Hey everyone,
After nearly a year of layout adjustments, wiring trials, and 8 months of heavy testing, I’m finally at a point where I feel this board is 100% complete. It has been absolutely flawless for me in practice.
The goal here was to build a bulletproof, high-gain, dual-amp rig that uses an outboard preamp pedal as my primary dirty channel, while completely isolating my time-based/modulation effects and splitting my outputs to multiple destinations with zero phase or ground loop issues.
Here is the exact breakdown of how this monster is wired up:
- The Front End & Dynamics Loop (SaturnWorks 3-Loop)
• Input: Guitar runs straight into a Boss TU-3 Tuner -> DigiTech Drop -> the guitar section of an ISP Decimator G-String.
• From the Decimator, it goes into SaturnWorks 3-Loop Switcher to manage the front-of-amp shaping dynamics:
• Loop 1: Empress Compressor
• Loop 2: Boss BP-1W Booster/Preamp
• Loop 3: Keeley Noble Screamer
- The High-Gain Preamp & Gate Stage (4-Cable Clamping)
• The output of the 3-Loop switcher feeds directly into the main input of a Diezel Zerrer, which acts as the core preamp and distortion engine of the rig.
• To keep the high-gain completely silent, the FX Out of the Diezel Zerrer routes back into the Decimator G-String's Gate section, clamping down hard on any residual preamp hiss before sending a pristine signal down the line.
• The gated output then goes into an Empress ParaEQ w/ Boost for final master tonal sculpting.
- The Wet & Modulation Loop (SaturnWorks 5-Loop)
• From the ParaEQ, the signal hits a SaturnWorks 5-Loop Switcher which houses all time-based and modulation engines to keep them completely isolated when not in use:
• Loop 1: Boss BF-2 Flanger
• Loop 2: Eventide ModFactor
• Loop 3: Seymour Duncan Andromeda Delay
• Loop 4: EHX Cathedral Stereo Reverb
• Loop 5: Zoom MS-70CDR / MS-50G (for wild card utility/ambient patches)
- The 3-Way Output Split (The Wall of Sound)
• The final output of the 5-Loop switcher goes into a Fortin Spliff (3-Way Splitter) to drive three independent destinations simultaneously:
• Out 1: Feeds a Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier power section.
• Out 2: Pushes into an EVH 5150 III EL34.
• Out 3: Routes directly into a GFI Cabzeus (Cab Sim), which feeds a Walrus Canvas DI/LI for a direct line straight to the studio interface or front-of-house.
It took an incredible amount of planning to balance two independent loop switchers, a 4-cable gate method, and a 3-way output split without creating a nightmare of phase cancellations or ground loops—but it has been rock solid and completely quiet.
I've attached the hero shot, a rig context photo, and the full graphic signal flow diagram I built to keep track of the routing.
Would love to hear your thoughts! Is anyone else running a complex multi-amp split layout or relying on a dedicated preamp pedal