In his book Skunkworks, aircraft designer Ben Rich, who was chief of the super secret facility of the same name for over 15 years, mentions that during development of the F117 (the stealth so-called fighter) the Lockheed engineers deliberately used as many existing components and parts as possible. This ensured that however radical the new aircraft may have been, the pilots and ground crews would have been instantly familiar with many of the systems. This also ensured easy integration with established service procedures and meant that replacements and spares could be used off the shelf. This is a philosophy that XSelectronics fully agree with. There is a difference between Custom and Custom Made. XSelectronics Guitar Voice Controllers are what I refer to as custom systems, they are assembled from ready made products which are freely available on the retail market- for ease of reference I refer to these as 'modules'- but they are designed and assembled from these modules in order to fit the requirements of the client. Custom Made systems are similar to this but the whole system is engineered and built from component level. Modules in these systems will be unique, frequently 'one-offs' as they are designed from the base parts- resistors, capacitors, bent metal etc to fit specific situations. I tip my hat to these people as I am not an electronics graduate, I admire their work greatly and I have worked with custom made rigs by various manufacturers and they have been, without exception, excellent systems. So what is my problem? Well, one of the parts of being a touring backline technician is to plan and prepare for the worst case scenario- in this case the breakdown of a FX system. This is not common if the system is well made but all touring gear is subject to considerable abuse and accidents do happen. Not all problems can be solved on the spot unfortunately, so what are the options? - with a Custom System, replacement modules can be purchased locally or sent direct from the manufacturer from off the shelf stock. - with a Custom Made unit modules may need to be sent back for repair. But are you in the same country as the manufacturer? When can FedEx pick it up? Is it the weekend? Is it the week of the NAMM show, Frankfurt or the London Guitar Show? If so, there may be no-one around for a week... Custom makers are often small workshops that do not hold a large stock of parts- will there be a delay as they order in components? When will someone actually get a chance to look at it once it arrives? Is it going to be held up coming back because of a weekend? Your artist may be without his expensive bespoke FX system for quite a while if the wrong planets are in alignment. Hence, bitter experience has taught me that global availability and rapid access to replacement parts is vital. The modules in XSelectronics Guitar Voice Controllers are backed by full manufacturers guarantees and only the best quality connectors, cabling and power supplies are used in their assembly. I have been making FX management systems for artists for nearly 20 years and despite new breakthroughs in technology, the principles remain largely the same. Funnily enough, so do the requirements of guitarists...