Can you educate me on pedal boards and power supplies?

Nola

Nola

Well-known member
i built a byoc big muff and their flanger. they're awesome. but i want to put these on a pedal board and maybe buy a wah and something else, so like somewhere between 4 and 6 pedals when all is said and done.

what's a good pedalboard to buy (or are they easy to build? i suck with wood), and what about power supplies? what do i need to look for? i never owned more than 2 pedals so never had a board and it's all foreign to me. i'm going to build the 6" pancake connectors so i don't need those, but everything else i'm clueless.

is there a power supply that's known to be highly reliable? is there any issues i need to know about connecting 5 or 6 pedals to one another? thanks!
 
I've got that flanger, won't be able to build it for a while but glad to hear you like it.

Have you looked into the pedaltrain boards? They seem to be fairly liked and one that would fit 4-6 pedals, including a wah, aren't too expensive. As far as the power supply goes, you could probably get away with a 1-spot. I have found, though, that the DIY pedals that I have built, when daisy chained through the 1-spot have introduced a lot of noise to the signal chain. When I test them, I use a single wall wart and don't have the issue of noise. When daisy chained with the 1-spot, there is a pretty bad 60 cycle hum and/or hiss that is introduced (even when all pedals are disengaged). That may just be an issue with the outlet I have the PSU plugged into. There are plenty of power supplies with individual outs though; voodoo labs makes one that's on my radar if I ever build a board (or even just to get and try to see if that eliminates that nasty interference).
 
pikingrin said:
I've got that flanger, won't be able to build it for a while but glad to hear you like it.

Have you looked into the pedaltrain boards? They seem to be fairly liked and one that would fit 4-6 pedals, including a wah, aren't too expensive. As far as the power supply goes, you could probably get away with a 1-spot. I have found, though, that the DIY pedals that I have built, when daisy chained through the 1-spot have introduced a lot of noise to the signal chain. When I test them, I use a single wall wart and don't have the issue of noise. When daisy chained with the 1-spot, there is a pretty bad 60 cycle hum and/or hiss that is introduced (even when all pedals are disengaged). That may just be an issue with the outlet I have the PSU plugged into. There are plenty of power supplies with individual outs though; voodoo labs makes one that's on my radar if I ever build a board (or even just to get and try to see if that eliminates that nasty interference).
Click to expand...

thanks pikingrin i will look into those. i saw that voodoo one and wasn't sure if i should get the 5 or 8 pedal one since i'm not really sure how many pedals i will end up with. have you looked into building a pedal board? it seems like with a bit of wood from home depot they can be built cheap, but i stink with wood, so i'm not sure how hard it is.

i'm not even sure what a 1-spot is. :/ i was always poor and never had more than 2 pedals at any time so this is all foreign. i don't know what daisy chaining pedals means, either. :/ i tried to google all this but only found confusing articles that assumed the person knew about pedalboards.

also that's one thing i was wondering was how to reduce noise, and also the best order for the pedals. should distortions go first, then reverb/flanger/echo/chorus type stuff at the end? that seems most logical but i'm not sure.
 
I haven't looked into building a board in over 10 years; I don't gig anymore so I don't really have any use for one. That, and I've got a shit ton of pedals and it's just easier to pull them out and set them on the floor when I need them. I imagine that it wouldn't be too difficult unless you wanted to mount your PSU on the underside like you do with the pedaltrain units - even then, it would only be a matter of adding height to the rear of the board enough to make space for the PSU.

This is a 1-spot. It has one barrel shown in the main picture but it comes with an extension that will feed up to 5 or so pedals with juice. This is all assuming that the pedals take 9v power with center negative polarity (like a Boss pedal or similar, pretty standard these days). Using that extension is what I was referring to as daisy chaining - all of the power comes from the single 1-spot from one cable with different power connections being plugged into each pedal in the line.

As far as pedal order goes, that's up to you. A fairly "standard" (<-using that very loosely) order would be Wah-OD-time based/modulation effects-amp (unless you put your time-based effects - reverbs/delays - through the effects loop if your amp has one). BUT, that's not to say that you can't put them in any order that you want and do a little experimenting.
 
I have a couple of pedals that are finicky about their power supplies. If I used them with my cheapo power supply, they'd have horrible hum and buzz when engaged. I had to use the wall wart power supply that each came with, but that's a pain in the ass to have several power cables routed to your pedal board. I got a Pedal Power 2+ and it makes these finicky pedals very happy. It provides clean, isolated power to each pedal with lots of different connectors. But the isolated power comes at a pretty substantial cost.

I'd say that if your pedals are happy with a non-isolated supply like the 1-spot, then definitely go with that. But I can't imagine that you'd ever regret getting a Pedal Power, they're pretty great. Another option would be to put something like a Boss TU-3 or NS-1 at the head of your chain, and use its daisy-chain power cable for the other pedals. I did that for years, and it worked great until I bought an EHX pedal that didn't agree with that power cord.

As for pedal order, just experiment. About the only recommendation that I have is to keep anything that needs to "track" your signal (tuners, synth type pedals) up front. Those kinds of pedals don't do as well when they're fed a compressed or distorted or modulated signal.

For me personally, I usually go tuner, synth (EHX MEL9 or EXH Superego), octave, compressor, overdrive, distortion, fuzz, wah, delay. All in front of the amp. I quit using FX loops due to the difficulty in switching between amps, plus having yet another set of cables running between the pedal board and the amp.
 
thanks guys. i understand it now i just have to make a decision on how many pedals i'll eventually make/buy. if i only get a few the 1spot looks good, but if i want 6 or so then it becomes hard to choose between which voodoo to buy the 5 or 8 input one. is there anything better than those voodoo or are those the most reliable? i don't gig so it would just be for tidiness sound my place i'm kind of ocd about cables and big messes all over.

oh, and where in the chain would you put a looper pedal?
 
