patch leads like Eurorack modular synths do, but you could also build the rack into a case with the switching done globally, like the Biyang above. The Biyang modules were *tiny*, but Eurorack modules aren't very large (3U in height is 5.25"/133.35mm - width you can choose).

I doubt this is an idea that will ever leave the backburner in my head, but you never know

[patricks]

That's cool! I didn't know about the Biyang system, it's neat.

I really like the idea of Eurorack-style guitar FX systems. Part of me is surprised it hasn't happened before, part of me is very much not surprised it hasn't happened before, given guitarists' almost slavish devotion to things the way they are (were).
I'm guessing it'd need a few builders on board at the outset, and someone very devoted to make it a thing.
Kind of like Dan Steinhardt's GigRig. Brilliant idea, well executed, but if he wasn't running the company it wouldn't have as much of a life of its own and consumers would happily go back to situation normal.

That's my musings, anyway, I'd be keen to build in that format (if I can find the time...) 

[ElectricDruid]

Well, it *has* happened before. There was this, back in the 80's:

https://en.audiofanzine.com/misc-studio-effect/sequential-circuits/PRO-FX-MODEL-500/
https://synthmuseum.com/sequ/seqprofx01.html

The amazing thing about the Sequential system is that it had full programmability of all the modules too, all the knob settings, not just the on/off state like the Biyang - pretty impressive for the era. It was Dave Smith taking his "patch storage" idea from the Prophet 5 synth and applying it to studio effects. Unfortunately the level of tech required meant each module was very expensive for what it was, so it was never a success.