The challenge was set before me. I knew that I wanted to replace my old combo Boss DD-7/PS-6 pedal for something a lot more versatile: the Line 6 M5, which is the swiss army knife of pedals, and has the potential for some amazing MIDI integration for preset switching with my Disaster Area DMC-8D, which can control up to four devices (currently at three because of the Strymon pedals).
However, as it is with all challenges, several circumstances were not ideal:
- My pedalboard layout was fixed for the combo pedal, which was housed in an enclosure much smaller than the M5.
- I will probably have to re-route some of the power and cabling to accommodate the top jacks of the M5. On my combo pedal, the in/out jacks were traditionally left/right.
- I needed an extra MIDI cable to hook it all up, and it wasn't a long cable.
Aside from orientation and layout issues, I soon discovered that the biggest problem with the M5 is that the MIDI out is not a MIDI thru--it has to be the last device in a MIDI chain as it will only accept MIDI in commands!
At first, I tried to make do with the pedal in this weird orientation and the MIDI cable being quite haphazardly placed. It looked unprofessional, and it wasn't long before my disdain for disorder kicked in. I needed the cabling to look neat!
On the issue of orientation, if I flipped the M5 about, I had to extricate a power cable from the existing cable tie run. I found a set of black zip ties from my old Pedaltrain builds, cut the old cable ties off so I could re-run the power cable to the opposite side, and re-set the cable run with new zip ties. They're black in color, so at least the differences between Goodwood's cable tie runs and mine don't look too different.
With an improvised pedal riser, I managed to elevate the M5 so that the cable runs would be hidden by its imposing size.
I then had to reset the MIDI cable jack orientation. I have some experience in this as I got a MIDI cable from Disaster Area, who use BTPA cables. A flathead screwdriver and a good twist later, I managed to get both MIDI in and out cables from my Big Sky looking right.
Remember, the MIDI out on the M5 is not a MIDI thru!
Yes, this looks much better.
Check out my original rig-rundown post on my Goodwood Audio setup here.
