diy pedalboard

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I wanted to get a pedal or two to experiment with... that quickly lead to three, four... Mostly very inexpensive pedals just for play. But of course then I needed a pedalboard so I decided to make one. I drew it to be the smallest size I could get away with. A larger pedalboard would just make me buy more pedals ;) Not terribly sophisticated but gratifying nonetheless. The sides are 1" thick beech rabbeted so that the top shelves set inside. Top is baltic birch ply edged with paduak for a little visual interest. I put in and out jacks on the side and mounted a power supply underneath. I'm still waiting on a few more patch cables so I haven't wired it up yet.

I'm completely green when it comes to all of this stuff so I can't really discuss the finer points of each pedal :confused: However I can share that the Trio+ has a much smaller learning curve than what I imagined and it's a heckuva lot of fun!
 

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That looks great, nice work. One day you will have to tell us more about the pedals. I am intrigued, but not sure where to start.
 
Thank you.

“I am intrigued, but not sure where to start.”

That describes me as well. I’ve played with some of the pedals and some are new. I’m fumbling my way through it.
 
DIY is the only way to go. Build your own rules instead of fitting your gear into somebody else's design. And save a buck. A Pedaltrain doesn't even have built-in jacks!

Looks clean. What are the little ones?
 
Donner pedals, very economical. From the left; Yellow Fall Delay pedal, Behringer Reverb, Donner Blues Drive, Compressor and Tuner.
 
That looks great! Elegantly simple design. I love the padauk accents. I had a couple pedals that quickly multiplied into about 8 a few years ago. I never got around to building a pedal board though. Those little Donner pedals are a lot of fun to play around with and an easy way to experiment with different effects.
 
While I do not own any stomp boxes, I would recommend the website of Aron Nelson, a Hawaiian who has played with Chris Kamaka. In addition to his music skills, he also is a programmer having written the unrealBook app (PDF music reader—very good app).

http://www.diystompboxes.com/wpress/
 
this thread abounds in awesomeness. Like others in this thread I have admissions to make. I have never played a guitar, I have never used a plectrum, and know nothing about electronic music. However I bought a 75 watt amp with built in "pedals" such as distortion, overdrive, flange, reverb, and delay. I supplemented with a fuzz pedal (Fuzz Factory Fat) and I love to wank around with my slide and movable chords. If I turn the volume up to "2" I am shaking the walls with my A blues progressions. It actually sounds like I know what I am doing. Those pedals really hide all my faults and if I do make a mistake, I just repeat the mistake and--presto--it is a motif! I have grown very fond of chucking strings to give a percussive rhythm which wasn't possible when playing acoustically. I am learning a lot about rock 'n' roll--namely that it is largely dependent on attitude and mojo, rather than pure proficiency. I don't mean to take anything away from the many people here whom I know have been professional musicians for 30+ years; I merely saying that as an acoustic instrumentalist I am completely a non-entity, but give me a few pedals and I am a little more than that.
 
That looks great! Elegantly simple design. I love the padauk accents. I had a couple pedals that quickly multiplied into about 8 a few years ago. I never got around to building a pedal board though. Those little Donner pedals are a lot of fun to play around with and an easy way to experiment with different effects.

Thank you. I've been a woodworking hobbyist a lot longer than I've been an ukulele hobbyist :)
I view the Donner pedals as "appetizers" at $25 to $30 each. One of the main reasons I wanted to build a pedalboard was to tidy-up the power cord situation. It got messy having loose pedals all about and the cheaper pedals often don't include power cords so I was switching them out.


While I do not own any stomp boxes, I would recommend the website of Aron Nelson, a Hawaiian who has played with Chris Kamaka. In addition to his music skills, he also is a programmer having written the unrealBook app (PDF music reader—very good app).
http://www.diystompboxes.com/wpress/

Looks like a great resource, thanks!


If I turn the volume up to "2" I am shaking the walls with my A blues progressions. It actually sounds like I know what I am doing. Those pedals really hide all my faults and if I do make a mistake, I just repeat the mistake and--presto--it is a motif! I have grown very fond of chucking strings to give a percussive rhythm which wasn't possible when playing acoustically. .....

Thanks for the chuckle. I think we're in the same place. It's purely fun for me, almost a guilty pleasure. I love the purity of an acoustic stringed instrument but it's a lot of fun to be able to plug in and experiment on another level with an entirely different palette of sounds.
 
Micheal brother -

I must say I very impressed with your timber skills.

I went the lazy and cheap route a while back. I have a bunch of pedals that I zip-tied to a Stanley 2 ft plastic pegboard square ($8) [that is meant for hanging tools on the wall] because I refuse to pay $100 for a Pedaltrain board or one of the nicer pre-made ones.

It looks something like one of these panels:

71SUJfF2hqL._SX522_.jpg


It works fine for home use since I rarely need to move it.

