For many years I would replace the 9 volt batteries in each of the Boss guitar pedals I owned—of which there were three—each time the little red lights began to fade. As I’ve never been in a band or put my pedals through any kind of hard-core torture, batteries used to last me for quite some time. Then my wife and I started a family and I momentarily lost track of my guitar infatuation.

When I came back to the obsession, my Boss DS-1 distortion pedal decided to punish me for the time apart. It used the acid from its battery to commit a form of suicide. I felt bad. But like the evil scientist who refuses to let the dead be, I made the decision to use electricity to power my pedals.

Sadly for me, my budget didn’t allow me to purchase anything new. So I did not go out and get myself several Boss power packs. Nor did I get myself a pedal board (for my huge three guitar pedal collection). Nope. I made the decision to rob a few of my own household appliances of their power packs when it was time to play guitar. That worked quite fine. But you needed a power board to plug the power packs into as each power pack was so bulky.

And for many years I got by like that. I was happy to have come up with a solution that involved spending no money. I had accepted the lazy solution to my initial problem. Until recently when I decided to get myself some of the technology that others had been using for probably as many years as I’ve been alive. Perhaps not that long, but a long time none-the-less!

It’s messy—with more pedals today than I had back then—but it fills me with joy. Today I plugged in my favourite pedals just so I could stare in wonder at all their pretty lights. The pretty lights you can’t make out because I like to strip all images of colour on this website. But it was cool! The order was all wrong and the sound would have been terrible, but I had the power—pun intended—to use all of my pedals at once with just one power pack thanks to my 5 to 1 power cable. All for under $10 thanks to my love of eBay.

One cable that allows my one Boss power pack to power all of my guitar pedal units! Awesome.

Why I’ve had so much fun I might even get myself some new pedal connection cables and build a custom pedal board for my own pedal collection. If I should attempt this project it also would be messy—I’m no carpenter—but I’d like to think it would also be cool.

Stay tuned. Or not.