Someone told me I should get a pedal board

microtribe said it best but maybe …

4 Likes

…i was deep in that pedalboard with heaps of pedal fx thing and i can confirm, it actually IS another kind of modular rabbit hole, pandoras box like, moneywise, headscratch wise, hussel wise and all that in a pretty endless fashoin…

if money is no issue, a rare thing these days, do it once and for real…

a proper peadltrain/board, one decent multi powering device for whatever might come, heaps of velcro and a serious pedal patchbay…all fitting into a perfectly suited flightcase that gives u the option to just open it and handle it always also on a desk…

only that way, it’s not ending U, in a total nervewrecking condition, each time u think u want to add another fx pedal or “simply” just wanna change the overall signal flow…

I do not. I’ve been eyeing them from time to time. Maybe I should get a few of those, no matter.

Doesn’t bypassing through a batch of pedals still add some noise to the signal, though? If I go through a Habit, a Mood, a Blooper and whatnot into the CXM and then out to my recording gear, doesn’t all that passage create some kind of noise, despite the bypassing? I think Chase Bliss does true bypass, but still?

If they’re all actually true bypass and there are good power supplies so there’s no ground noise etc, it should just be a piece of wire. Would like to be corrected if I’m wrong, but afaik that’s how it’s supposed to be.

I was more thinking about one of those digital preset patch pedals that comes in megasizes down to pretty small. You program different patchloops which you can activate with pedalbuttons. Cant find when I made a quick google for pedal patchbays, pedal preset patch bays… What are they even called anybody? Maybe some even comes with power out I dont know. Never used one myself. I would get that :slightly_smiling_face:

You probably are. But why you don’t have all pedals connected and switch them on and off when you need to is beyond me.

Not really, no.

In my opinion a pedalboard is for the gigging musician. You need your stuff all together and to be able to pack it up quickly. I’ve used one for years but only as a gigging guitar or bass player. I’d never use a pedalboard at home or in the studio except that my main guitar and bass pedals are already on a board from gigging. I think I may be done with all that for good and have been considering dismantling my pedalboard for awhile now. At this point it’s more of a hassle having them on there because I can’t reroute anything easily and if I wanted to use any of them individually I’d have to pry them off the velcro. If you don’t need to have the same setup, in the same order, every night, don’t do it.

EDIT: I suppose it’d also make sense to me if you’re some sort of in demand studio guy with a ‘signature sound’ who stays booked for other people’s sessions and you go from studio to studio on a regular basis. To me, pedalboards are about convenient travel, not hooking all your shit up at once.

2 Likes

Maybe I’m asking the wrong question -

I got a batch of pedals, as you can see.

I got one power supply. One set of cables.-

Whenever I move from one pedal to another, which I do a few times per week, I need to plug out and plug in the power cable to that other pedal, and plug in and plug out the TRS cables to another pedal.

If I didn’t have to, if I could just smoothly move from one pedal to another, I believe that would benefit my workflow since I use them mainly for sound design and live recording, not for performance effects.

But if not, what I got works now. But if there’s convenience to be found here, that’d be nice, too.

You could get something like a rockboard. They have a patchbay slot (the patchbay is an extra purchase) at the back that goes underneath so you can reroute etc. though they have limited ins and outs

Then maybe somethings like a cioks dc 7 for power. That will fit underneath too I think

Been looking at one myself, but I’m all for the do whatever works for you. For years I used a set of moogerfoogers with no board. Made me focus on each one and do stuff I probably wouldn’t have otherwise. I only started thinking about a pedalboard because I’ve been trying to learn to play guitar a little. But I’m in no rush. Not like I’ve got a gig to go to…

1 Like

Right.

You could probably get away with a daisy chain for power, but they’re not the best solution and will probably introduce noise somewhere in the chain.

There’s plenty of decent, porperly isolated power supplies, but there’s also lots of shitty, not isolated power supplies that look very similar, some of which even say they’re isolated when they really aren’t.

Then there’s all the cables you’re going to need…

If you’ve got best part of £300, knock yourself out.

If you don’t want to spend the money and don’t need to use more than one at a time, carry on as you are.

