As a point of interest, I actually hand built the cables in my rack from scratch using 12 gauge solid core copper wire that I twisted by hand, wrapped in aluminum foil for shielding, shrink tubed for added insulation, and used epoxy between the contacts as a strain relief. Not only was the tone just plain awesome, it allowed me to bend the cable at right angles (as you can see above) for a really clean setup...and of course it was way less expensive and sounded as good as or better than most boutique solid core cables.
Anyway, the rack rig was great for my previous band as I didn't change my settings very often, but with my new band, I was changing my settings a lot more and doing more sonic exploration and digging around in the back of my rack, regardless of how tidy the wiring, was sort of a hassle, so I decided it was time to move back to a pedalboard setup, but I still needed the flexibility that the rack rig offer me.
My solution was to build the board below. I've been lugging this monster around to shows and recording sessions for the last year or so. It's performed flawlessly and did everything I needed it to do to reproduce our recordings live, but it's big...TOO big...but at the time the M-9 wasn't even on the radar.
So once the M-9 came out, I knew it was time to replace the M-13 and downsize my board. I also picked up a TC Electronic Nova Drive (to replace my Timmy and Xotic BB Preamp), a Blackout Effectors Twosome fuzz (to replace my Skreddy Top Fuel and give me two fuzz tones on one board) and a Musicom Lab MIDI loop switcher (to replace the Ground Control and the modified Voodoo Lab Pedal Switchers).
In fact not only is my board smaller, it gives me even more tonal options than I had before. I haven't wired it up yet (that I'll do this weekend) but here's the layout. The final signal path is as follows (all in the Musicom Lab MIDI loop switcher)...
Keeley Comp => Blackout Effectors Twosome Fuzz => TC Electronic Nova Drive => Keeley Katana Clean Boost => Xotic AC Booster => EHX Worm => Eventide TimeFactor => Line 6 M-9
The outputs of the M-9 and the TimeFactor are run into my RJM Micro Mixer instead of the loop "return" on the Musicom Lab switcher which allows my delays and reverbs to trail off naturally when their loop inputs are bypassed...it also allows me to run my signal in stereo.
