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All these BLEEPing cables

NortyFiner

NortyFiner

Drunken Sailor
Gold Supporting Member
Mar 23, 2008
3,376
2,629
Portsmouth VA USA
#1
This is one of those "moment of frustration" posts. I think all effect users have been here at some point.

I am in the ugly stage of rearranging my pedalboard. My playing area looks like a GC's accessory section exploded. Cables and pedals strewn everywhere. Think a Pedaltrain board will help you keep things neat and organized? Don't believe it. The bottom of my PT Jr. looks like electronic spaghetti. Running cables under the board just makes it harder to trace and untangle and move my pedals around. I am becoming seriously tempted to either buy a new board with everything on top so I can work with it more easily, or just buy a good multi and toss everything. Which would be tragic, because I have some really nice individual pedals.

Y'all know what I mean? :help:
 
#2
If there's one thing I hate in this world, it's messy cables and wires. My home entertainment center, pedal board and desk are all immaculate now but not without some dilligence.

You could buy some of those self adhesive wire tie anchors. I stuck a few to the bottom of my board which looked like what you are describing. I ran all the cables and wires over to one side then wire tied them to said anchors. it looks better for sure. If you haev gaffers tape, make a large cable group of all cables under the board with the tape.
 

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#4
Nick901 said:
Make yourself very short cables, just long enough to connect the pedals and use velco tape to bind anything loose.
Click to expand...

This is a good idea, but only once you know you are not going to rearrange things again next week, and the week after that, etc...You'll end up with a bunch of cable lengths that don't work for you any more.....

It's a pain in the arse any way you slice it...

Mine's all top mounted. I keep the cables as short as possible, plus an inch or two for some wiggle room and to increase the chances of being able to reuse them if I rearrange....


-JV
 
#5
One other thing that might help you out is to apply some colored heat shrink to your cable ends to help ID them. If heat shrink is too much of a PITA then you could use some kind of paint or colored sharpie.

Repeating 'serenity now' doesn't help. Trust me.

EDIT::: Just because I know someone is going to try this; ONLY PAINT THE PART OF THE JACK THAT STAYS ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE PEDAL.
 
#6
Haha, pedal boards can certainly trigger the OCD in the best of us. :) I had PT Pro and just mounted some velcro to the underside, then used velcro ties to bundle the cables fairly cleanly, then the velcro ties stuck to the velcro on the underside of the board. Kept it clean, and velcro is easy to work with once you want to rearrange VS something like a plastic zip tie.
 
#9
I don't have this issue to your extreme...... yet. I have begun to wrap the ends of my cables in colored electrical tape. You can buy small roll multipacks with a dozen colors.
 
#18
SteveC said:
Line 6 M5/9/13. Not many cables and wires there...
Click to expand...

Given the eclectic, moody manner in which I use effects, the M9/13 idea actually is tempting.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback, guys. Nice to know that I'm not the only one who gets frustrated fighting with everything on and under my pedalboard.

I think some long velcro tie wraps might be the answer. I could wrap them around the bars of my Pedaltrain, to capture the cables underneath without fastening them permanently. If I can bundle up the power supply wires from my Voodoo brick (assuming they have enough slack) that would be three fourths of the battle.
 

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