Hexaphonic Guitar System: 2

This morning, I got up and finished the connections for the hex system.

First thing was getting the RMC Fanout Box connected to the six MPX-G2's. Note that I found some red felt that matches the Synclavier keyboard. No scratches!

One nice feature of the MPX-G2, is that it has guitar inputs on the front, and on the back. I used 6' guitar cables so I'd have enough slack to service the system without unplugging everything.

Next step was to connect the guitar to the Fanout Box, and the Fanout Box to the Axon AX-100. The cable on the right is from the guitar, and the cable on the left is to the Axon.

Unfortunately, the 13-pin Roland-compatible guitar synth cables do not come in specialty lengths. The shortest I've ever seen is 15 feet, so I had to use a cable saver to make it manageable.

*****

Sorting things out quickly became a harrowing experience. The six outputs on the Fanout Box double as inserts, so the guitar cables had to be about 2/3 of the way in to make proper contact, and it was very fiddly to get all six working. Took a long time. Then, once that was done, I discovered that unit #4 had a blown output transformer. Arg! So, I had to cannibalize my secondary recording rack for another MPX-G2 (I have nine total now!). I sort of/kind of expected this, as these units are vintage rack gear at this point.

Due to all of this morning's frustrations, I decided to knock off for the day when I tried the Axon and it was horribly noisy. I'm sure that's due to the improvised guitar connections, so I got on eBay and searched for insert cables. Well, what do you know, but there is an insert to direct output adapter cable! It has the regular stereo male 1/4" connector to a 1/4" female TS connector. Needless to say, I scooped up eight of them so I'd have spares.

So, I'm on ice again until those adapters get here.