the Pedalboard Rabbit Hole

[HolmeBass]

My girlfriend makes good-natured fun of me for this. "Redoing your pedalboard AGAIN?" I tell her it's like Legos for grownups.

I thought Legos were Legos for adults... Maybe I am missing something?

How many versions of pedal board, OP? Five or six versions on my old pawnshop SKB board, and just 1.5 years with PTPro and three major revisions of it, with numerous minor switches and order changes.

Now I am building a mini for a couple of other projects, a cover band and a lighter covers plus originals band. I am worried that it never ends.

 

[andvari7]

I don't have the pics anymore, but I think the answer is thirteen. The Amazing Technicolor Nightmare Pedalboard (Requiesciem in Pace) held my entire arsenal, but when push came to shove, I had to buy a boost, just because that many pedals killed my tone. I scaled back to a Pedaltrain-1, and the minimum of pedals. Problem is, I won't sell anything, so I have seven six pedals on my desk. There might be another board in the works, but I'm super lazy, and I don't want to fork over the cabbage for another PP2+.

Size matters, and a Pedaltrain-1 forces me to economize. Problem is, Moog didn't get the memo, so their Cluster Flux, whose merits I explained to the very pretty Guitar Center sales girl*, can't fit the board.

*I bought a Small Clone from her, just because she pretended to be interested in my BS about chorus pedals, and when I don't have a pedal to explain, I can barely form a coherent sentence, let alone hold a conversation, with her. Yes, she's that pretty.

 

[gregmon79]

I thought Legos were Legos for adults... Maybe I am missing something?

How many versions of pedal board, OP? Five or six versions on my old pawnshop SKB board, and just 1.5 years with PTPro and three major revisions of it, with numerous minor switches and order changes.

Now I am building a mini for a couple of other projects, a cover band and a lighter covers plus originals band. I am worried that it never ends.

I know I don't see it ending in the foreseeable future for me. I have stopped buying pedals for now. But one made some trades and so forth and I'm still adding and subtracting and switching pedals on the two boards I have. I just took my VT off my main board last night. I like the pedal, I'm just not using much after I got a B7K.

On a side note, does it bother anyone else when you see a board in total disarray?! I try to keep mine as tidy and orderly as possible. My guitarist in my originals band on the other hand, oh my garsh!! I know, it's his board, he can do what he wants with it. But it seems like every other practice he's got nasty noise coming out of his amp due to crappy wiring/connections and so forth. I mean come on, when were playing out, he uses a hand held tuner with no lights on it so if has to tune, which he does more often than not, we have these long pauses in between songs because he down on his knees struggling to see what he's tuning to. And yes, I want him in tune but man, I don't want the momentum sucked right out of our performance because he takes 2 min to get in tune between songs. It's frustrating. And it's all because he can't just overhaul his boards and make them orderly and lined up smoother. I had to rant for a second, sorry. I keep bringing it up to him but he just hasn't done it.

 

[CrayZee_One]

Crud, too many versions of PB'ing over the years.........
I haven't photo'd the latest either.....
Don't show my wife!

 

[FretNoMore]

...
I am worried that it never ends.

Don't worry, be happy.

 

[HeavyJazz]

Wow, RaMusic and CrayZee! Between the two of you, I can't identify half of the pedals you use. They look hot though!

 

[maxvockner]

1st pedal board BP200
2nd added DOD envelope
3rd added Morley PWF
Now its
Mastotron> ODB3>Morley PWF> OC-2> BEF> custom Tube over drive w/ JJ 83c 12ax7 tube> BP200> loopstation. hopefully the picture link works. A friend had some old bbq steel panels - stainless that he was going to throw away. I snagged it from him and was able to make two identical pedal boards out of it althought the picture is just one. using the peanut grinder with a sanding disk made for some cool effects on the stainless. oh power supply and power strip fit underneath board in the back.

 

[RAMUSIC]

Wow, RaMusic and CrayZee! Between the two of you, I can't identify half of the pedals you use. They look hot though!

Look into some of em, you'll like em

The Iron Ether pedals CrayZee has are superb, I'm gassing hard for those right now!

My favorites are the Flanger Hoax, the Alesis ModFx series, and that korg 301DL. Best sounds evar (until I get my mitts on some wmd stuff.. so many great effects out there!

 

[HolmeBass]

Don't worry, be happy.

