Finished Pedal Board

[mjtripper]

Well, I finally got tired of kicking around my pedals on the floor and built a pedal board. I'm too cheap to buy one It's 1/2" baltic ply covered with outdoor carpet. The second row of pedals is on a 1" riser. Velcro on the pedals to hold them down. Everything is powered with the 1-spot except the ce-2. That had a wierd noise with the 1-spot so I had to dig out the aca for it. For the microamp and crybaby I just drilled a hole in the side and used a battery clip adapter. I found some rubber feet cheap on ebay and have 6 screwed into the bottom. None of this was my idea I stole all of them from pictures here and on the net so thanks to everybody that posted pictures and ideas!!

The case is a 35" protec keyboard case I just got on closeout for $40 or so and I have room to make a slightly larger board and add a volume pedal. I don't know how many people use protec but they are great cases, they are basically rigid gig bags. I've had my classical and an electric in one for about 18 years and they hold up great. I got my classical case shortly after they released it for a couple hundred dollars so I figured $40 was a steal for this quality. So with the wood, carpet, velcro, case, power, some adapters, and misc stuff I have about $130 into a powered board with a good case.

Okay, enough blabbering, on with the pics.

[Riscchip]

Pretty slick, mate. Nice work.

[jackson1]

Looks great, mjtripper.

Speaking from experience, i would "clamp down" the input cord to the plyboard, so you don't unplug yourself or rip the entire setup to pieces, when running around the stage/room and are out of lead.

[RacerX]

Cool DIY! Er, you have a MT2, DS-1, and OD-1 hahahaha

[mantis]

Nice job

[mjtripper]

Thanks guys, I'm rather proud of this one. It really helped clean up my room and decrease setup time, I should have done it years ago. That's a good idea about locking down the input cable, I think I have a cable clamp that will work well for that.

I've taken some ribbing for having the three distortion boxes but it works for me I have the od3 set for a slight blues breakup, the ds1 rolled back a little for a classic rock sort of tone, and the mt2 for metal stuff. If I'm not practicing at home I'll use my amp for some distortion but otherwise I can use this and turn the levels way down as the only amp I have now is a half stack. The digidelay is a little noisy so I hope to replace that sometime - when the wife isn't looking!!

[Megadeth79]

Nice. I'm too lazy to build one so I will but a Boss pedalbord

[Guyver1]

man im SO glad i use rack equipment

Rocktron Midi Mate with phontom power from the prophesy = clutter free

expensive but man so much more versatile and easier to look after lol :P

nice DIY tho

[Inazone]

I saw one of the old SKB boards that had the angled 2U rack bay attached, but my experience with other SKB boards wasn't very good, so I skipped it. I've been using a homemade board for years now, big enough to mount various pedals a couple of half-space rack units and a Furman PlugLock strip in back. Currently, it holds: wireless base, preamp/processor pedal (large), two stompboxes, a half-space EQ and half-space Hush.

I'm tempted by the Furman powered board that has three outlets for "wall warts" but have held off since I'm constantly rearranging my rig.

[lerxstcat]

Cool DIY! Er, you have a MT2, DS-1, and OD-1 hahahaha

Don't forget the Micro-amp! Clean boost but you slam the front end with that and it adds distortion too!

[mjtripper]

Don't forget the Micro-amp! Clean boost but you slam the front end with that and it adds distortion too!

I mainly use the micro-amp as a solo boost, it's one of the originals and is the cleanest boost I've seen yet. But, if I set the od3 level almost all the way up with the drive around 10 into the micro-amp at about 3 it REALLY slams the front of an amp That's my second oldest pedal.

[Chad]

I'm tempted by the Furman powered board that has three outlets for "wall warts" but have held off since I'm constantly rearranging my rig.

I've had one for about 3 years and love it. I'm surprised more people don't use/buy those boards. I thought it was a steal at $250...and now you can get them for $200.

It's a quality board and doesn't weigh a ton like some custom pedal boards. It also has a quality gig bag that has cool compartments good for storing cables, picks, etc.

Its size allows for a good quantity of pedals and will work for most people aside from a total pedal freak. If it can't fit on that board, you probably need to cut back on pedals.

I also love the on-board Furman power conditioning and the three extra plug-ins. I plug my amp into one of the three outlets, so it also gets quality surge protection and conditioning.

You don't have to buy something like a Pedal Power as it has quality, regulated pedal power on-board. I trust that more than any of the OneSpot, Godlyke, etc. power adapter. I own a OneSpot and it has worked okay, but I've read some bad things about those style of power supplies.

One thing that baffles me is that people think you HAVE to use the on-board patch bay. It gets bad reviews and isn't that great, so people avoid buying the entire board. In three years, I have never even tested the on-board patch bay. All of my cabling is done on the board itself. Actually, I built a shelf over the patch bay and mounted my Boss TU-12H tuner on it. That completely covers the patch bay.

The negatives:

Not many!

1. The included pedal power cords are a little too short to power the lower left pedal in a lot of setups. You may have to custom make a longer power cord or buy an extension cable.
2. Since the board is one level, hitting the footswitch on the back row of pedals can cause you to mess up settings on the front row of pedals. I avoided this by making custom "lifters" for my back row pedals. That has worked great.

Wow, I was just gonna comment on how I like my Furman Pedalboard and I've ended up writing almost an entire review! HA!

[skorb]

nice job man.

I got this SKB powered board recently for like $150 and I love it.



it has 6 jacks for pedals and the handle at the top works great when transporting and setting it up. I velcro'd the wall wart to the top L corner so it's easy to plug in via ext cord no matter where I am. the bag it comes with is also really nice and has a big pocket for cords, etc.

I know the earlier SKB model boards would sag when you stomped on them, but this one has a molded base that is very sturdy, it's well made.

[mjtripper]

I've had one for about 3 years and love it. I'm surprised more people don't use/buy those boards. I thought it was a steal at $250...and now you can get them for $200.

Actually that Furman was one of the boards I considered buying. It does look appealing and if this one doesn't work out I'll probably try one. I liked that it came with power and a bag. A lot of them like the boss wouldn't hold a wah which took them out of the running for me.