Pedalboards, what's the point?

[Hemisaurus]

Sell me on pedalboards

I've got a piece of wood, velcro strips, a 1 spot daisy chain, and a power adaptor, why would I need a pedalboard.

[Baltar]

I've had 5 different boards over the years.  Here's my latest:


16"Lx23.5"W  Fits perfectly inside a Samonsite suitcase from the 70's-80's.  Those kind you find in Goodwill stores for like $11. 

Here's some older versions:




More of the suitcase:




Another nice thing about boards is that pedals stay put and you can get all those wires tied down.  Faster set-up too.  I can set up and be ready in about 15 secs.

[Baltar]

My buddy's board:



Another Mem Man DLX I modded.







This was a two-stage board I did for a buddy.  The Mem Man was on a seperate board that could be pulled off and made more room for other pedals.

[black]

Your set up sounds fine. If it works for you, stay with it. I went that route for a while, but grew weary of the bulk, the time still needed for set up, dealing with remembering a power strip, crowding the power strip with the adapters and still having to remember batteries for the pedals that didn't use adapters up. I whined about it long enough that Santa brought me one of these SKB-PS-45s;



It's durable, has plenty of A/C outlets and even has an adapter for pedals that usually only run on 9 volts. Kinda pricey (especially compared to diy), but my set up time is virtually the same as if I didn't have pedals. Also having everything covered while transporting saves on unexpected surprises occuring during transport.

[Baltar]

The surprise factor is no joke.  I lost that MXR fuzz due to carrying it to a buddies in a nice, soft backpack.  The footswitch broke and I had already modded the fuck out of it.   Keep 'em in a hardshell case for sure.

[spookstrickland]

Sell me on pedalboards

I've got a piece of wood, velcro strips, a 1 spot daisy chain, and a power adaptor, why would I need a pedalboard.

Hey Hemi,

That's probably the best way to do it for us experimental types.  I had a pedal board years ago with everything locked down nice and neat but now I can not go more than a few months with wanting change something or re-arrange things. 

I have found I like stacking my pedals on top of my amp head so I can tweak them easier but it makes switching during a song kind of hard.

[justinhedrick]

Sell me on pedalboards

I've got a piece of wood, velcro strips, a 1 spot daisy chain, and a power adaptor, why would I need a pedalboard.

Hey Hemi,

That's probably the best way to do it for us experimental types.  I had a pedal board years ago with everything locked down nice and neat but now I can not go more than a few months with wanting change something or re-arrange things. 

I have found I like stacking my pedals on top of my amp head so I can tweak them easier but it makes switching during a song kind of hard.

steve kimock does that.

[Chovie D]

Sell me on pedalboards

I've got a piece of wood, velcro strips, a 1 spot daisy chain, and a power adaptor, why would I need a pedalboard.

well you HAVE a pedalboard, its just that you made it yourself and ditn buy it pre-assembled.
add a thrift store hardshell suitcase and your are set.

i never understood it either, why pay for something that you can make a customized version of cheaper?

[black]

The thrift store suitcase deal is a great idea.

Some creative/smart folks around here.

[Chovie D]

The thrift store suitcase deal is a great idea.

Some creative/smart folks around here.

buy the case first, then cut your board to size. $3-$5 should get you a nice hardshell mini suitcase at goodwill.
George L's cable kit are great for pedalboards too IMHO. i know others will disagree but they allow you to make exactly the right length connections to keep your pedals organized and neat and ive never had one fail on me.
You can make your own A/B and routing boxes easily too and customize them for your needs. I made this one so i can switch between steel and guitar wiht the toggle switch and for routing all cables to one spot on my pedalboard for easy breakdown and setup. Since it didnt need a footswitch (i never switch instruments mid song) i was able to put it under the second teir to save space.

[Chovie D]

second tier folded over to reveal power supply...hi-tech!

[Lumpy]

I'm into the home made pedal boards too... I can't believe anybody would spend a couple hundred dollars (on just the board) unless you were in a professional band that was touring all the time.

I'm into the hardshell suitcase, and pine boards from Home Depot (painted black). I hate velcro, but if a pedal already has it attached then I use it (I buy most of my shit used).

I like to attach my pedals using bicycle chain links (flat metal piece shaped like an 8 with two holes). One side, you unscrew the backplate and rescrew with the 8 attached. The other side of the 8 gets screwed into the board. I got mine on Ebay but if you're into bicycles you can probably roll your own.

