Let's see those pedalboards!!

[hairyandy]

Question: General rule of thumb is that having more than 6 pedals on your board will suck tone. Is this assuming the pedals are not true-bypass, or what? I'm quickly approaching having 9 or so pedals on my board, and I've been thinking about this as I check out these pictures.

Having that many pedals on your board will suck tone if they ARE true bypass.  Make an AMZ Super Buffer (http://www.muzique.com/lab/superbuff.htm), or any of Jack's other buffer projects (http://www.muzique.com/lab/buffers.htm) and you'll be fine...

Andy

[Ben N]

I think Andy's statement is predicated on the assumption that "sucking tone" refers to the effect of capacitance over the entire distance the unbuffered signal must travel, including cable, hardware, etc.--from that perspective, a long chain of truely bypassed pedals will have more tone-sucking effect than buffered ones. But that isn't the only hazard your signal runs on its way from guitar to amp. The magic number "6" may refer to where most people can start to hear negative effects from all those buffers, typically two per pedal, all uselessly buffering away even when all the FX are off, and all adding small amounts of distortion and noise that cumulatively cause a dulling of the sound. Those buffers can be a good thing when there are one or a few pedals, but eventually they become a problem, and 6 is often mentioned as a sort of assumed tipping point, although that probably has a lot to do with the quality of the buffers and what your ears are expecting to or can hear.

Of course the worst case is unbuffered non-true-bypass pedals, the kind that just switch the output jack from the effect out to the input but leave the effect input connected, that add (or should I say subrtract) nasty loading effects to your signal.

[elshiftos]

Elshiftos, that board looks great, exactly the kind of thing i'm after.

What PSU did you use?  Did you build it yourself? 

Also how did you get it so that the pedals that are in the FX loop appear in the normal chain if the FX loop is not connected?

The psu is a basic homebuild, 9v regulator design, using a low profile transformer.

The fx loop pedals (delay, chorus) are on their own send/return jacks on the back panel. The output of the 'pre' amplifier fx (wah, dist, od...) also appear on a back panel jack. I connected the break contacts on the 'pre' fx jack to the break contacts on the fx loop input jack and used the fx loop output jack to go to the input of the amplifier. I used the plastic jacks that have terminals on either side, two of which perform a break action when a jack is inserted.
A diagram might explain better, but I'm not near suitable software - you work it out! ;-)

[liddokun]

I used to have about 14 pedals on my board, but would generally use about 3 max at a time. Like Chris, I couldn't afford all that cable.

[Thomas3D]

chain order:
planetwaves tuner
cry baby w/  sweep cap selector
boss sd-1 Overdrive
bos ph3 phase shifter
boss aw-3 autowah
boss dd-3 digital delay
Tremulus Lune w/ half/full speed switch added
Boss dd-20 digital delay

Amp footswitch and dual tap tempo footswitch (for phaser and dd-20)

[GtrmanMoe]

Top Row L to R: Rebote 2.5, Tonepad CE-2, Boss BF-2 (MIJ), Tonepad Phase 90, ROG MayQueen 2, Tonepad Ross Compressor
Bottom Row L to R:  GGG Guv'nor, BSIAB2, Dist+, DOD 250, Boss SD-1, Boss DS-1 (Modded), Boss TU-2, ROG Nurse Quacky, Dunlop CryBaby Wah.  Upper Right Corner:  AMZ JFET Buffer

Soon to come:  GGG Ultra Clean Power Supply

[cloudscapes]

a healthy board is a mixture of both true bypass and buffered pedals (assuming the buffer isn't too bad). this is especially true in large boards.

[frank_p]

This place is too cool.

Chris you really made my day.
Do you have a project for a circular pedalboard ?

[kurtlives]

Haha not yet, I should 

[petemoore]

  The latest array on the 1 step PB has 3 tubes:
  A V-38 based on the Valvecaster, another super-nice OD IME.
  And a Blackfinger Compressor, 2 tubes w/300V plate function, and a couple of different lamps !
  Also new is my first Gus's Overdrive !
  Thanks to Gus and myself, finally getting this OD built, the guitar knob and general OD switching has taken on new meanings for me, thank you Gus !
 
  Here's the Blackfinger and FF end of the board, That Fuzzface has been on the board the longest.
 
  And my pedalboard with the big game kitty's expressive exclamation ! [before the OD went where the BMP was and before the Chorus became a treadle speed SS phaser:
 
  Mounting the switched power cord in there [short IEC cable to Voodoolabs PPII Supply] allows me a way to switch off the tubes and everything.
  Notice also the somewhat unsightly strapping of the boxes, 1 screw removes or tightly secures a box, and they can be made to order quickly and for free, I had problems with some of other methods I tried for securing boxes, especially larger ones.
  The Raco and boxes with 4 screws and a bottom are mostly rubber-footed bottom w/bottom screwed down, [the width of the rip of the mounting board strips fits under the boxes, bottom screws accessible from either side of the box...from the bottom].
  The phaser has to go though...when trying to stomp it on or off the whole PB tips up, making a jab-stomp necessary.
 
