Let's see those FM3 rigs!

gdgross said:
Yeah, everything that I could is fixed to the board via screws going into the back of the plywood: FM3, voes MX-5 (against voes own recommendation 😬), both exp pedals, and the little headphone amp in the upper right. I countersunk all the holes in the back of the plywood, so that the board would sit flat on the ground. I think the only things that aren't hard screwed into the board are the little XLR to TS transformer on the lower left, and the power strip on the upper left. (and the footswitch on top of the voes mbox, which is in between those two)

I also routed a bunch of space under the FM3 to allow easy cable routing and good airflow. And routed an area for the mission exp pedal, haha, to make it sit a little flatter. I borrowed my dad's router and guess I went a little crazy with it haha.

There's also a nice handle cutout I made on the right side of the board so I could carry it easily without a bag/case. It's just a touch too deep for a 12x24 case; about 12 3/4" deep. I'm gonna trim off about 1/2" off the front soon, we'll see if that lets me cram it into my old hard case. Not that i have any flying gigs coming up soon... :-/
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Thats awesome! Fellow woodworker here also and I have been procrastinating on making my own board for a while now. My last excuse was I was waiting for my airstep midi footswitch to come in so I could lay out everything and figure out my plan of attack. Well I have the airstep so its time to get to work in the garage soon lol. Not sure if I am going to screw everything on....may just go for velcro. Great job man and extra points for using a router! ;-)
 
TD77 said:
Thats awesome! Fellow woodworker here also and I have been procrastinating on making my own board for a while now. My last excuse was I was waiting for my airstep midi footswitch to come in so I could lay out everything and figure out my plan of attack. Well I have the airstep so its time to get to work in the garage soon lol. Not sure if I am going to screw everything on....may just go for velcro. Great job man and extra points for using a router! ;-)
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well, calling me a woodworker is very generous, but thank you! haha

I love the hard mounting. Everything just feels so so solid. I don't think I ever want to go back to velco if I can avoid it!
 
Starting to mess around with scrap wood for DIY board scenarios. To be continued....
 

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Posted this to a FB group the other day, but thought I'd share here too: I finished up my FM3 integrated board! A jigsaw and drill were the only power tools used. Build pics below. The FM3 is secure yet easily disattached. The Moskey is set for tap tempo (top) and a preset-dependent effect (usually delay; bottom). FS1 is an overdrive. FS2&3 toggle between 4 base tone/effect combinations per preset. PXL_20210329_222251182.jpgPXL_20210320_185453387.jpgPXL_20210329_222313750.jpgPXL_20210317_225712108.jpg
 
gdgross said:
I have it set up to always be volume - it's connected directly to the FM3. The mission is mostly wah, but controls other parameters too. That one goes in through via CC through the MX-5.
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Thanks. More questions:
How are you powering the MX-5?
Where's that power plug on the FM3 running off to?
What's the XLR to TRS transformer for?
What do you use the single footswitch for?
What's that little box under the footswitch?

I think that's about it. :)
 
Deadpool_25 said:
Thanks. More questions:
How are you powering the MX-5?
Where's that power plug on the FM3 running off to?
What's the XLR to TRS transformer for?
What do you use the single footswitch for?
What's that little box under the footswitch?

I think that's about it. :)
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Sure thing lol -

MX 5 and the heaphone amp above the eb vp are powered from the FASlink port - I bought a 9VDC converter which takes the 11V from the port and makes 9V for those two. It's built into this giant octopus cable that has 1 end for the FASLINK, (that's the green plug in the back), one end for a standard dc barrel jack (that's plugged into the headphone amp), one 5 pin midi (that plugs into the voes mbox 1->2way midi converter box under the switch on the right of the board) and one 7 pin midi which plugs into the MX-5. It's mostly hidden underneath the FM3, though can obv see all the ends! Complicated but works great.

The power plug in the back of the FM3 runs underneath and into that little power strip on the right hand side. I cut a hole in the side of the strip and connected hardwired the cable into the strip. So when I plug in i connect my power cable to the strip, and the FM3 doesn't need to be reconnected.

the little transformer is for connecting a mic input to input 2 - sometimes I like using the looper with a mic in!

