Voodoo Lab

Hi,

I’ve had the PX-8 Plus for 3 years now and somehow managed to program presets with 2 MIDI enabled pedals (Wampler Terraform and Source Audio EQ2). That has worked incredibly well for the past year.

I added the Wampler Pantheon Deluxe with MIDI as well and I thought that I connected the MIDI cables in the correct order, but can’t get those 3 pedals to communicate with the switcher.

Question 1) Please tell me if I got this signal path correct.

MIDI out of switcher to MIDI In on Terraform >
MIDI Thru on Terraform to MIDI In on EQ2 >
MIDI Thru on EQ2 to MIDI In on Pantheon

Question 2) Can I assign each of those 3 pedals to separate MIDI channels through the switcher or do I need to synchronize the presets I want from all of the MIDI pedals to access through the same PC message as the switcher’s preset that I assign it to?

Question 3) The PX-8’s manual only lists CC messages in groups of 8 starting at 56-63 - what if a pedal I have only allows me to enable it through CC #32?

Thanks in advance!

Hi John,

I wanted to experiment with having all 8 loops in front of the amp instead of splitting at 4 and had some success. Kept everything the way it was except I added a pedal that was swapped out (Boss Metalizer taken off vs. Wampler Velvet Fuzz) in loop 4 with different lengths of cable and found 2 patch cables that worked. Besides eliminating the amp FX loop, I noticed that adding a Boss buffered pedal brought back a lot of treble in my EQ that was gone from the last 2 configurations.

I’ll give the loop 4 split another try soon, but this works for now. I can’t tell you enough about how much the dingbat setup and PX-8+ has improved my tones and simplified everything now that I’ve had a couple months to play around with it! Trying to convince some of my friends who have smaller setups with pedals but no boards to buy the bundle with just the board plus power supply. I’m a proud Voodoo Lab supporter now!

Hi John,

Keeping loop 4 as the split point has been working well for the most part, but I did have some issues that happened 2 days in a row that I'm concerned about and still not 100% sure how it works. Here's a review of the split:

Loop 4 Send -> Instrument Input on the amp
FX Send from the amp -> Loop 4 Return
(Loop 4 will need to always be Active)

If loop 4 is turned off on the PX-8+ I still get a sound and it is much louder - if it is turned off, is my tone coming from the front of the amp or built-in FX loop?

And back to my original point in this post, I've had 2 cases where loop 4 is turned on and everything goes completely silent. Double checked all of my cables and inputs and nothing is wrong with them. The second time it happened during a rehearsal and I had to wing it with loop 4 off, extreme focus on volume pedal, and turning individual pedals on/off instead of my presets.

If I'm getting no sound from loop 4 in that case, does that mean that something has blown out? All 11 pedals still turn on and off through PX-8+ with no problem.

Hi John,

A few of the patch cables I ordered were not long enough, but I've wired everything up the way you suggested and I LOVE LOVE LOVE the PX-8+! After a couple minutes reading through the manual, I got my first 4 presets to work and it's a life saver!

Using your recommended setup, I do get significant amp noise (not sure if it's from the 2 generic instrument cables I'm using for connecting a couple of the pedals while I wait for more patches). I still can play with loop 4 turned off, but the clean tone is louder and a little crunchy, which I'm not a fan of.

If I decide later on that I would rather save some headaches and not use the amp's FX loop, could I still use the same setup except having access to loop 4? How would that work if the input only goes to front of amp? Output on PX-8 plugged into amp and loop 4 connected the same way I did with the rest of the pedals?

Note: I ordered 2 longer high quality cables for the amp FX loop connection and 2 longer patch cables coming in a few days that will hopefully reduce the noise.

I have to sit with that in my head and draw it on paper, but that makes a lot of sense. I have 2 of my overdrives I don't use too often and wouldn't feel bad about taking it out of the chain or swapping it with something when needed in the name of staying sane during the process of programming everything.

My best friend and I are both almost 30 years old and music school graduates and our new band's first gig is in 1 month at an outdoor venue next to our college with a 3000 seat capacity, so I'm crossing my fingers that I can get this done before then. So happy I chose to buy the Dingbat board with the PX-8+ pre-installed even though I had no idea I'd need it for gigs this soon!

I'm guessing active chorus in front of tuner was during a gig? Definitely hoping to avoid anything like that.

It will probably be a week before I get all of the patch cables, but I love the concept of this signal chain that you suggested! I'll reply back once I give it a try!

Thanks a bunch!

Thanks for the start, John! I put in an order for a bunch of patch cables to wire up the PX-8+ after measuring it all out and hope it will work for me.

I have some followups based on your response as I re-read the manual and hopefully not to waste your time -
1) If I choose not to include the tuner, wah, compressor, or volume pedals in any loops, where would they be plugged into? The insert between loops 6 and 7? I am totally fine with keeping those separate and even taking 1 of the overdrives out if needed.
2) Can the volume pedal also be used as a master volume if it's run on the insert and remaining on in the signal? I can also plug the tuner into the volume pedal to free up space that way.

Hi and thanks in advance for anyone who takes the time to read this!

I've been playing for 18 years and teaching music for a long time, but am now starting a band with my best friends and decided to step up my rig with the Dingbat medium board with Mondo Power and PX-8 Plus built-in. Haven't used the PX-8 Plus to this point because I was experimenting with and adding pedals and am ready to get it going. I've never been a pedal guy and have never used a switching system, but look forward to using it on gigs once I program it.

Signal chain is Guitar > Polytune > Mini Wah > Compressor > Tumnus overdrive > Boss Bassman overdrive > Boss Metalizer > Butler Tube Driver > Mini Volume. I also have Chorus/Rotary > Phase > Digital Delay > Analog Delay in effects loop and want to keep them there.

Not sure if it matters for this discussion other than using Mondo to power the PX-8, but of the 11 pedals the tube driver and volume are not plugged into the power supply.

I apologize if any of these are stupid questions.

1) If I use the 4 pedals in my amp's effects loop running through the PX-8's insert between loops 6 and 7, can I access each of those individually?
2) Since there are only 8 loops on the PX-8, would it make a difference if I combined 2 pedals into 1 particular loop like an overdrive with the volume pedal? I'd like to keep the volume working as a master volume for my whole signal chain. Or would putting volume pedal in amp effects loop take care of that?