Pedal Board - education required

Tone71

As per the title I have recently found myself having half a dozen pedals all dotted around the floor looking messy which has forced OCD me to look at getting a pedal board.

I really have no clue as to what is required is it just the case of buying something like a this:
https://www.guitarguitar.co.uk/product/150603284930002--pedaltrain-metro-16-wsoft-case

Velcro everything down and Bob's your uncle?

Is there a preferred way to set them up? basically I have a tuner, blues drive, looper, delay, reverb and Wah

Cheers all, Im honestly really clueless about this and would rather pointers than trial and error.

stickyfiddle

Do you already have a power supply? You'll need one if not. 

Soft velcro on board, hooky velcro on pedals and bob's your uncle. It's a good idea to map them out in advance (including counting for patch cables and power jacks). 

Tone71

Ok thanks, simple enough then, yes I have a power supply and daisy chain, only thing I have noticed it the looper is quiet maybe I need to have a good look and fiddle with stuff.

Cols

Standard order would be tuner, wah, Blues Driver, delay, reverb, looper.  The last three should go in the effects loop of your amp if it has one.

Wazmeister

Use pedalplayground.com to the invoice plan it

EricTheWeary

Set your pedals up as you would want them on a board ( so include patch cables) and then you know what shape and size you need ( or bigger if you think your collection will grow). Many people will have the wah off the board as it can be a funny angle to work it on a board ( and a wah next to a power supply can pick up noise). 

NelsonP

Wazmeister said:

Use pedalplayground.com to the invoice plan it

That's what I did.It's a great site.

The plan:


The reality:


I tried daisychaining this lot, but it ended up playing its own tune. So I had to get an isolated power supply (Truetone CS6).

You need to be careful that your power supply can delivery the required:
- Voltage - usually 9v DC. But some run on 12v or 18v or even AC.
- Polarity - usually centre negative but be very careful with this as you can fry pedals with the wrong polarity.
- Current - each pedal will have it's own current draw - analogue pedals typically <50mA, digital c.100-500mA. If daisy chaining you need to add this up and ensure that your power supply can handle it.
- Isolation - analogue pedals can often be daisy chained. Digital pedals can be much fussier and want their own isolated supply or they can make a lot of noise.

english_bob

Also worth mocking up the layout of your pedals before you stick things down to make sure that you can easily access all the footswitches you need without hitting all the ones you don't.

Cramming everything in to the smallest possible pedalboard might seem like a great idea, but having a bit of space between pedals is likely to be more practical, particularly if you're gigging, and particularly if you have big feet.

Likewise, consider where your inputs and outputs go. If you have a small board with a single row of pedals it's probably simplest to connect them in order from right to left with the input accessible on the rightmost pedal and the output accessible on the leftmost one (like @NelsonP's board above). If you want to put some in the effects loop and some in front of the amp ("four cable method" or 4CM) you'll need to make another input and output easily accessible in the middle. The alternative is a pedalboard patchbay of the sort that Bright Onion or Custom Pedalboards make.

Voxman

I kind of cheated and went for the easy option of a Boss BCB60. Holds up to 6 compact pedals and a Boss TU12 or TU14 type tuner. Great carry case design with built in power supply and comes with all connector leads.  If you need something bigger, Behringer nicked the design and their PB1000 pedal board holds up to 12 compact pedals.  Both allow you to adapt the foam inserts to fit any size pedals. Behringer also do the PB600 that holds 6 pedals just like the BCB60, but is a bit cheaper.   

The pedal board casings are really tough to protect your pedals and the lid detaches easily to give immediate access to your pedals, and attaches for easy carrying.  Brilliant design.