2 Likes

I mean, it doesn’t seem like I gain anything here, I’m just trading one hassle for another.

I brought this upon myself by just getting a bunch of fx that I want to use in different situations. I’m gonna be an adult about this, accept the consequences of my actions and enjoy my pedals.

Not a bad place to be, overall :slight_smile:

8 Likes

Definitely a good place to be!

Personally, a good centralized power supply made things a little bit easier for me, but it’s not strictly necessary. I’ve been considering using a patchbay with my pedals, but setting it up will be such a hassle (and expense, because I’d need to buy so many cables) that I might never bother.

I’ve gotten by just like I am for years, and I suspect that my desire to “improve” my pedal setup is just a case of GAS trying to disguise itself as productivity.

1 Like

Ha. Probably for the best. I still think given the usage situation you describe above a board with a good power supply all connected up and ready to go is a great, neat and convenient approach that would speed up workflow and save hassle. With a good power supply and decent pedals (which you have) noise won’t be an issue.

Since you don’t use more than one at once ‘routing’ the pedals (ie which order the signal runs) won’t be an issue (which is one of the hassles of a board as it’s harder to move around)-BUT as Fin states above a decent board, cables, and power supply is going to cost you minimum £300 probably. It won’t gain you a huge amount other than (in my view) a little speed/convenience (but that is debatable). On balance I still love a board, but it’s a question of how much it’s ‘worth’ to you I guess.

Of course if you are ever going to want to take all of your pedals out of the studio some place then it’s a no brainier to me-get a board and case

2 Likes

I think you want to wire them together and use them in bypass, and maybe get a mutli-output power supply. The actual pedalboard is a piece of furniture for them to sit on, unless you’re traveling with them; it seems entirely irrelevant to your actual problem.

1 Like

Definitely no need for a board then.

Boards require planning for cables and configuration that ideally would be fixed.

That said, a power supply is going to be your friend and the right one can be used for more than just pedals.

I have Cioks 4, Cioks DC7 and an Eventide (Cioks) PowerMax.

These are not limited to just 9V, so you can use them a bit of everything with the right adapter. I use it to power OTO Machines, Make Noise desktops, 4MS Eurorack Pods, Cre8audio’s East Beast/West Pest and more.

Cioks 4 can be powered from a USB Power Bank, or daisy chained from DC7. The Eventide is just a cut down version of DC7.

There’s lots of options for patch bays. A pedal friendly one and the one I currently use is Boredbrain’s Patchulator v2. It’s very effective but know you’ll need adapters for TS to TRS to make proper use of it.

EDIT I did go the board route, only to decide I don’t want a board (after buying 3 different ones). I tend to use only a couple pedals at a time and I like switching them instead of having them all connected, all the time.

It’s all about knowing how you want to use things, and screw everything anybody has to say (including what I have added, if it doesn’t work for you).

3 Likes

Some people really like this thing for changing the signal flow between pedals. I haven’t tried it but I can see how it would be cool.

The 3DWaves stands are great for cramming more stuff onto your synth table. I have a few I use for pedals. The 3DWaves guy seems really nice, too.

My spouse has an Ojai for power which works well. (I wouldn’t mind having one myself one of these days.) But there are a lot of other options for powering stuff.

I don’t like the flat angled connector cables as much as I used to. I had a few of the Rockboard ones go bad on me - either audio intermittently cutting out or noise/crackling. In certain circumstances they are more prone to picking up RF interference too. I temporarily swapped in some regular instrument cables which are working well, so I guess I need to get some shorter ones of those.

1 Like

This right here. You’ve been around the block @circuitghost . If you need a pedalboard I suspect you’ll be the first to know.

5 Likes

If noise is added, you can get rid of that at the end of the effects chain with an isolator. However, when running through a bunch of pedals sequentially (no pun intended), if I understand correctly, you might want to go through buffered bypass rather than true bypass to keep level and signal consistently strong.

The way I see your need, you’d already want to go for a central power device. If not, for my two pedals I plug on the other end, so I have a power cable for each pedal. My idea is that wear on the power strip is less expensive than wear on the pedals’ end.