Can YOU leave an empty space on your board?

[kesslari]

I'm not even a hardcore pedal user and it's hard for me to leave a space...

Lately I've been modularizing my pedals.
One mini-board is a sort of "poor man's Alembic SF-2". I stuck an ACG filter in a box (think tone control/preamp, not envelope trigger) and put it behind an LS-2 so I can mix filtered and unfiltered bass tone. Figured I'd stick a tuner on there too.
It's a cool little, ultraportable, tone machine.

I had cut 2 boards - one for "2 pedals", one for "a bit more". I've got the LS-2, filter, and tuner on the smaller board, but that puts part of the LS2 "off the board".
I could move it to the bigger board, but then there would be some empty space just pleading for a pedal - and I don't really have anything else I want to put on this board.

First world problem, I know...
Can YOU tolerate empty space on a pedalboard?

 

[Edmang]

My OCD would not allow it

 

[Climax]

Empty space?

 

[jcerio]

I'd love to have at least one more space for another dirt pedal! I'd love to find a decent wireless that takes up less space than my Line 6 G30 receiver. I like having one little Nano size pedal board though.

 

[skwee]

Seems like a rare occurrence for me to need all my pedals on a given night. At least with the band I've been with for the past three years.

 

[Thrillhouse]

I can't stand to have unused/empty space on my board. I have two or three pedals on there now that I almost never use just because I wanted something to fill it out.

 

[two fingers]

I am brand new to this game. But all kinds of space is fine by me. In fact, so far I like my pedals spread out a bit. If I crammed them against each other I could probably fit 3 or 4 more on there. As it stands right now there's tons of room between them.

 

[btmpancake]

If there is, then it's only a matter of time.

 

[el murdoque]

Recently, I've gone kind of quiet on that front.

Before - I used to buy pedalboards that would _just_ fit the pedals I wanted on there.
My first pedalboard was a PT nano, so after slapping on a tuner, dirt, more dirt and compression, it was packed.
Thanks to George L.'s, I managed to get another small pedal on there and then could not decide which fuzz to take to the gig and started liking octave pedals, I needed to go bigger.
Again, I pictured the board in my mind and bought something that would barely hold all the pedals I wanted on there.
But then it happened. I used a Big Muff, LS-2 and MicroPOG to create my own, blendable octave fuzz, but found a single fuzz pedal that sounded better, so I took off two normal sized pedals and a big muff and replaced it with a single pedal.
A gaping void appeared.
I rearranged the board until it looked full to the untrained eye and learned to live with it, which went extremely well.
Right now, I'm really happy with my board as it is, but I could easily fit another two pedals on there. Three with a bit of arranging. Maybe four if the orientation of the jacks is right.

 

[DDXdesign]

Long as it looks nice and organized I don't have a need to have the pedals fit exactly to the board - right now I just have 2 normal-sized pedals on my 17x8.5" (i think) board. Gives me space for a few more, or for one big one, or can be used as-is, though it might be overkill to take to a gig for just 2 pedals.

 

[Korladis]

Usually it's because I'm saving that space for something else.

 

[Stranger Danger]

No and it's killing me

 

[Ewo]

My OCD would not allow it

My OCD would force me to have exactly equal spacing between the pedals...

 

[MYLOWFREQ]

My OCD would force me to have exactly equal spacing between the pedals...

Same here!

 

[Slough Feg Bass]

I'm fine with it. I probably have room for a couple more pedals, but I like to leave space between them so I don't accidentally step on the wrong one. I am not the most delicate pedal stomper, so I tape the knobs in place and keep them far enough apart to fit a bit more than the width of my leather boot.

 

[BassWaffle]

Wouldnt know, I had too many pedals to fit on a pedal board before i built my first board! Now its just about what im able to fit on it.

 

[Basshappi]

I am too uncoordinated for tap dancing, so I don't like my pedals so close together that I have to use my tiptoes to activate a pedal or end up kicking knobs on other pedals. I am currently using only a few pedals so there is quite a bit of space on my board. As I start adding pedals to my active board I will design it so that it is large enough to accommodate easy access as well as future expansion. I am most likely going to end up with a main board with smaller sub-boards as necessary.

 

[ThunderFox]

I don't like to have a big gap on my board, but you could space the pedals out a bit, not too much, but a little bit, just in case their is that one pedal you forgot about, that you can squeeze in later and bunch them all together.

 

[waveman]

I have a harder time making free space, lol

And, I only did it a couple of times, just for a few hours when I had to punt my rig when i had pedal failure or bad power...

 

[XXL]

I use to be one of those that would try and stuff 15 pedals on a Pedal Train JR. Those days are over, I like some breathing room between pedals now and I'm willing to sacrifice pedals for that space.