 |
Under the hood, things are extraordinarily tidy. Note that the power supplies and EP Booster pedal are
mounted to the underside of the board, and that the cabling is bundled and secured with screws every few
inches for maximum stability under duress. |
According to Trailer Trash Pedalboards’
James “Rooster” Olson, his company offers three general
product levels: stock Pro Series boards in soft
cases (also available through retailers), Pro Series
and Glow-Top boards in soft or hard cases (including
A.T.A.) prepped for the customer to complete and
wire themselves, and those same boards fully completed
and hand-wired by Trailer Trash. Olson works
directly with customers when building boards in the
second and third categories, which may be customized
in numerous ways, such as adding effects loop
switching systems, courtesy AC outlets, MIDI I/O,
and variations on the illuminated Glow Tops. The
boards are available in five sizes (24"x12", 28"x16",
30"x18", 36"x18", and 40"x18") and a variety of colors.
Originally, Olson was just going to prep a board
and I was going to mount and wire all of my pedals,
but ultimately he offered to wire the board himself to
showcase the quality of his workmanship—and who
was I to argue? My basic requirements were to have
a 28"x16" board in an A.T.A. case with a total weight
less than the airline cutoff of 50 lbs in order to avoid
baggage upcharges when flying. I also wanted to have
a loop-switching system that allowed me to put four
pedals into bypass loops, with a Master switch to
engage any combination of those pedals by pressing
a single footswitch.
At first, Olson was skeptical about getting all of
my pedals and a loop-switcher onto a 28"x16" board,
particularly if I wanted to use soldered plugs, which
was my preference. “One of the biggest challenges
when building soldered-plug, true-bypass-loop boards
is making everything fit,” explains Olson. “Most of
the loop-switcher companies mount their jacks so
close together that it forces the builder to use straight
plugs, which means using approximately 3" of space as opposed to 5/8" for angled plugs. Up to
this point we had been forced to use solderless
angled plugs to build our loop-switching
boards, but thanks to T1M (this1smyne.
com) we were able to have a switcher built
that accommodated solderable angled plugs,
and that also allowed us to use Evidence
Monorail cable, which sounds fantastic.”
T1M also supplied a small 3-button Eventide
Aux Switcher ($40 direct) for use with
my DelayFactor pedal, and a Mini Tap-
Tempo footswitch ($25 direct) for use with
my Moogerfooger MIDI MuRF—and those
smaller components were crucial to fitting
everything into a 28"x16" space.
The final layout of the pedalboard
generally followed my original design,
though Olson recommended a few important
changes. “Laying out the board so
the pedals that need to be stepped on
are situated at the base of the board is
essential,” says Olson. “Since most of the
pedals are in the loop-switcher on this board, we were able to get the looped
boxes out of the way, leaving room for
all of the switches and the volume and
expression pedals up front.”
The next issue was signal flow. Directly
after the Neutrik locking input connector
the signal is routed through an Xotic
Effects EP Booster (always on, at minimal
boost setting) to an Ernie Ball volume pedal
(with a Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner connected
to the pedal’s Tuner output). Next
in line is the T1M loop-switcher, with four
pedals in true-bypass loops (a Euthymia
ICBM Fuzz, a Crowther Prunes & Custard
Harmonic-Intermodulator, an Electro-
Harmonix Micro POG, and a WMD Geiger
Counter) and a Master Bypass switch. The
output signal from the switcher goes to the
Moogerfooger MIDI MuRF and then to the
Eventide DelayFactor, and the TimeFactor’s
stereo signal goes to two Neutrik locking
output connectors. A modified Roland
EV-5 Expression pedal was also connected
to the TimeFactor.
I connect my pedalboard to the stereo
inputs of a Fractal Audio Axe-Fx Ultra, and
I wanted to be able to transmit MIDI messages
from the Axe-Fx to the MuRF and the
TimeFactor, so Olson recommended installing
a master MIDI input on the output side
of the board to keep things tidy. The Time-
Factor’s MIDI I/O connectors are on the side of the pedal, so to conserve critical space
he used two angled MIDI plugs and then
daisy chained the MIDI signal to the MuRF
The final consideration was powering
the pedals and the loop-switcher. Olson
recommended using Voodoo Lab Pedal
Power 2 Plus ($169 street) and ISO-5
($109 street) power supplies, the latter
primarily to meet the requirements of the
Eventide pedal. He also installed a courtesy
A.C. power outlet on the input side
of the board—a nice touch.
When the completed pedalboard arrived
at the GP offices it made such an impression
that another editor decided to order
one of his own. The workmanship was
superb—from the manner in which the
pedals were attached to the Hard Top surface
to the exquisite wiring throughout to
the way in which the board fit securely into
its A.T.A. flight case—and visually it was
stunning. Plugging in, the loop-switcher
was dead quiet and gain neutral, and I could
not detect any signal degradation or noise,
other than the nearly negligible amount of
attenuation typical when running through
several high-quality pedals. The aux footswitches
were also quiet, and the MIDI connection
fully functional. In every respect, I
found—and continue to find—it inspiring
to play through. For all those reasons, it
receives an Editors’ Pick Award.
Contact Trailer Trash Pedalboards, (720) 320-6975; trailertrashpedalboards.com
Price Approximately $1,500 (prices vary depending on options)
Kudos Ruggedly constructed. Immaculate workmanship. Transparent sound.
Concerns None.