What’s the Best Pedalboard for Me?
Whether a guitarist or bassist, if you want to know more about pedalboards, then you’re in the right place. This tailor-made Buyer’s Guide will equip you with all the knowledge you need to build your own board of effects, from choosing the right kind of pedalboard, to explaining why it’s best to mount your pedals in a particular order, how to mount them, and how to power them. If you can’t find the answer to your question here, feel free to contact us!
What’s a Pedalboard? | Mounting | Types | Connections | Pedal Order | Power | Multi-Effects | More
1. What Is a Pedalboard?
Pedalboard is the general term for a board mounted with all of your guitar or bass effect pedals (stompboxes). A pedalboard can actually be a metal rack, an actual case, or even something you’ve built yourself, and can be super compact or gigantic. A standard pedalboard is often a metal rack with space between a set of flat metal bars to make room to neatly connect up all of your patch cables and power cables. Underneath these boards, space is also made for mounting a multi-power supply block that can provide every pedal with power using just one mains power plug.
2. How Do You Mount Pedals To a Pedalboard?
The method used to mount your stompboxes to your pedalboard depends on the kind of pedalboard you’ve got. With a standard metal-rack-style pedalboard, you can use fabric fastening strip (more commonly known by a brand-name that we cannot mention, or ‘hook & loop’ fastening strip). This is pretty useful stuff since you can line every bar of your board with the ‘loop’ side of the strip and the base of each of your pedals with the ‘hook’ side, and then you can easily mount and remove your pedals whenever you want. It’s also a nicely secure system. Most of the time, a length of fabric fastening strip will come included with the board. There are also some more unique pedalboards that use their own system for securing pedals.
Universal pedalboard cases often include a ground sheet of foam that you can customise by cutting it to size for a specific pedal so that the foam hugs the pedal securely in place. There are also brand-specific pedalboards that usually come in the form of a case and offer a perfect fit for any pedal from that particular brand.
3. What Kind of Pedalboard Do I Need?
This really depends on what you’re going to find most useful. We’ve included some pointers below to help figure out what might work best for you:
- One of the most well-known kinds of pedalboard is a simple but hard-wearing metal rack with stable feet. A bag or case often comes included with these kinds of boards or can be bought separately.
- There are also case-style pedalboards, where your stompboxes are mounted in the shallow side of the case, and the lid can completely removed, leaving you with a pedalboard that’s ready to go. Some of these pedalboards also come with a built-in power supply, so you have an all-in-one set-up.
- It can make sense to get a pedalboard that offers more space than you actually need so that you can easily expand your collection of effects pedals without running out of space. It’s worth noting that you’ll always need a little more space anyway, so that you can comfortably run all of your power cables and patch leads between the pedals.
- Various companies make pedalboards that are designed for use with their own gear, or boards fitted with compartments that are only compatible with the specific size of their pedals – like the Boss Compact Pedals. If you happen to only use pedals made by one company, this can be really handy but if not, there are more than enough universal pedalboards to choose from.
4. How Do I Link Up All of My Effect Pedals?
So the sound travels via your jack cable from your guitar, into the input of the first pedal in the row. Then, a shorter cable (patch cable) is connected to the output of the same pedal, and the other end is connected to the next pedal in the row, and so on. A second long jack cable is then connected between the output of the last pedal in the row and your amplifier. More experienced guitarists might set up more complex routes for their sound, but the method described above is the basic way to connect up all of your pedals.
5. What’s the Right Order for My Effect Pedals?
In the included image, you can see the most common order that’s followed when arranging or ‘chaining’ effect pedals. To makes things a bit clearer: by ‘modulation’, we mean effects like a chorus, phaser, or flanger, and by ‘ambience’ we mean effects like reverb and delay. If you have a noise-gate, or an effect that’s designed to filter out any unwanted noise, then these usually sit at the end of the chain, after any distortion, overdrive or fuzz pedals, but before any modulation pedals. Depending on how you want to use it, volume pedals are usually placed at the very end of the chain.
When it comes to the order of your effect chain, you can’t actually go wrong. We really recommend playing around with the order of your pedals so you can shape a sound that’s not only perfect for you, but uniquely yours. Try placing a phaser before a distortion, for example, or the other way around. You never know, it might result in a nice surprise.
6. How Do I Power My Effect Pedals?
Most pedals don’t come with a power supply. This is because most of the time, it’s not actually needed since multiple pedals are commonly powered by a single power source. Whatever the power source, it needs to be hard-wearing, reliable, powerful enough, and all of this without affecting or distorting the sound.
The simplest way to power a pedalboard full of effects is by using a standard effect pedal power supply plug and a daisy-chain cable. This special cable is fitted with multiple power plugs, each of which are plugged into a pedal to feed it power. A more reliable and multi-functional solution is using a multi-power supply. These multi-power supplies are blocks fitted with a number of outputs, some of which are often set up for different voltages, so they can power pedals that need more than the standard 9 Volts.
Please note:
- The Voltage of a pedal (most of the time, this will be 9V) must match up with the power output of the power supply you’re using. Otherwise, this may cause damage to the pedal.
- For the same reason, the polarity of the power input of the pedal and the power output of the power supply must match up. Most of the time, the polarity will be the standard ‘centre negative’, but if not, you can use adapter cables.
- Pay attention to current. The power supply needs to be able to provide enough milliamps (mA) to feed all of the pedals with enough current. 1,000mA is enough to feed 5 to 6 standard effects. You can find out the specific current that each of your pedals needs either on the internet or in the user manuals, and then add it all up to find out how power hungry your entire board is. It’s definitely worth using a power supply that provides a higher current than you actually need so that you can add more pedals in the future. Unlike too high a voltage, a high current will not be harmful.
- Most effect pedals come fitted with a standard 2.1mm barrel power socket. If the pedal doesn’t come fitted with this kind of plug, you may need to purchase an adapter.
Power Supplies
Power Supplies with Daisy Chains
Multi-Power Supplies
All Power Supplies
Power Cables (inc. Daisy Chains)
7. What If I Want To Power My Pedals Using Batteries?
Most effect pedals can also be powered by a 9 Volt battery. The plus-side of using batteries is that you won’t need to use power cables at all, you’re not tied to a power point, and the lack of cables will free up some space on your pedalboard. However, in the long run, using batteries is a much more expensive route than using a power supply, and you’re constantly running the risk that a battery dies mid gig or rehearsal. Also, there are a lot of mini-pedals around these days that don’t even come fitted with a battery compartment.
Tip: If you do use battery-powered effects, then always make sure to unplug your patch or jack cables from it as soon as you’re done playing. Otherwise, there’s a chance that the pedal is still ‘active’ and your battery will drain.
8. Is a Multi-Effects Pedal Better Than a Pedalboard Full Of Stompboxes?
A trade-off that almost every beginner guitarist has to make is by going for a bank of separate effects or an all-in-one multi-effects unit. With a set of separate stompboxes, you get way more control over your sound and it’s much easier to vary your set-up or expand it by adding different effects. A multi-effects unit, on the other hand, gives you a massive array of effects for a relatively low price and the quality of the included effects can be pretty high these days. Another advantage for beginners is that you can get to know what a large number of effects are capable of without paying too much money. A lot of multi-effect units also come with audio interfaces built in so you can even record directly to a computer with one.
Links & More Information
Product Categories
Pedalboards
Pedalboard Accessories
Patch Cables
Effect Pedal Power Supplies
Power Cables (e.g. Daisy Chains)
9V Batteries
All Effect Pedal Accessories
Multi-Effect Units
Multi-Effect Stompboxes
Effect Pedals
Buyer’s Guides
