Ask Doktor Dave

April 2008

MT asks: Last month, you wrote about guitar effects. I’ve already got a bunch and now I want to organize them. Where do I get, and how do I choose a good pedalboard?

Doktor Dave Answers: Smart move! Besides organizing all your effects, a pedalboard protects them when not in use. The higher priced ones include filtered/surge protected power supplies too.

If you’re handy, you can “do-it-yourself”. While you do get a custom built board, they tend to be on the heavy side and not quite as sturdy as most commercially available boards. Also, the project takes time to do, and you may end up spending more than half the cost of a similar sized commercial board.

Choosing A Pedalboard:

If you’re like me, you have a lot more effects boxes than any one pedalboard could hope to hold. So the first thing to do is to gather the effects you use most often and see how much real estate they take up. You may have to make some tough decisions here.

If you end up with an area of about 2ft square, you’re pretty likely to find a commercial board that will work for you. If you’re under that, you’ll definitely find one. If you’re over, good luck!

Once you’ve decided what pedals are going on the board, you should consider power requirements as well as cable connections and routing.

Think about how your pedals will be arranged on the board, the signal chain from input to output, the length of connector cable and how it might be stowed. Note the power requirements for each effect. If they all use a 9v adapter, you should consider a power “brick”…a single AC powered box that supplies 9v to many pedals at once.

Once you have these ideas in your head, it’s time to shop around.

Shopping For A Pedalboard:

It seems that pedalboards are not that “in demand” or have a high enough profit margin for most stores to carry them. There are 1 or 2 expensive ones at the large chain store, and maybe something at 1 or 2 of the smaller stores. But the real selection is online. Chances are, you’re not going to get any “hands on” time without buying it first.

My general suggestions regarding online shopping for music stuff are Musician’s Friend and Music 123. There are many others, but these are the big guys with a variety of stock.  For the more eclectic/boutique [read “expensive”] offerings…checkout MusicToyz.Com.

You’ll find a variety of shapes, sizes and features available from brands like SKB, Gator, Pedaltrain, Furman, Pedal Pad, Rockcase, Electro-Harmonix and Boss.

While I can’t vouch for one over the other, I do like Gator’s Gig Box Original…it’s a good size and the lid converts to a guitar stand for 3 electrics and 1 acoustic. And it’s only $160 at MusicToyz.Com! Pretty efficient, huh? I LIKE efficiency… [smile]

So let’s all go pedalboarding!

That’s it for this month. If you have further questions, disagree with me or just wanna say “hi”…leave a comment. Me likes me some comments.

TTFN!

>Doktor Dave<