My Pedalboard Gets The Xact Tone Solutions Makeover - Ask Zac 181 

Hey Zac.. This is my first response to your channel, but been a faithful viewer for years now. we're kindred spirits. I'm fixin to turn 51 & been a tele guy for most of my life. I played guitar in a very popular local band through the early 2000's & got the chance to open for several national acts in my area of western NC. I remember opening for Lee Roy Parnell & checking out his rig, as we do. I have a TS10 & remember seeing a pedal on his board I didn't recognize, but looked allot like my old TS10 but with more knobs. I never forgot that pedal & his tone that night. Funny you mentioned Lee Roy on this episode. He was a cool guy to work with on that gig.

Pedal boards have come a long way from when I lived in Nashville and toured with Ed Bruce (circa early to mid 80's). Prior to that I didn't need a pedal board, I was in night club house bands working 5 nights week for at least 1 year, up to 5 years at a stint. But having the pedals on a board was the solution for a fast setup in touring, and especially the Opry, when we had about 30 seconds to be ready for the count off (live radio back then). There were no pedal boards you could buy unless you had an amp tech make you one (if you could find one that would), or you got one of those Boss plastic gadgets. So you made your own. I cut a piece of 1/4" plywood to fit inside an Anvil briefcase, painted it black, and mounted the pedals and power supply on it. I used all Boss pedals then, compressor, overdrive, chorus, and delay (required to replicate the guitar sounds on Ed's recordings). And a TU12 with a DOD AB box that routed the guitar to the tuner A, then B through the pedals (so the tuner was out of the loop, it also was a good standby for changing guitars, and those tuners made a nasty noise when they were inline. I didn't like the Boss plastic pedal boards that were available back then, and I shortened the long wire on the Boss power supply and used a good extension cord to get AC to the board, because people step all over your cords. It worked great, no problems, not even airport luggage handlers could wreck it. To mount the pedals I used the same size plate screws Boss used but longer to go through the board, so the pedals were screwed to the board, only the tuner and the power supply had Velcro. The good old days, HA HA. When pedals were screwed to plywood. Mamas Don't Let Your Cowboys Grow Up To Be Babies. RIP Ed Bruce.

Untapped potential - Barry and XTS having their own RU-vid page with this great content.

Hey Zac, thanks for this video. I built a small board too. I watched your Jon Leventhal talk and heard you guys talking about the Line 6 delay and picked one up on Reverb. I was getting a high pitched squeal. I thought it was a defective pedal but at the end of this video they mentioned that the isolated outputs on the power supply prevent a squeal from the delay! Bingo. I had been splitting one of the outputs for a looper while practicing. I just moved that split to the tuner on the other side and that fixed it. So thanks again for sharing your experience at XTS. You really helped me out.

Cool content fellas. Dig the team effort discussion 🤘

Looks strong, clean and compact. Nice work!

As a slightly older guitar player. Just want to say that pedal board is so mature and nice Zack. The six-pedal strait line board is "the" board. Tuna>Comp>OD>Mod>delay. Option to double up one.

XTS, Barry & Eric are the men ! ... & not forgetting Greg !

The clean nature of a pedalboard is what originally drew me to the HELIX unit - along with tall of the I/O options and no need for all of the DI accessories. I do like the way you have done this one.

Loved it.

Looks great. I’ve taken some inspiration from your earlier videos about your board. Guess I’ve got to step up. Hope you’re doing well!

What a great video have a wonderful day zac ❤😊

Super cool !

A field trip with Zac. Oh boy. I have owned less than ten pedals since 1975. I currently own one. It is a Visual Sound - Open Road.

Love the Mirage pedal. I’ve had one for years.

great episode ...

FX Engineering love! I have a bunch of custom one-off pedals from Montez, plus a Mirage or two. Currently mainly using two of his clean boosts stacked on one super stripped down board.

Yes, Dual Lock is what you want!

Xact Tone are the best in the biz! You might find someone with equal skills but no one better. Awesome board! The only thing missing are some Fix accessories🤣

G’day Zac Luv the p/ board vid . I had a double board with pedals behind , complicated, and you put spare pedals on cos u can. Then I got my grinder out and cut the second top half off and just got similar what you got - TC 3 tuner , compressor , boss SD overdrive from the 80’s, boss Wass craft tremolo and boss dd7 delay. One straight line , option paralysis gone, True Tone power supply underneath - luv it. When’s the episode on top loaders. Get a lot of comments on the amp schematic t shirt . Twang on.

Nice rig Zac

Ha, I watched the follow up video with the second pedalboard before seeing this. Was wondering why you put the trem before your drive pedal. Got it!

That shirt is amazing on camera! ;)

My first pedalboard was modeled after another Zack,… Zack Wylde. 1/4 inch plywood and I think it weighed in at 20lbs!!! I have since lightened the load a bit. 😂

I kind of like Buckethead’s approach. He just had pedals all over the floor.

💗☺👍 - Good wholesome friendly Guitar job nerdery - love it to bits - please please keep going ☺👍

My 'pedalboard' : Left side of Truetone VS-XO into Source Audio Vertigo tremolo into right side of VS-XO, usually set to clean boost. I have run the trem into dirt, also a cool sound. I don't think Hank done it that way.

I just copied your board setup... not the pedals, I have my own quirks in that department, but the board, power supply and cables - that's really prime stuff.

Sonic Research are one of the best. They need a bit more props.

The Boss delay - is it easy to get to with your foot on the fly? Seems like a tight fit between the Mostortion and the Line 6.

The trem into dirt chain is great when you get used to it. I also shamelessly ripped off Mr. Leventhal, and my trem sounds lush going into my lightly driven Nobels. (Also when I've had my supro Trem on the board, the dirt has moderated the noise floor/bass boost on my behalf).

Like I seem to say EVERY time… “As always…” you find a way to “useful” way to set fire to some cash! 😂 Seriously tho, those guys have been on my radar for many moons. (The “Uncle Larry’s hearing test” was both informative and jaw dropping for LOTS of reasons. ) Regarding Leventhal: Talk about a star to guide your ship by!! For my money Lauderdale’s “Planet Of Love” is THE “Encyclopedia of Bakersfield” and more. I can’t begin to count the things I’ve “borrowed” from that guy over the years. And, as always… THANK you for the useful data and hard won insights that help guide us all to a smoother road on this twangy journey!

Swiss army knife board!!!!

Zac, I need to ask the obvious question here. How much does XTS charge for this service of a pedal board of this size?

How are the pedals attached to mono board? Velcro?

Zack would it be more appropriately called Little John?” Given the size….lol.

I'm trying to build smaller boards lately. But I have way too many pedals in general and I feel bad if I leave one out.

What did that run for the wiring/cleanup?

What cable is that they used?

No Fuzz, how are you going to play Spirit in the Sky???😉

Is there a specific Dual Lock used? 1"? 1/2"?

A pedal board that gleams like beskar

Mine's made from pallet wood.

Barry was really good to me, getting me out an XTS EQ when my order wouldn't go through and they were very quickly selling out. I made a video on the pedal. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-hs00WMoztFc.html