Building the Perfect Pedalboard (Step-by-Step)

What if I told you that building the perfect pedalboard isn't just about pedals and power supplies, but it's also about perseverance and persistence? Well, at least this is the story of my journey. A little over a year ago, I embarked on a journey to create the ultimate pedalboard. A journey filled with surprises, setbacks, and a ton of problem solving. So in this video, I'm going to condense down my year-long quest for tone into a few minutes. When I set out to build my pedalboard, I had a few goals in mind. Sparkly clean tones, textured wide ambient swells, maximum creativity, and the versatility needed to cover a wide variety of sounds. Sounds simple, right? Well, I quickly realized that this was no plug-and-play project. After a lot, and I do mean a lot, of agonizing over pedal selection, and after a few different iterations of the board, I finally landed on what I felt would provide the greatest amount of versatility for the tones that I was looking for, without compromising audio quality. Now, once I felt that the pedal selection was at least 80% of the way there, I then set out to find a pedalboard provider that could accommodate my needs, and could even check the boxes on my wants. I needed something affordable, durable, and allowed for easy cable management. I cannot stand cable clutter. Now, luckily, there are some amazing tools out there that can help in this preparation phase. And when it comes to ideation in the past, we had to either guess whether our pedals would fit on any given board, or actually physically have the product in hand to sort of assess the situation. Now, one such tool that saved me a ton of headaches was the online board configurator found on the Rockboard website. Essentially, with this tool, I was able to arrange my pedalboard in a way that not only made sense to me, but also allowed me to see ahead of time some potential snags that I could possibly run into. Likewise, it helped me to know what kind of power supply I needed, how big of a board I was going to need, and even the minimum length of most of my cables. According to what was on the screen, I was going to need just a little bit bigger board than the current setup that I was on. And speaking of preparations, let's talk about the pedals that I chose for this build briefly. Now, several of these pedals already have full reviews on them here on the channel, so we won't be getting too deep into the weeds on these at the moment. But if there is a specific pedal that you'd like to know more about, then leave a comment below and I can devote an entire video to it if I haven't done so already. Alright, so here's the lineup that I decided on, and in order of signal flow. Up first is the Behringer FC-600 volume and expression pedal. This volume pedal very well could be used as a weapon in a pinch with its heavy-duty aluminum construction that rivals the size of a compact car. Now, this thing is huge. In all seriousness though, it does have an incredibly smooth volume control, expression capability for compatible devices, and an adjustable tension for a precise feel. And another bonus is the side input for a tuner. On that note, the side input is hooked up to the Rockstock Nano Tuner, and as the name suggests, it's incredibly small. However, don't let the size fool you. It does have a large enough display to see in both low light and stage light settings. And I took full advantage of the volume pedal's side input for this one, allowing this tuner to bypass the signal chain and save some cable runs by only needing an input source. Now, the first pedal that is in the chain is the Donner EQ Seeker. It features a seven-band graphic equalizer with plus or minus 15 dBs of gain adjustment per band, and I chose it for its compact size and affordability. Now, this little guy is great for shaping your tone, or even boosting the signal on the way in, allowing your guitar to cut through the mix. From the EQ, the next pedal in the chain is the Wampler EGO-76 compressor pedal. The EGO-76 provides studio-quality compression with a blend control to keep dynamics sounding natural, sustain control, and a handy tone knob for shaping frequencies. This is not an ordinary compressor pedal. It's more like the Swiss army knife of compressors. And from there, the signal flows into the hub of this board, and the main reason why I was so excited for this build in the first place. The output of the EGO goes into the input of the Jet Pedals Unity-6. The Unity-6 is a looper and switcher pedal that is way ahead of its time. In a nutshell, it's the world's first MIDI switcher with a huge touchscreen, editable scribble strips, six rearrangeable analog loops, and built-in wireless communication over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for a complete, no-cables-needed programming experience. Now, in loop one of the Unity, I have the Kalene PureSky overdrive pedal. The PureSky is a transparent overdrive with low compression, smooth breakup, and clarity. Well-known on the interwebs for enhancing natural amp