Some pedals have recessed screws (Digitech) so I drilled holes into the board, and looped 'em into place with zip ties.

George L's are great. Cut 'em exactly to fit, the cables are skinny and can make tight turns. Neatness counts, if you are trying to troubleshoot something going wrong. The ony time I don't like George L's is when you don't use a board - IMO you don't want to be constantly plugging the George L's in and out (handling them a lot), to avoid potential cable failure.

Before I got a board for everything, I would spend maybe 25 minutes getting everything plugged in, and 15 minutes unplugging and putting shit away. 3 practices a week and that added up to two hours a week, just plugging and unplugging effects boxes. Plus shit would get routed wrong (duh) and I'd waste time trying to figure out why shit wasn't working like I planned. Now everything is locked in, and I haven't had to troubleshoot anything in like two years... Board has changed slightly since this pic, but basically this:

[Hemisaurus]

Hey Hemi,

That's probably the best way to do it for us experimental types.  I had a pedal board years ago with everything locked down nice and neat but now I can not go more than a few months with wanting change something or re-arrange things.  

I have found I like stacking my pedals on top of my amp head so I can tweak them easier but it makes switching during a song kind of hard.

Yeah, that's where I'm at right now.

I'm moving away from the have the pedal on full all the time to have the pedal be able to be switched on and off, without having to look for patch cables, batteries or PSU's etc.

NB I haven't actually built the pedalboard yet, like I said I have a 1 spot chain, velcro, power strip etc. I didn't see the point of getting a proper pedalboard.

I do love that shag carpet one. I wish I bought that Peavey bass rig a couple of years back
that was covered with red shag, it looked cool

I never thought of putting my mixer and theremin on it too, I did used to use a mixer to run vocals through my bass rig, but it's larger than that one.

[eyeprod]

I like lumpys board. it's pretty rad.

It's so easy to build your own pedal board. Why buy one? The thirft store suitcase is a classic. I use an office carpet on my board. I just staple it down. Thought about making a second tier, or making it wider. I'd rather go for a smaller footprint, so E9th/Chovies is a possibility I would consider. If I've got a couple of pedals that don't fit, it's no biggie to set them on the floor off of the board. The board keeps most of your shit together, but some things like a wah are easier to jump on if they're set aside on their own so you don't step accidentally step on another pedal. I've used that a couple of times on stage and it's great.
It's also so easy to make simple switch boxes. Why buy one?

[Baltar]

The carpet wasn't hard to do, just time consuming.  Chovie gets pedalboard of the year.  I haven't made the second tier on my current board.  I added a 4" 2x4 block to raise my tuner up.  The bicycle chain links are legit, my old base player did that.  I'm still waiting to sell my S.U.F. Rat/Muff clone and nab a Mem Boy and plug that into my Moog exp. pedal.

[VOLVO)))]

Gigantic pedal case from Rondo. Velcro. I'm gonna add a second tier to get that fucking POG out of the way, to make room for the Cathedral and deluxe memory man...

[Baltar]

You can put that second tier on a hinge like the guy from Jet, in the Fuzz movie.  Those older EH pedals take up so much real estate, that POG is a killer pedal though.

[Lumpy]

Gigantic pedal case from Rondo.

Rondo's pedal board prices aren't totally insane. Are they sturdy?

[Hemisaurus]

Added movie to Netflix que, no instant stream

[VOLVO)))]

Seen the Fuzz doc twice. It's a killer flick.

Yeah, they're damn sturdy. Aluminum. You can't quite stand on it, but I've definitely set my A Jcm800 and a beta lead on top of it, so they weren't on the floor, once.

http://www.rondomusic.com/pdc410i.html

[VOLVO)))]

http://www.rondomusic.com/product3996.html

WAT? Man, fuck, It's so tempting to buy this, bandsaw the headstock, ditch the bullshit hardware, and use the shit out of that thing...

[Hemisaurus]

You want a headless Les Paul

[LogicalFrank]

I have two pedal cases from Rondo. One of them is awesome and the other one is kind of chintzy.

The ones that look like this are great, nice sturdy hinges:



The ones like this blow:



Mine seriously broke before it ever left my practice space. It is as un-gigworthy a piece of gear as I have ever owned. The first though I cannot recommend enough. I was also pleased w/ a rack case I got from them.

[Baltar]

$69.95?  Does it come with wheels?

[LogicalFrank]

Neither of mine has wheels.