Tag: Pedalboard

pedalboard boss
Guitar

Brand-specific pedalboards—the Boss guitar pedals build

I started a new series last week for brand-specific pedalboards. It’s a series because today I’m adding the second entry that I’m cleverly calling Brand-specific pedalboards—the Boss guitar pedals build. I’m a marketing genius! I could have started the series with Boss pedals for several reasons. Obvious reasons for me would have included the fact that my first two guitar pedals were Boss pedals—I still have them both—or that Boss is a brand most guitarists would have heard of. I don’t like being too obvious or predictable though. So here we are with the second entry in the series. Let the continued dreaming of perfectly designed pedalboards continue. … Brand-specific pedalboards—the Boss guitar pedals build

Strymon pedalboard
Guitar

Brand-specific pedalboards—the Strymon guitar pedals build

I was chatting with a couple of friends on Twitter recently—let’s call these friends Peter and Brad*—about the concept of building a guitar pedalboard with pedals exclusive to one particular brand. It’s not something I’d considered before. I normally go looking for a specific pedal type I like and then see what is the best option for my style and budget. Mostly budget—I have an understanding wife who understands only to a point. But, if the single goal was to just have only one brand on the pedalboard, Peter and Brad both said one place they would start was with Strymon guitar pedals.

I trust Peter and Brad. So I did some research on the Strymon guitar pedal range and easily decided on the following pedals to build a very sexy and most-likely impressive sounding pedalboard.  … Brand-specific pedalboards—the Strymon guitar pedals build

Pedalboard (Gorm)
Guitar

My home made IKEA pedal board

When I say I’m not a carpenter, I mean it (I did make that claim in my previous post). That’s part of the reason it’s taken me so long to add anything to this website. Even though I found a truly awesome online resource for the creation of your own pedal board (using some preassembled IKEA components) it has taken me months to build my own pedal board. But I like my Gorm Pedal board (Gorm is the name of the shelf unit I needed to buy from IKEA) and I had a great time building it.

Taking months also allowed me to slowly build upon my pedal collection. My wife assures me my collection is now complete. I’m sure she’s right. Let’s see what my pedal board—and collection—looks like now.

I did take an entire series of photos during the process, but they’re pretty much along the lines of those in the original post I was referencing above. Completed, my pedal board looks like the image in this post’s intro—because that is my pedalboard.

If you like colour—I’m trying to keep colour off this particular website—you can see this photo on my photography website. It’s sturdy, matches the colour scheme of my guitar room and has two power packs under it to power all of the pedals at once. No batteries here!

Here’s a quick rundown of my new pedal collection. Top-left going clockwise.

  1. Boss Loop Station RC-2
  2. Joyo Vintage Phase
  3. Joyo Classic Flanger
  4. MXR Fullbore Metal
  5. Joyo Vintage Overdrive
  6. Artec Vintage Power Wah
  7. Joyo JT-55 Pedal Tuner
  8. Joyo Ultimate Drive
  9. Boss Chorus CE-2
  10. Joyo Tremolo
  11. Joyo Digital Delay

Lucky 11. When I started building the pedal board I didn’t have the Artec Wah or any of the Joyo pedals. I started buying them on eBay for very little money. Almost all of them are new and the most I spent on one pedal was $40.00. The last four pedals I got for $100.00. I was very pleased with that purchase. I believe outside of the Boss pedals everything else on the pedal board is true bypass.

So there you have it. It took me months, but I now have hours of entertainment at my feet. I’m really impressed with the new pedals actually. I might write a bit about them individually. I know when I was researching the Joyo pedals I found it difficult to find much in the way of useful information. I’ll try and add to that collection of not useful information.

Guitar Pedalboard
Guitar

Home made pedal boards

So I wrote recently—if you consider a month ago recently—that I’d entered what I’m calling the previous century and provided electricity to my small guitar pedal collection. I was quite proud of this achievement and managed to connect all pedals in random order just to prove all their little lights worked. I’ve now decided to enter the modern era—perhaps even this century—and build my own little pedal board which will put my small pedal collection together in a somewhat sensible order (all with electricity powered lighting of course).

As I am years behind in the ways of pedal boards I have realised I’ll need assistance in the ways of ordering the pedals I have. Luckily I have a few places to source information from. Let me share some of my favourites with you as I prepare to build my first pedal board.

The first place I found useful information on was YouTube. I found a very handy and informative video on pedal placement by the Tone King. This video also made me want to buy more pedals. I am slightly compulsive though.

The Tone King video has made me wonder what would happen if you place two distortion pedals after each other (as opposed to an overdrive and a distortion pedal as suggested in the video). I have a feeling I will discover what will happen because my current pedal collection consists of the following:

  1. Boss Distortion DS-1
  2. Dunlop MXR Fullbore Metal Distortion
  3. Boss Chorus CE-2
  4. Boss Loop Station RC-2

To be honest I’m yet to find out if the loop goes at the end. I imagine it does.I’m also very sure the two-distortion combo will just be awful.

Apart from YouTube I did find other information sources on the Interweb such as this Tumblr site on pedal boards. I found it to be very informative. Some of the information seemed very similar to that in the Tone King video. Reassuring.

My last source for information was my iPhone. Not as another searching tool. Not as a way to reach out and phone a friend either. No, I had a look at the preset options in the guitar apps I’ve purchased such as AmpKit and AmpliTube. Surely the pedal placement there was done by experts. I just have to follow their leads (pun intended) to see if my intended pedal placement was appropriate. So far I believe it is.

I have my pedals and I have my single cable to power them all. I’m awaiting my new connector leads (on order) and then I’ll build some kind of framework to house the pedals. It won’t be metal as I’m not a metalworker. It will be as sturdy as I I can make it in wood. Although I’m not a carpenter either.

This is going to be fun!