Single footswitch is mostly undefined right now, but it's a direct connect to the FM3. Likely uses will probably be reverb hold, gain boost, maybe it'll vary per preset; i'm not sure yet, still feeling out how this new setup will work.

The box under the fsw is a voes MBOX - it takes one way midi and converts to two way midi so that the MX-5 can know the state of the blocks in the FM3 and update itself accordingly. You'll notice that there are two midi plugs connected to the FM3. It also holds up the footswitch. :)

Once I get this thing all dialed in i think i'm gonna be pretty happy with it!
 
gdgross said:
Sure thing lol -

MX 5 and the heaphone amp above the eb vp are powered from the FASlink port - I bought a 9VDC converter which takes the 11V from the port and makes 9V for those two. It's built into this giant octopus cable that has 1 end for the FASLINK, (that's the green plug in the back), one end for a standard dc barrel jack (that's plugged into the headphone amp), one 5 pin midi (that plugs into the voes mbox 1->2way midi converter box under the switch on the right of the board) and one 7 pin midi which plugs into the MX-5. It's mostly hidden underneath the FM3, though can obv see all the ends! Complicated but works great.

The power plug in the back of the FM3 runs underneath and into that little power strip on the right hand side. I cut a hole in the side of the strip and connected hardwired the cable into the strip. So when I plug in i connect my power cable to the strip, and the FM3 doesn't need to be reconnected.

the little transformer is for connecting a mic input to input 2 - sometimes I like using the looper with a mic in!

Single footswitch is mostly undefined right now, but it's a direct connect to the FM3. Likely uses will probably be reverb hold, gain boost, maybe it'll vary per preset; i'm not sure yet, still feeling out how this new setup will work.

The box under the fsw is a voes MBOX - it takes one way midi and converts to two way midi so that the MX-5 can know the state of the blocks in the FM3 and update itself accordingly. You'll notice that there are two midi plugs connected to the FM3. It also holds up the footswitch. :)

Once I get this thing all dialed in i think i'm gonna be pretty happy with it!
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Thank you! I'm still trying to figure out how I really want everything setup. The FM3 with FC6 is pretty wide, and the footprint gets even bigger with a couple of expression pedals (or one exp and my EB VP Tuner). I'm considering an MX-5 and a dual switch to cut out the FC6 and reduce the footprint. Sounds like that MBOX is very handy with the MX-5.
 
Deadpool_25 said:
Thank you! I'm still trying to figure out how I really want everything setup. The FM3 with FC6 is pretty wide, and the footprint gets even bigger with a couple of expression pedals (or one exp and my EB VP Tuner). I'm considering an MX-5 and a dual switch to cut out the FC6 and reduce the footprint. Sounds like that MBOX is very handy with the MX-5.
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That's exactly why I haven't gone for the FC6 - I want to shrink my pedalboard, not grow it! As it is, this is still bigger than my ax8 board, but I can live with it, and part of it is unavoidable anyway - I abandoned the mini volume and exp pedals I was using in favor of full-sized pedals. The minis are space savers for sure, but just don't feel as good as the full sized ones.

The MBOX and two way midi is nice - and @voes (who's on the forum here) is super helpful in getting your programming right. IMO for 5 smart switches, that MX-5 footprint just can't be beat!
 
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Also, just something to think about. The mx-5 has two "pages" available, with long and short presses for each switch on each page, so you really do have a lot of options. I have mine more or less set up with individual effects on/off on the first page short press, and effects channel increment on the long press. On the second page I have scenes 1-4 on the short presses, and scenes 5-8 on the long presses. Once I get used to everything I'll start adapting the FM3 switches and my one external switch to do what I want. tap tempo will be one, probably some looper functions, maybe some other things. Don't need a tuner switch anymore since the heel down volume does that! I haven't even looked at performance modes yet...

Haven't had a lot of electric gigs this year to really try it out though hahaha, so getting comfortable may take a minute! hah.
 
Finally received my temple board so was able to mount everything. Everything is screwed to the board. No velcro needed (except for the power supply underneath). Still waiting for the correct angled power plug so the power cables you see are temporary..
 

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