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In light of the rapidly growing popularity of boutique guitar pedals, more and more players are finding themselves confronted by the challenge of moving and setting up all those different pedals. Gigging musicians have an even more difficult challenge of addressing a wide variety of venues and styles in an age when almost every gig is a one-nighter.
Setting up a bunch of pedals onstage is time-consuming. Plus, it looks cluttered and it's a lot to carry around if you don't need all of those pedals every night. The trick is to bring only what you need for the next show, nicely fastened down, powered and conveniently designed to set up and tear down in mere seconds. You need a small, compact pedalboard.
Unfortunately, you will need a different set of pedals on tomorrow's gig. It would be great if only you had several different pedalboards, each carrying just the right pedals for the job. At the same time, most players have several pedals that they need on every show. It doesn't make sense to buy duplicate pedals for each board. Time for some creative problem solving. Separate the challenges and solve them individually.
Specialization
Our first objective is to determine how many different tones you need to cover your shows. A good place to start, is to ask yourself how many different amp rigs you are currently using. If you have one amp that you always use, consider how many different styles you need to cover. Next, put together a list of the perfect selection of pedals for each style. Don't worry about duplication of pedals, we'll solve that in the design process.
Flexibility
Since it isn't practical to build several separate pedalboards with duplicate pedals for your mainstays, you'll want to make your solution flexible so you can adapt it easily to each of the styles you play. Begin by determining your mainstays; that is, figure out which pedals you use on every gig. They'll be situated together on a single motherboard that you take to every show. The motherboard will be designed to support different specialty modules designed to cover each of your styles. To keep things compact as well as to support the modules, the motherboard will have a built-in riser in the back that the modules fasten to with quick-release fasteners or latches. Design your riser high enough that you can easily select the pedals on the module without hitting the ones on the motherboard. Your power supply will be located out of sight beneath the raised modules. The riser could be as simple as a couple blocks of solid wood with carriage bolts through them so you can fasten the module with wing nuts from the top. Alternately, you might use clamshell window latches as a quick-release solution. Create one module board for each style.
Finalizing Your Design
Take some time to experiment with your physical layout and make sure it will be convenient to select the pedals you want come showtime. Try laying everything out on the floor like a mock pedalboard. Make sure to calculate how much room you'll need for cables to plug in and for the power cords to reach. You can use cut-off blocks of wood or even paperback books to simulate the raised module and determine the optimum height for your riser. Consider the footprint of your assembled pedalboard and make sure it won't take up more stage space than you can afford. It's a trade-off between length and width so be creative. To accommodate extra big pedals like wah or volume pedals you might want to leave space on one side of the module riser so they can make use of the full depth of the motherboard front-to-back. When you're pretty confident you have the perfect design, walk away and come back the next day with a fresh perspective just to make sure you haven't overlooked anything.
In the next article we'll look at putting everything together to make a working pedalboard that you can quickly adapt for each of your gigs. Have you ever designed a pedalboard? What solutions have you discovered that really work for you?
