Besides the amp- and FX-section of a rack, you will also need some additional gear to make it all work together and control it. I am using a bunch of units from a Polish company called MarkL Custom Guitar Electronics. I got to know these guys in 2010 and got to try some of their units and was VERY impressed. So I ordered a bunch of stuff from them.
The pedalboard was build by MarkL and comes with a nice case. I added the wah, EB-pedal and tuner and it works like a charm. The FC-25 midi controller is great. It has a lot of flexibility and comes with software for easy programming. It has all the options I need and they are continuously updating the software. The build is excellent and it’s VERY sturdy so no worries for a big guy like me. The board is connected to the rack with a snake that holds an audio cable and a 7-pin midi cable. The 7-pin cable sends midi to the rack and gets power to the FC-25. The FC-25 has 2 9vDC outputs to power a wah and a tuner.
Then there’s the LS-14 looper/switcher. This unit has 10 loops to rack your pedals and has 4 switching outputs to switch your amp channels. I use this to switch the CAE 3+SE and have a bunch of pedals in the loop. Besides a buffer on the input, it also has a separate buffer loop that can be patched anywhere you want. The buffered loop has an output control on the front panel. The 10 loops are in 2 sets of 6 and 4 so you can use some for pre- and the others for post-gain fx. The looper gets power from the MarkL Powerstation and sends power to the pedalboard via the front connection.
As with all gear, good power is very important. If you are having bad power, your rig can be noisy or not sound the way it should. I discovered this many years ago and made sure back then that I would solve this. So, I bought a Furman Power Regulator. It doesn’t just filter the power from the wall outlet but it will also regulate the power to 230v.If the power from the outlet drops, the Furman will make sure it still delivers 230v to the units that are plugged into it. The 2nd power unit is the MarkL Powerstation. Besides a bunch of 230v outputs, it has outputs for 9-12v AC and 9v DC. It powers the pedalboard (9v AC), the LS-14 looper/switcher (9v AC), the DMC System Mix+ (9v AC) and all the pedals (9v DC)on my pedalshelf.