 

[musiclikscreams]

subbin
built an awesome pedal board for a friend the other day... can't wait to post pics wen its finished!

[ppatchmods]

Here's what I've been rockin' lately:

[Valoosj]

Finally finished my board.

[Paul Marossy]

Here's the one I finished about a month ago using stuff I mostly got at Lowe's. I had to get a few things via internet like the corners and draw latches.

[Sody54]

Not fancy, but it's functional.  Need to get some butterfly latches for it though, so it doesn't flop open on the sidewalk again...



From left to right: 
Crybaby volume pedal
Roadhog Fuzz (andy's simple fuzz)
'77 OD-250 (in the fancy diamondplate enclosure my brother made for me)
Dallas Rangemaster with fat switch
Matsumin SRV Special
EH Small Stone (FINALLY OWN ONE!!  A gift from a DJ friend of mine)
Oh and my trusty Sabine ST-1500 tuner. Can't believe it still works after 17years of abuse!!
All enclosures except the volume and small stone are the ones my brother makes.

The board itself is made from 1/2" plywood top and bottom with 1"x 4" sides split at 1-1/2".  Need to build another using 1"X 6" sides so the volume pedal fits right.  Also need to build on a second tier for the Dr. Quack, Blues Driver with keeley mods, Russian BMP, and power supply underneath.

Brian 

[knealebrown]

There are a lot of nice boards on here so though id put mine up.
Been a good few years in the making.
Nothing boutique or home made (Yet!) but im working on that 

i wont patronize you guys by naming all the individual units im sure you know.
Have just bought a proper small stone and small clone and they shall be swapped in (removing the CE-2 and Nano stone), also removing the NS-1 when i get the money together for a Voodoo labs pedal power. (it currently blocks the hum from my multiple wall wart PS's when im not playing)

A few mods:

-TR-2 C4 mod
-DD-3 hi cut/low pass mod (on repeats)
-TS-9 --->808 spec
-DS-1 multiple mods from overdrive spider and circuit bent

Pedalboard by Diago (recommended;)), custom riser and LED lighting courtesy of myself and a weekend spent in the garage wishing i had a belt sander .






enjoy!

[Gila_Crisis]

this is my new mini-pedalboard:


it's thought as a back up, to play at little gigs or jam sessions, where i can't bring my main amp and the big-pedalboard.
so that i still have the minum i need under my feets.
signal path is:
fender tuner > octaver > bigmuff > echobase > brunetti overtone2 (2 chanel valve preamp/distiortion pedal).
maybe i'll add a demeter compulator clone (wonderfull compressor, i'm building a second one right now)

[tehfunk]

do you guys take out the batteries and leave your pedals plugged in almost all of the time so that you don't have to go through the annoying set up process every time you wanna play? I'm not sure what to do right now, i was worried this would destroy the jacks, but i don't know, someone explain? Thanks!

[knealebrown]

Best way is to not use battery's (personally) unless you really have to (for example with the VOV V847 wah- to save battery you just unplug the input jack, not a problem as its usually sensible to put it first in your chain).

Instead use a multiple power supply, you can get cheap ones (sometimes refferd to as a wall-wart) for about £40 but these just tend to induce ground hum. the main pro of this is that you just switch on the multiple power suply and about eight to ten of your pedals are ready to use, no unplugging cables at the end of gigs etc. no real cons, some multi supply's even have voltage sags to run you vintage fuzzes off etc.

the main spec you should be looking for in a PS is that it is isolated, this stops cross talk, degradation of signal and that pesky hum that sometimes is cause by cheap PS.

there are a few good isolated PS's on the market at the moment (voodoo labs PS is a standard), none of them cheap. But honestly think of it this way:

if you have a lot of pedals you might as well spend the extra £150 somewhere down the line and make sure they can be run at the manufacturers specified voltage, this gives the internal components the best chance of operating inside their designed range and you squeezing that last bit of tone out of your entire rig, especially if your as anal as i can be.

Theres my two cents hope this helped.

BTW also will save you spending a tonne of money on 9v bat's, and its always annoying when you run out at a gig

[Paul Marossy]

do you guys take out the batteries and leave your pedals plugged in almost all of the time so that you don't have to go through the annoying set up process every time you wanna play? I'm not sure what to do right now, i was worried this would destroy the jacks, but i don't know, someone explain? Thanks!

Most of my builds don't even have the ability to have a 9V battery - I use only DC jacks because I hate buying batteries and I don't like plugging/unplugging cords all the time.