Nola said:
is there a power supply that's known to be highly reliable?
Click to expand...

There's a bunch of pedal PS options out there....but Pigtronix just released their pedal PS, and they generally make top-notch stuff...so it might be worth a look-see.

Ain't cheap, but it looks well designed, and can handle a variety of power needs.

Pigtronix Power
 
That Pigtronix supply looks pretty sweet. Switchable voltages, a few different current options, very cool. But holy cow, I thought my Voodoo Labs was pricey!

Oh, and for a looper pedal...I think that I'd treat it as a time-based effect and put it at or near the end of my pedal chain.
 
Tadpui said:
That Pigtronix supply looks pretty sweet. Switchable voltages, a few different current options, very cool. But holy cow, I thought my Voodoo Labs was pricey!

Oh, and for a looper pedal...I think that I'd treat it as a time-based effect and put it at or near the end of my pedal chain.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Tadpui regarding the looper.

I agree that pigtronix looks good. Maybe it will go on sale at some point.
 
Nola said:
thanks guys. i understand it now i just have to make a decision on how many pedals i'll eventually make/buy. if i only get a few the 1spot looks good, but if i want 6 or so then it becomes hard to choose between which voodoo to buy the 5 or 8 input one. is there anything better than those voodoo or are those the most reliable? i don't gig so it would just be for tidiness sound my place i'm kind of ocd about cables and big messes all over.

oh, and where in the chain would you put a looper pedal?
Click to expand...

When it comes to pedalboards get as many regulated & isoloated power outputs as possible (without shared power sections). I've been suing The Carl Martin Pro Power 2 with no hiss's, noise's or hum. It's cheaper too. I never go towards the cheaper option just because of the price but it's what my local store had in stock and they have a very good returns policy. I gave it a chance and the unit performed exactly as it should.
 
I've got a smaller Pedal Train with some kind of Voodoo Labs power supply. It sits on a small folding table next to my desk, not on the floor. I don't use a lot of pedals, but the bass and guitar FX are on it. At the moment, that means tuner, compressor, delay, and overdrive. I pack the pedals loosely with a lot of space in-between, makes it easier to patch things in or out quickly depending on what I'm recording.
 
I wouldn't both buying a pedal board - I think they're a waste of money for what they are - just a tidy way of mounting your pedals.

I've got a 15mm thick bit of MDF and I've glued 3mm ply to the top of it.
I then worked out roughly where I would want my pedals (I drew around them with a pencil) and drilled a load of 10mm holes in the board. I then linked some of the holes together with small cheap jig saw.

This gave me all of the options I need for running all my cables under the board.

My power supply is from a 1-Spot and I don't get any huge issues with noise - there's not a major difference when I am plugged straight into the amp or running through my board. This might be a UK thing as I know our electrics tend to be pretty well isolated.

The branched section of the 1-Spot with the 8 power cables coming off it is detachable from the main cable that comes off the plug - so this section is taped to the underside of my board which makes the board easily detachable from the power supply.

I then just stuck my pedals down with velcro like you normally would and ran the cables underneath the board between the pedals and power supply.

This was my board last year - the pedal configuration has changed a fair bit but you get the idea:

pedal board.jpg
 
That's curiously out of context.

No, not really. Welsh isn't widely spoken as a first language in South Wales, but everybody learns Welsh in some capacity until they are 16. So, aside from basic courtesy and ordering beer and snacks, I've had little reason to use it for the last 20 years so my vocabulary is rubbish. Its also got some odd grammar and work mutations which can be tricky.

Figures for the proportion of people that speak Welsh in Wales are quite skewed as most of the population live in the South and South East. The vast majority of the area of the country speak Welsh - although most of the country is fairly sparsely populated by UK standards.
 
thanks jdod. that wa helpful. i only have a few pedals so i'll just stick them on some wood
 
If you gig get a proper pedalboard and power supply, or build one that's gig-sturdy. A plank of wood is fine for staying at home, hell just keep them on the floor. But if you gig, you're gonna want something more portable, sturdy, and accessible.
 
Greg_L said:
If you gig get a proper pedalboard and power supply, or build one that's gig-sturdy. A plank of wood is fine for staying at home, hell just keep them on the floor. But if you gig, you're gonna want something more portable, sturdy, and accessible.
Click to expand...

I gigged mine loads of times last year. Its built like a fucking tank though. There's certainly no danger of it falling apart - its just a bit heavy. Its got nice chunky feet which I've cut at an angle to they sit nicely on the floor and I've glued neoprene to the bottom of them. The "front feet" are only about a centimetre high (just thick enough to allow cables to run under the board), whereas the back feet are about 3cm thick so the board tilts nicely forwards.

I just noticed in that photo that I've screwed the top onto it, not glued it - its covered in stickers now though.

I realise for this to be cost effective you need to have a bunch of wood and some tools laying around.

I don't think the wah wah is ever gonna come off it though - I drilled holes in the top of the board just wide enough and deep enough for the feet of the wah wah to fit in, then put velcro covering the whole base plate of the wah wah. Think I'll need a chisel to get it off.
 
That's the thing. If you wanna build one out of wood, fine, no problem. It's gonna take time, effort, supplies, and lots of heavy wood to be super gig-worthy. No problem if that's what you wanna do. Or you just buy something like a Pedaltrain which is made of metal, it's smaller and lighter while having the same pedal capacity, it has better cable routing potential, and it comes with an actual road case.

But if you don't gig, none of this matters. Put your shit on a paper towel if you want.
 
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