I did the Voodoo labs board with the Pedal Power 2.
I bought a bigger board than I needed and its a bit big for my space, but it is filling up fast!
So fast that I need more power.
They just came out with a 12 position power supply that you can link to a second powersupply without another cord from the wall outlet. I have that on order and the Pedal Power 2 will be for sale (if anyone is interested in a good deal on one).
I was worried about noise and how to mount the power supply and got anal about it all so just went with VooDoo labs so I didn’t have to think about it.
I like that it is lower in the front vs. the rear and other than an overpriced piece of metal its great quality and very robust.
For the board itself? The thing you stick pedals to? Go one of two ways.
Either go top end and buy a Temple Audio or Warwick Rockboard or something similar with a unique mounting system so you can avoid velcro, or…
Buy the absolute dirt cheapest metal rack you can. Don’t waste money on the board at all - they are all functionally equivalent and a $30 used Donner will serve you as well as a $150 new pedaltrain. They are just black metal racks you put on the floor, cover with velcro, and stick pedals to.
They are the musical equivalent of a coat hanger. Don’t waste money on any but the dirt cheapest. Spend the money you save on a better power supply.
I’m dead serious. You will never see the board again once it is covered in pedals. Don’t spend more than $30-50 on it if you can get away with it.
And @itsratso At the minute I have 3 separate 1.7 amp power supplies going into a power strip. I should sort out a better power solution though as that’s fine power wise, but for the money ($15/ea) I should probably get something higher-end. Not looked into isolated power supplied. Will check it out, thanks.
@PamPurrs What is that big red button at the top middle? Looks like a panic button when the jams are getting too spicy?
I noticed many of the pedalboards are raised off the ground. Is there a purpose for this? Usually I would expect this in situations where electronics will overheat, but I’ve never had a hot pedal. I would assume that flat on the ground is more stable?
Also, what are thoughts about cases? I like the idea of just putting the pedalboard in a case and knowing it’s protected from bangs and the elements. Seems to add quite a bit more to the price though.
Hi JT, going back to your point about Velcro on the rockboard you can use mounting plates or velcro or mix and match. I use a lot of TC electronic pedals which are great because the moubting plate utilizes the big central thumb screw and can be taken off in seconds. Other pedals are normally attached by the four corner screws, takes slightly longer but still easily do-able. I think all rockboards come with a soft case included in the price although there is a flight case option which obviously pushed the price quite s bit
The pedalboard I ordered comes with a soft case; it wasn’t too high priced. The way I look at it, if I were move the pedalboard around for practice or gigging, a $50 soft case to protect hundreds of dollars of pedals is a reasonable cost.
Then of course, it rains here 300 days a year or so
Yeah, I’m in the UK and it rains a lot. I thought no I might be better off going with a hard case. Costs more, but if my pedals get trashed that will be even more expensive.
Lol you’re close… that’s the foot switch for the Fender overdrive. It switches the overdrive on or off on the Rumble. It works on Rumble 100 or higher.
Not wanting to hijack JT’s post but I have now assembled all of the pedals I want so I’m about to rebuild a bass pedalboard. I thought I’d pretty much mapped out the order for the pedals but I have the technical knowledge of a cheese and pickle sandwich and I’m getting myself totally confused so let me run this by you all.
I’ll be using a Rockboard pedal board with the mod 1patch bay:
So on this I can patch the Tuner to (for instance) the first output direct to the tuner input on my amp so it is completely isolated from everything else. Then I could use B & C to go to the send and return on the effects loop on the amp for mudulation and time based effects andf distortion go to D to go into the front of the amp. Am I correct so far?
so tuner sorted.
Pedals for the effects loop:
TC Sub n Up (octave)
MXR Bass envelope Filter
EBS Unichorus
TC Flashback (delay)
TC Hall of Fame 2 (reverb)
This is the underbelly of my board. All the cabling and power supply are tucked neatly underneath. If you look closely, you can see the mounting thumbscrews that hold the pedals in place.
Temple boards look great Pam - very similar to Rockboards in concept with the mounting plates and patch bays but I particularly like their online board planner: Templeboard Planner (templeplanner.com). Unfortunately they don’t seem to have a distributor in the UK - all the templeboards links with a co.uk address that google returns seem to be broken links
