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DIY Pedalboard / Display Plans

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(@mistermikev)
Eminent Member
Joined: 11 years ago
Posts: 18
Topic starter  

Just wanted to share my plans for a diy pedalboard... I've actually built one similar but am going to 'redo' a bit smaller and with a few improvements.
Def not a portable board... but I don't gig so not an issue for me.
My goals were to create something that would look nice, fit a lot of pedals, have space for hidden wiring, have a top tier to rest my foot on, and be able to build without having to rip anything and with limited tools (I did my first one with only a chop saw).

any feedback is welcome.
cheers


   
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(@ezraplaysezra)
Honorable Member
Joined: 12 years ago
Posts: 484
 

too much angle and I wouldn't suggest a third tire. Use two tires and keep them pretty flat especially with pedals you have to rock or manipulate. Pedals that are too high from the floor are very hard to trigger. - put tap and rock pedals on the first rung.


   
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(@mistermikev)
Eminent Member
Joined: 11 years ago
Posts: 18
Topic starter  

thanks for the response.
all good advice. I could easily omit the top row.

not to contest - hope it doesn't come off that way, but...

I have a 3 tier board right now and don't really have an issue hitting the top row, then again, I am not doing a lot of switching on demand.

also it'd have to be pretty big to fit the number of pedals I'd like and be two tier! (I know, "hello my name is mike and I have a problem").


   
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(@ezraplaysezra)
Honorable Member
Joined: 12 years ago
Posts: 484
 

You actually have all those pedals daisy'd together? I thought this was a design exercise.
don't you have a lot of signal loss?
can you trouble shoot in sections?
How are you powering the board?
Can you change signal paths easily?
Do you have buffer points through out?

That's what I assume the most logical issues of a board like this would be. I'd be really interested in hearing how you tackle these concerns. Also, why not use a ground control or MIDI? I also have a boat load of pedals (though I rarely use more than 4 at any one time) One thing I know is after a year or 4 your are going to have shorts and quirks and failures and pedals that decide they don't like each other anymore. My main concern would be trouble shooting something like this. My live board (that I thought was kind of big) had a routing block with I/O for each patch. I worked well for 10 or so pedals, we considered adding LEDS for off in the patch but I never really needed it.


   
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(@mistermikev)
Eminent Member
Joined: 11 years ago
Posts: 18
Topic starter  

yes, I've got loads of pedals.
thank you for bringing up some very valid points that demonstrate "you've been down this road" as well. Very insightful of you.

right now, I have several 2/3/4 loop bypass controllers - some with buffers and boosters built in... a few with order switchers, but I've been working on a box to control 7 loops via 4 footswitches and 2 (yes, 4p4t!) rotary dials in a dbl 1590bb box. The rotary dials giving me a-b-c, ab, bc, c-b-a, and each group of three can be swapped around (2 stomps control overall on/off for each group, 1 for my wah/autowah group, 1 to switch the order of the two groups of three).
will have a buffer in front and in back in case I decide to start stringing together more groups than usual and/or run into signal loss.

with two of my "super loopers" (I will control the world! who who ha ha he he) I will run each half of the board. My signal going in will have a shortest path of 10' to the looper, and 5' to the amp. The second half of the board will be in my fx loop of one of my amps. the shortest path there will be 5' to the looper and 5' back. So in bypassed mode it should be the equiv of a 25' cord. Each group I turn on should add about 1.5' of cable.

on the pedalboard, I plan to put in L bracket iron across the bottom of each tier, with two 1/4" jacks per each group of 2(or so) pedals, and route wire under each tier going back to the loop controller.

Clearly we both have been through the issue of deciding to re-order pedals and breaking cable/headache-routing in the process... I hope to prevent issues by having all wires to/fro the looper from the angle iron set in stone -changing order only via my controller.

breaking everything into groups of two solves most of the issues of "playing nice", but obviously there are just certain pedals that you can't cascade. Like you, I rarely turn on more than 4 at once, so it's not my biggest concern.

afa power, I've got a few plans for hand built isolated, regulated (I feel like jessy jackson all of the sudden)... but in the past I got by with 3 one-spots and a few individual supplies with little issue since I staggered the sources for the pedals and rarely use more than 4 at any given time. Power supplies were all plugged into a good quality rack power conditioner mounted underneath the top tier so that probably helped.

there's got to be some potential for issues despite all this, but I'll cross that bridge.


   
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(@ezraplaysezra)
Honorable Member
Joined: 12 years ago
Posts: 484
 

WOWZER Sounds good.
I like the furman mounted under w/ the one spots - good system.
I did hard points (with point to point) too, worth the head ache. Having bank and sub groups helps.
Mine was much more simple - generally I had "shaping", pedals my mainstays after modulation pedals and everything else could be added before or after the shaping pedals. Similar but much more simple. At one point I had three pre-amps and two tube buffers to route into but I scaled into one single channel Marshall when things began to get unruly. One thing I really liked was the small radial DI's, they were yellow and I can't remember what they were called but they were cheap and great for ramping up the signal.
I think you're good man - love to see it finished. I have a guy in Nashville if you need any pointers.


   
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(@mistermikev)
Eminent Member
Joined: 11 years ago
Posts: 18
Topic starter  

right on... appreciate the feedback and offer.

hard points: I'd find myself spending soo much time trying to figure out where things were routing every time I changed one pedal or got a bad cable. Hopefully I'm going in a direction that should sidestep that going forward.

afa buffers I guess it's in my head that they are a last ditch thing.
typically boosting my signal up via a compressor, then boosting a bit more with an overdrive that likely has a buffer up front and at back so in a perfect world I shouldn't need more buffers while things are on... then there's the dif between theory and practice. :oops:

afa three preamps... I hear ya, you gotta draw a line SOMEWHERE! I have a parallel pedal that I used to incorporate but things start to get out of control routing wise, and then there's the possibility of stereo and mixing it all together at the end. I've come to the realization that if I need parallel I'll record twice, and if I need stereo I'll use my rack setup. I guess if I was doing live stuff, my whole installation would change. Fortunately I'm happy being the "best there ever was on MY sofa".

I've seen those radial boxes with a switch for parallel/series. Really nice.
For me, I've got to get to a point where everything is routed through one box then to the amp, otherwise I have to have a document telling me how things are routed (you should see the redic doc I have from back when I had 45 pedals wired up - and yes, there were some minor issues with signal loss!)

hopefully my "super looper" combined with labeled jacks on the board will solve that.

Thanks again for your reply :D


   
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