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Help Me Sort Out My Pedalboard!

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  • Rated: 43 ↑

  Sep 5, 2008 11:33 a.m. Tsar Nicholas :

  Alright you guys and gals, I need to get myself a sturdy as hell pedal setup.

  I have a very simple setup as it stands, just a TU-2 and an EH Booster being powered by a Dunlop DC Brick. The weak link is the DC Brick, not hard wearing enough at all, very fiddly and craps out too often.

  I need a setup that will stand up to the rigours of a gigging lunatic musician. I'm not easy on my equipment as I put a lot into my performance.

  So what I feel I need is a TUFF board and power supply, any reccomendations?

  Dunno about a power supply. PseudoMan reccomended me a Boss RPW-1 but they're hard to come by and harder to find with Irish voltage.

  Any help would be greatly appreciated!

  This looks nice for a board.
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  • Rated: 28 ↑

  Sep 5, 2008 11:46 a.m. Danman:

  Hi Tsar,
  I have recently built myself a pedalboard after always having to make sure the batteries are full and cables are all connected well at every rehearsal and gig for more then 20 years.
  I got the pedaltrain jr. That mini is new, they didn't have that one yet, so I don't know it. I use the pedalpower 2 by voodoolab. It is a great sturdy device and fits under the pedaltrain. So it doesn't take up any space. It powers up to 8 pedals.
  I really like the pedaltrain. It is very simple and you can always (because it is all stuck on with velcro) move the pedals around if you need to. And you can have all the wires running underneath. But watch out: I always just had two TS9's and an echo. Now I have two ts9's, a box of rock, a Diamond fireburst, an echo, a tuner and a reverb on it. Don't know if I really need it all but it fits on there.
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  • Rated: 66 ↑

  Sep 5, 2008 11:55 a.m. Walter Broes:

  Tsar, my advice would be to have something custom-made. Talk to a local company that builds road cases, and have them build something that fits your needs. I'm finally about to have a new pedalboard built, and I'll have my buddy (who used to co-own a flight case company) build something close to the one I had. I'm surprised you're having problems with the Dunlop DC brick - I went through a couple of adaptors with mine (before this board got stolen), but the rest of it refused to die. My new board will have a T-Rex power supply, the "fuel tank junior".

  Here's how my old board looked : folded up :

  

  connector side :

  pedals :
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  • Rated: 28 ↑

  Sep 5, 2008 12:30 p.m. Danman:

  What Walter says is true. You'll have it built exactly to your needs and to the size you need or want. I wonder if it is a bit more expensive though. But I guess that depends on the person building it.
  

  I was planning on building one but I decided to buy a pedaltrain because I don't really know what I want and I know that what I want will change every now and then. So I want a flexible one. And for that price I decided it would be perfect.
  

  Here is mine. I just put it together yesterday evening so the wires are not running neatly enough. And I have 4 distortion units on there now because I can't really decide what I want and haven't been able to try them all out well in a band situation. So I just put them all on there for a now.
  I have a socket on there too because the holy grail uses 500 mA as opposed to the 200 and less that most pedals use. I didn't know when I bought it and you won't normally need that. You can see how the pedalpower is built under it.
  
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  • Rated: 43 ↑

  Sep 5, 2008 3:03 p.m. Tsar Nicholas :

  Thanks for your input, guys!

  A custom made board would be nice but would probably be a bit overboard for what I really need, seeing as I only use two, maybe three, pedals.

  A Pedaltrain with a VoodooLabs power supply looks like a great option.

  Walter said: I'm surprised you're having problems with the Dunlop DC brick - I went through a couple of adaptors with mine (before this board got stolen), but the rest of it refused to die.

  Your one looks different to mine... I'd say you've an older, better built one because I've had all sorts of problems with dodgy connections and suchlike. Could be I'm just a cackhanded lummox, too!
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  • Rated: 20 ↑

  Sep 5, 2008 5:16 p.m. troy6120:

  Pedaltrain 2 is the way to go. I also have the VoodooLabs power supply. This pedalboard is super-sturdy, big enough, and looks cool. Here's mine.
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  • Rated: 43 ↑

  Sep 7, 2008 9:37 a.m. Tsar Nicholas :

  Holy god, Troy! That's a serious amount of pedals!
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  • Rated: 32 ↑

  Sep 7, 2008 9:52 a.m. RepentOrPerish:

  There was an article in an issue of Premeir Guitar a while back where a guy just took a pine board, layed out his 3 or 4 pedals where he wanted, drilled a hole on either side, used zip ties to secure them (some pedals require two or more zip ties in combo) and used a zip tied down One Spot. He then got a little piece of wood to screw to the front of the board to make it tilt up at him a little. He slips it into a duffle bag. It looked so cool , i tried it, and use it to this day. Its nice to not have to mess with vecro, and you can snip the zip ties whenever you want, if you want to make changes.
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  • Rated: 66 ↑

  Sep 7, 2008 10:09 a.m. Walter Broes:

  Tsar Nicholas said: Your one looks different to mine... I'd say you've an older, better built one because I've had all sorts of problems with dodgy connections and suchlike.

  Mine was older, not called "DC Brick" yet either, but something like "Juice Box". I think I went through three adapaptors with it, but the box itself never once protested or acted up. That said, I always had the impression it was just a glorified splitter box, because it wasn't like my rig was entirely hum, click-, pop- or buzz-free with it.

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