SteveD61
Inspired
Hi Everyone,
I’ve just finished setting up my AX8 on a pedalboard and would like to share my learnings. I learnt a lot from going through this forum before I started, so I’ll share what I’ve learnt to help any one else I can. I’m starting a new thread rather than adding to an old one (hope that’s OK)
It’s deceptive to look at the board because it looks so simple – just an AX8 and an EV-1 – just stick them on and away you go!! No it wasn’t that simple and I’ll go through all the issues I had to deal with. I used a Temple Audio Duo 24 as my board.
I’ve just finished setting up my AX8 on a pedalboard and would like to share my learnings. I learnt a lot from going through this forum before I started, so I’ll share what I’ve learnt to help any one else I can. I’m starting a new thread rather than adding to an old one (hope that’s OK)
It’s deceptive to look at the board because it looks so simple – just an AX8 and an EV-1 – just stick them on and away you go!! No it wasn’t that simple and I’ll go through all the issues I had to deal with. I used a Temple Audio Duo 24 as my board.
- First lesson = plan, plan, and plan again – I can’t stress enough to importance of planning the board out before you start physically doing anything – lots of things to consider that will save wasted materials if you get it right first time. There is a planner on the Temple Audio website, but I’d recommend doing a sketch to scale for both the top and bottom.
- Quick release plates – if you plan on using these the planning is critical, particularly if you’re mounting on both sides of the deck. Each plate has a large round nut in the centre that pokes through the deck, so make sure there’s not a pedal there. Also the corners have a small locating pin – you can have a pedal above them, but two plates can’t share the same grid hole (this happened a couple of times)
- Cable traffic – the large slots in the top row of the board carry a lot of cable traffic so don’t mount anything in this area – both top and bottom
- Ins and outs – think about what you want to connect to the board as it will affect the layout = e.g. The XLR out on the AX8 was a major challenge to get it to land on a cable slot.
- Line 6 G10S – there wasn’t enough space on the upper deck so it had to go under mounted on a large plate – works great. There’s about 2 ½ “ space at the thickest end of the board so it needs to go near that end. Even though it’s facing down it works fine!! It needed mains power for it’s wall wart so I made a little junction box and mounted it on the support beam under the board. I used a small plate to mount it. There's about 45 mm of space under to mount allowing for the plate.
- Power – I used the TA power accessory, and had to cut it to attach a 90-degree connector to the AX8. The connector won’t fit through the slot in the board so I connected it in-situ. I used the junction box to also provide a mains output for the G10s wall wart.
- Feet removal – removed the rubber feet from both the AX8 and the EV-1. Replaced the screws on both with M3.5 x 6mm flat heads as recommended on the forum by Fractal themselves. Works perfectly – the screws are not flush but the quick-release plates are thicker so it all works – just don’t land any screw heads over any attachment plates.
- Mounting the AX8 – in my case mounted on 4 medium plates – very strong. But very hard to mount it and get it perfectly square – it’s quite heavy and once it touches the adhesive that's where it stays. If I had my time over i'd stack coins near the edge of each attachment plate, just a little thicker than the plate, then locate the AX8 in position and gently slide the coins out.
- Outputs – I’ve got one on channel 2 going to a personal monitor via a ¼ “ jack on the side – make sure you use a TRS to connect ot this to keep the jack as a humbuster. Another XLR from output 1 goes to and XLR on the side to go to the house PA.
- EV-1 pedal mounted on a large at the the front and a medium at the rear.
- Patch cables are EBS – very compact. Output 2 and Pedal cable are TRS all others are TS.
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