However, since I got the Zoom MS-100 BT, which is a multi-effect pedal the size of a single pedal, I do not use the other effects much.

You've got some nice effects there, and they have a very nice home. I like that you can route the cables via the slots on the board, and when all finished you will likely not have a spaghetti mess of power & patch cords to contend with.

When you get around to fixing them with velcro, might I suggest to use less than you think you need on each pedal. Like only 1" squares at the corners.

I made the mistake of initially using a 2.5" wide x 4" long adhesive velcro strip on the back of each pedal, and once fixed down, trying to remove to reposition them required the use of a screwdriver as a lever to pry them off the board. Not fun.

I am happy to see you applying your timber skills to your music interest. This project in addition to your Cajon build looks very professional and I am looking forward to what you create in the next projects.

Thanks for sharing :)
 
Good morning Booli my brother and thanks for your never-ending encouragement. Combining hobbies has been the ultimate therapy for me. I actually have several ukuleles on the workbench in various stages of completion but since they require a lot more care and attention than these other projects they patiently wait their turn. Since I'm not a gigging musician (and depending on your definition I may not be a musician at all ;) ) the pedalboard was mostly for convenience. Having everything set up at the ready with only one cable for power makes it a lot more fun to play and experiment. Velcro is the devil's tool :( There's no arguing it's usefulness but I have always found it annoying...maybe it's the sound? In any case I decided to try 3M Dual Lock Fastener for this project. It's sort of a "plastic velcro". I have a strip of it holding the power supply on the underside of the pedalboard and it seems to work wonderfully.
 
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Great job with the craftsmanship on the petalboard. While surfing the internet yesterday, I stumbled across a 'Deal" at Sweetwater for a Digitech Trio for $49.95. Although dumb as a post on most things involving electronic tech, I punched the "order" button. I've always wanted the sound of bass and percussion background to my tenor and baritone strumming. I hope this thing works with simple ukulele stuff as well as guitars. Not to hijack your thread but I certainly would appreciate any comments re your experience this device. Thanks.
 
While surfing the internet yesterday, I stumbled across a 'Deal" at Sweetwater for a Digitech Trio for $49.95. Although dumb as a post on most things involving electronic tech, I punched the "order" button. I've always wanted the sound of bass and percussion background to my tenor and baritone strumming. I hope this thing works with simple ukulele stuff as well as guitars. Not to hijack your thread but I certainly would appreciate any comments re your experience this device. Thanks.


Not a hijack at all, in fact I would welcome more conversation on the topic since I have lots to learn.
I think $49 for the Trio is a no-brainer. The one I have is the Trio+ which adds looping functionality. I've had it for less than a month and although I didn't put it through any exhaustive testing I did get several opportunities to play with it. I must say it's exactly what I had hoped it would be. You "teach" it a chord progression and it comes up with accompaniment. You have the ability to fine tune the genre (rock, blues etc) as well as the tempo. As I get more familiar with it I'd be happy to post more observations. I would also love it if any forum members who use a Trio would chime in with their thoughts.
 
I’ve seen folks use pedals before but they’ve never looked as good as yours does. I doubt I could ever figure it out but your box would sure make me look good. LOL
 
That looks really nice. Good job. :cool:
 
Thanks to both of you. I’m not that great an ukulele player so maybe the pedalboard will draw attention away from me ;)
 
...I would also love it if any forum members who use a Trio would chime in with their thoughts.

I have the Trio+ high on my wishlist, but it will be some time before I have one in hand. Right now I am just too burdened with other things to put in the time to make good use of it.

Thus, I will have to rely upon the hands-on testimonials of other folks here, and live vicariously through all of you.

Digitech has been making really nice gear over the past 30 yrs or so, and the accompaniment tech inside this magic box is based upon the computer program aptly called 'Band-In-A-Box' which I am a huge fan of and have been using consistently and upgrading all the way from to version 3.0 which used to run on MS-DOS and required an external MIDI adapter for the computer (I used a Roland MPU-401) as well as external sound modules to create the accompaniment. Back then I had a Roland MT-32, as well as a Roland LAPC-1 and would feed the output of these each into a discreet channel on my Tascam 4-track "portastudio" cassette recorder.

More info about 'Band-In-A-Box' here: http://www.pgmusic.com/ (Mac and Windows versions currently)

The other hardware I had used is all regarded 'vintage' and pretty much eclipsed by modern software instruments and their versatility, as well as for audio fidelity.

PG Music is a great company, and back in 1992 when I saw an ad for the program in the back of 'Electronic Musician' magazine, and called them to order the software (ordering online was not a thing yet), the owner and main programmer Peter Gannon (hence the PG in PG Music) actually answered the phone and happily took my order. We've come a long way since then. :)

Sorry for the digression, but I just wanted to give a historical perspective on the 'magic little box' that is rendered in the Trio series.
 
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