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Pedalboards- Off the shelf, DIY, or custom wired?


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I have a Pedal Train Pro pedal board. It is somewhat limited in that you have to work with the slats. Some pedals just did not fit right. I made a homemade board out of 3/4 plywood. Routed smaller slots, glued carpet to the top and screwed in aluminum channel around the edges. Came out pretty good. I found a mixing board case to fit it. Works great. I also was able to install LED lights underneath and a junction box for extra plugs. It is a little heavy but I have a dolly to carry everything around anyway.

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I have a Pedal Train Classic 2 I believe it is.

 

Its a great off the shelf board, but it's not perfect. My Pedal Train houses a Voodoo Pedal Power II under the hood too.

 

You need to plan out and pick and choose effects along the way. Realize your needs and tastes are going to change down the road.

 

My Pedal board is in an ATA flight case, and this effects stuff can be a heavy as amp, once you load it all up.

 

 

Those Trail Trash and West Coast pedal boards look very nice and a step up to the Pedal Train.

 

 

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I built my own [several over many years] in the olden days, as there really were no commercial alternatives, and some pedals, like Morleys, had their own zip codes. Eventually, I gave up, bought a Boss BE5 multi effects pedal around 1987/8 and gave up on all the other stuff [sold a lot of what is now high-priced vintage gear...sad but true, but I still have a few 'gems'].

 

My last one was built specifically in a Stagg UPC-24 case for portability and simplicity for my 'originals project'. All I need do is connect the ac, the amp and the guitar and it is ready to go, easy to carry and neat [except it does not accommodate my cry baby...:cry:baby-dance]

 

All nano size pedals except for the [incredible] AnaSounds delay; I found some really serious Velcro at winter NAMM that I need to pry off with a credit card...[great stuff], the pedals do not move at all! Now all I have to do is lock the knobs...and finalize the actual board...still not happy with the distortion [Mooer], may yank it...and add a buffer...decisions, decisions...

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I have a holey board and while it's not perfect I like it a lot. I also like doing the zip tie thing better than velcro.

 

The problem I have with Velcro is the wiggle. The pedals never seem like they're as firmly held down as I'd like them to be with just Velcro anchoring them.

 

Bike chain links hold the pedals down much better, but they're less suitable to experimentation unless you leave plenty of room to repatch things without having to move the pedals around.

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The problem I have with Velcro is the wiggle. The pedals never seem like they're as firmly held down as I'd like them to be with just Velcro anchoring them.

 

Bike chain links hold the pedals down much better, but they're less suitable to experimentation unless you leave plenty of room to repatch things without having to move the pedals around.

 

I've been pretty happy with the zip ties and it's very easy to redo the board quickly. Oh, and agreed on velcro. Plus I would often wind up with the velcro sticking more to the velcro and not the pedal when I went to take pedals off.

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i have a rockcase with a carpet inside. some (2-3) pedals have velcro on it, which hasn't gone off, so if they are on the board they stick and keep the rest in place.

 

although i do not change that often, i change from time to time, so i do not like the idea of permanent mounted pedals...

ok the downside, my board always looks a bit messy, but i do not care, for me its function over design...

 

 

oh and yesterday i had again some weird ideas, which need complete different setup and wiring and maybe additional gear to make it usefull *facepalm*

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I built a couple of plywood pedalboards back in the early 90s. Now I have a Pedaltrain (model 2 I think), with a Voodoo Labs ISO-5 power supply. The pedals are connected with a mix of pre-made and home-made patch cables. One output of the power supply is split into 4 power outputs via my home-made daisy chain cable. No problem with hum!

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I originally bought some lights from Advanced Auto Parts. They were a strip of LEDs that were battery powered. The battery pack was really flimsy so I put them into a 1590 enclosure and put a switch on top. Better protected. This was a the beginning of LED lights so there wasn't much available. Later, I so an LED kit a Loews. It was about 40 bucks for four LED strips in plastic tubes. They came with brackets so that the could be mounted to the outside edge of the pedal board.The lights plug into some type of switch and then into the controller which sits on top of the board. The controller works like the ones for Christmas lights. There are a bunch of patterns that it will go through and one setting that will go to the beat of the music. Since then, there are better lights on the market. Best place to look is on Amazon. Then have a ton of options. There are even fiberoptics that you can put on your board. Not sure how but I am thinking about it.

 

 

 

 

 

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I originally bought some lights from Advanced Auto Parts. They were a strip of LEDs that were battery powered. The battery pack was really flimsy so I put them into a 1590 enclosure and put a switch on top. Better protected. This was a the beginning of LED lights so there wasn't much available. Later, I so an LED kit a Loews. It was about 40 bucks for four LED strips in plastic tubes. They came with brackets so that the could be mounted to the outside edge of the pedal board.The lights plug into some type of switch and then into the controller which sits on top of the board. The controller works like the ones for Christmas lights. There are a bunch of patterns that it will go through and one setting that will go to the beat of the music. Since then, there are better lights on the market. Best place to look is on Amazon. Then have a ton of options. There are even fiberoptics that you can put on your board. Not sure how but I am thinking about it.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the info. It's time to refresh the pedals on my board so I'll have to get some new lights while I have it taken apart.

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