Well, yeah, secretly I'm pretty happy that it never ends.

 

[HolmeBass]

I really like Crazee_One's last board. Isn't Cthulhu a re-housed BOD? And the Expressionator + Broadcast looks like a lot of cool possibilities too.

 

[CrayZee_One]

I really like Crazee_One's last board. Isn't Cthulhu a re-housed BOD?

Thx man! It never ends....you know that as well as I.
Yes, the Cthulhu ped is a rehoused BOD. Etched by Rude Mechtronics here in Brisbane, Qld , Australia!

And the Expressionator + Broadcast looks like a lot of cool possibilities too.

Yes that's hell fun! I have an EHX 8 step on a little board that I am taming now which I will try instead of the Broadcast. The Broadcast is cool (esp with the mods) but I am keen to use an 8 step with it's 100 presets (with foot controller).

Yes, a big up to Taylor's IE pedals, most have remained all throughout the changes since I got them!

Awesome thread BTW, rabbit hole indeed!!!!

 

[Nephilymbass]

Mine hasn't been that crazy. I more recently really got into effects so for the longest time it was just two or 3 pedals run into each other. After finally being pretty happy with all my all other gear I recently got really into effects and ended up bringing the gt2 back into the mix for dirt . I now use a pod hd for all modulation, reverb, delay. An I control both the gt2 and the pod hd with a boss ls2. So all single stomp pedals might go on sale soon.

 

[HeavyJazz]

What's made my different versions an interesting challenge is I originally had a special board/case built and having not wanted to replace it, I design each version to fit. Kind of a pain, but still fun...

2010:

2013:

 

[CrayZee_One]

^ wow, that's a complete changeout in that time!

 

[SirMjac28]

I've been through at least eighteen different configurations.

 

[speyer]

I figure in the last 2 years I have bought and sold about 1 pedal per month and gone through 3 pedal boards. Last one I used was the PTjr... what I liked about it was the tilted board and the cable management. What I don't like about it is the cumbersome half-a$$ gig bag and lack of protection for my $1k+ worth of pedals.

TODAY:

Love this briefcase style board... Affordable Compact, sturdy and practical. ONLY downside IMO is having the power supply on the board. Oh well.. Im content

 

[mouthmw]

Early this year:

Now:

Completely revamped my board this year. Every single pedal replaced (even 105q is actually a new one, and the old one sold. I was planning on getting a Wilson wah but 105q is just classic IMO and works best for me, plus, leaves more room on my board). I don't think I'll be doing any changes soon, the only thing that I've been experimenting lately is delay. I'll see how I can handle no dedicated tap tempo.

 

[Spaldo]

Mine's also in the middle of a never-ending revamp.

This is how it looked two weeks ago, but I've since added two new pedals and dug out my old Dunlop Wah. We're gonna need a bigger board.....

 

[gregmon79]

These are shots of my board from about 5 months ago:


Now:

 

[Ric5]

I've gone thru multiple versions ...

But my current one is a winner ...

1 - First I run into an equalizer

2 - Then I split the signal into 4 parallel signals with a rolls mixer.

3 - I run one of the parallel lines into the Line6 bass pod where I model an acoustic 360 with a rat or big muff distortion pedal. I use this to get a retro growlly distorted sound. Or I also model an Ampeg fliptop with the Rat Distortion pedal. And I also Model an old Marshall amp. With the bass pod I can get a wide range of clean or dirty sounds and various effects and model different amps and speaker cabinets.

4 - The second parallel signal goes into a MXR bass di+. I use this pedal to get a clean modern sound. It also has a distortion button that can give a moderate to extreme amount of modern distortion.

5 - The third parallel signal goes into a Marshall Guv'nor. This gives me an old 60s marshall stack sound. This can go from a small amount of distortion to an over the top marshall sound. This effect can give you a the classic Jack Bruce Cream tone.

6 - The fourth parallel signal goes into a Tech21 VT Bass pedal. With this effect I get a slightly dirty Ampeg SVT bass amp sound with a tube like growl.

7 - Then I remix the 4 signals back together and run it into a bass amp, or pa, or studio mixer. Because the signals are parallel I can mix clean and overdriven sounds together and still get effect and a sound that punches through the mix.

Soundbytes ... Invalid Link Removed

I am thinking of adding these pedals here ...