Pedal Board Suggestions

[Fireball1978]

Hey everyone! I would like build a small pedal board to carry with me to small club gigs. I am not sure where to start though. I don't have much use for effects such as pitch shifting, chorus, flanger, etc though. I have looked at some pedals such as the Ampeg SCRDI, Sansamp, Darkglass, etc on YouTube. I was thinking about some sort of preamp pedal with distortion, compressor pedal and my tuner. I play either a California series pj bass or a geddy lee jazz through a fender rumble 500 combo. We play country (Hank sr/jr, 90s country and a few modern country tunes) and classic rock covers. I'd appreciate suggestions or advice you guys may have.

 

[Nomogram]

You can start with a homemade board platform or go with any number of pedalboard platforms/packages to start with.

I am just assembling a pedalboard too. I went with a Voodoo Labs Small Pedalboard with Pedal Power 2. It came with a power unit installed under the board that can run 8 pedals on isolated power channels, a nice aluminum board, and all the Velcro and connector power cables I needed to get up and running, plus a nice padded case. I am still getting my pedals in order (and waiting on one that I ordered), so it's a work in progress, but right now I have a Tuner pedal, an Overdrive pedal for a little grit (mine is a Fairfield Barbershop, but there are lots of good options), a Sadowsky preamp pedal, a Chorus pedal and an Octave pedal. The board I went with can fit 5 pedals with ease and probably more.

My advice would be to think about how big a pedalboard you might need and then just start looking at what's commercially available and what other alternatives might be. Also, EBS flat patch cables rock, both for quality and for saving board space. Since you are starting, just go with them from the start, you'll be glad you did.

As for which pedals... so many great options! Try some, read the forums, have fun with it.

Also, check out the recent "Show Your Tidy Pedalboard" thread, its fun to see what other bassists have come up with and it may give you ideas as to what's possible.

 

[marqueemoon]

It sounds like your needs are pretty simple sounds-wise.

I’d start with picking up a few pedals and letting that dictate what size board you need.

I play a different genre of music, but tonally my needs are pretty similar. My chain is Darkglass Vintage Microtubes>Pigtronix Class A Boost (clean boost)>Barber Tone Press (compressor)>Tuner.

This gets it done for me. The boost and compressor are on all the time and the Vintage Microtubes gets added just to punch up certain sections of songs.

With a cover band situation there might be more of a perceived need to match certain sounds, but I don’t think you need to go overboard. One chorus sound, one fuzz sound, etc... is probably adequate, or just skip it.

 

[Fireball1978]

Thank you so much for the feedback and suggestions. I’ll start digging into it.

 

[franvarin]

Hey everyone! I would like build a small pedal board to carry with me to small club gigs. I am not sure where to start though. I don't have much use for effects such as pitch shifting, chorus, flanger, etc though. I have looked at some pedals such as the Ampeg SCRDI, Sansamp, Darkglass, etc on YouTube. I was thinking about some sort of preamp pedal with distortion, compressor pedal and my tuner. I play either a California series pj bass or a geddy lee jazz through a fender rumble 500 combo. We play country (Hank sr/jr, 90s country and a few modern country tunes) and classic rock covers. I'd appreciate suggestions or advice you guys may have.

Well, I think you're on the right track. My pedal board has the following:

Tomslie tuner -> yyz pedal -> mxr bass chorus deluxe -> ampeg compressor -> scr-di -> Mesa subway preamp did.

As you can see nothing too crazy. The Mesa is used when I do not need backline support and go direct to the board (we use iem's). I have a subway 800 when backline is needed. So since the preamp is the same I have the same tone either way. Yyz is used to provide grind as needed for a few songs (really good pedal imho). I use the scrambler drive rarely and just to slightly flavor the tone. One thing to note, the scrdi-soi is different in a better way than the amped classic preamp. Don't know what they did but the difference is obvious. I recommend the former over the latter. I find this to be a very usable yet sensible setup

 

[ahbass2500]

Get a decent board and power supply. To the extent you can, plan what you want to allow you to buy a big enough board and the right power supply. Pedal sizes vary wildly. For comps you could have something like the Wampler Ego Mini at 1.5” wide or the Empress Compressor at 4.5” wide. There are probably even some that are larger.

I have used the Voodoo Labs Dingbat Tiny with x4 power supply, Dingbat Small with ISO 5 power supply, and T Rex Tone Trunk Minor with Chameleon power supply. All have been great. Only difference is size and what they can power. Some supplies only have 9v DC. Some have more options. For example, Chameleon is switchable outputs for 9V DC/12V DC in most outputs and a 9V DC/18V DC on one of them. It also has a single 12V AC output that some pedals need.

For the list you have, the Voodoo Labs Tiny probably works if it fits the pedal size you have in mind. Prior to listing mine for sale, I was using one for tuner, preamp pedal, and compressor. I liked mine, but it was the board I decided to eliminate when I consolidated my three boards into two.

From your list of pedals, the only other one I might recommend for a limited effect setup is an HPF/LPF. I am a fan and they seem to have a pretty big following on talkbass.

 

[srbbass]

Here's my redent build. Compressor (Cali), old tuner, Tonebone (for EQ, DI, HPF, EFX send/return, mute, and boost), loopstation just for fun and TC electronics multi effects when needed (need chorus for upcoming show). Eventide power supply rocks because you can do 9v, 12v, 15v and 18v and has a USB port too!

 

[cnltb]

Hey everyone! I would like build a small pedal board to carry with me to small club gigs. I am not sure where to start though. I don't have much use for effects such as pitch shifting, chorus, flanger, etc though. I have looked at some pedals such as the Ampeg SCRDI, Sansamp, Darkglass, etc on YouTube. I was thinking about some sort of preamp pedal with distortion, compressor pedal and my tuner. I play either a California series pj bass or a geddy lee jazz through a fender rumble 500 combo. We play country (Hank sr/jr, 90s country and a few modern country tunes) and classic rock covers. I'd appreciate suggestions or advice you guys may have.

I too am looking for a small board and my favourites at this point are the temple solo and the smallest holeyboard(<[This invalid link has been removed]>), with the likely winner being the temple(<[This invalid link has been removed]>), simply because holey is not yet easily available where I am.

I too'd appreciate further suggestions( that allow to avoid velcro and are small/light)