tone without excessive coloration. Loop two of the Unity contains the LAM overdrive pedal. A versatile overdrive with warm tube-like characteristics, responsive dynamics, and a tonal range suitable for worship, blues, or even rock if need be. In loop three, I have the ARP87 delay pedal. This multi-mode delay pedal with tap tempo, modulation control, and a smart bypass system gives you just enough of that undergirding needed for lead lines and can even be used to add some warble by pressing and holding the tap tempo button, which then initiates the classic Walrus Audio X feature. Now, the output of the Unity goes to the input of the Tone X. This pedal that hardly needs an introduction is my virtual amp and pedal modeler. It's preloaded with 150 tone captures. The extensive tone customizations via software and stereo outputs make this the perfect addition to a board that's looking for versatility, which is exactly what I was looking for. Now, coming stereo out of the Tone X, the signal passes stereo into the X-Space reverb pedal. This high-quality stereo reverb is preloaded with 16 algorithms as MIDI and USB connectivity for preset management, and it really delivers some professional-grade studio-sounding reverbs. Now, last but not least, coming stereo out of the X-Space, the signal stays in stereo to the input of the slower ambient reverb. Delivering up dreamy ambient reverb, it adds character with some great reverb modes, namely Dream, Light, Rain, Dark, and Rise, as well as a Sustain and Latch feature for infinite trails of awesomeness, if need be. Now, the stereos out of the slower pedal then travel to the Daiso XO mounted under the board. This last piece of the puzzle was crucial in making this board work for both studio and stage. In case you've never heard of the Daiso XO, it's a compact, two-channel line isolator designed specifically for, but not limited to, pedalboards. It offers a seamless conversion of 1⁄4-inch balanced or unbalanced inputs to XLR balanced outputs while maintaining high signal integrity and tone. This thing is built like a tank with quality in mind. The premium Jensen transformers, Switchcraft and Neutrik connectors, and Grayhill switches protect your rig against phantom power damage and provide the best-case scenario for your tone. Now, the Pole Rev is a step up from your ordinary line isolator, as it also has two built-in switches. One that eliminates ground loop hum with a ground lift feature, and the other is a polarity reverse switch for dual DSP or amp setups. So the last pedal in the chain runs into the Daiso XO and then comes out XLR into the back of the Mod 3 patch bay, which allows me then to plug in via XLR to front of house or to an audio interface. Now, keeping cord clutter in mind, thanks to this little patch bay, I was able to keep all of that to a minimum, and it also provides a clean way of plugging in a wide variety of sources into the back of your pedalboard. All right, now with all the pedals picked out and a good general idea of how they'd look on the board, it was time to start assembly. And this is where the next phase comes in, where we plug in the connectors to physically see the exact amount of space that we're going to need. First problem, space. It turns out that my dream setup was just a little bit too ambitious for the board that I had ordered, so some tough decisions now had to be made. Something was going to have to go, or at least I thought. My first initial layout worked on paper, but I didn't take into account that the cables in the board configurator were all Rockboard cables, and some of the cables that I was going to be using were not made by Rockboard. Now, I found this crucial evidence out during a phase that I call the dry fit stage. That said, if you're looking to build your own pedalboard, I would highly suggest performing a dry fit. Let me show you what a dry fit looks like. Okay, after doing the dry fitting, this actually helped to address a few problems that I was going to have. For one, the mono inputs and outputs that I've got here for the patch cables are going to be a bit too big for the PureSky to fit, unless I use the Rockboard flat patch cables, which, within that case, they work. That's good to know. You can see I've got everything dry fitted here though, and then the other problem that this presented was back here. So, as you can see, there is a... Hopefully you can see it. There is a little bit of a lip right here where no cables can go through. I pushed this all the way up to where it needs to be. Now the cables are hanging off the back, which may not be a problem if I have it in a gig bag or something like that, but that means all the wires that are coming from here, all the cords or cables rather, that means all the patch cables that are coming from here are going to be rubbed up against every time I put it in and out of a case or something like that. So I'm going to build a riser for this, problem solved, and that's going to help me to lift this up and run the cables underneath, and that will also free up the space that's needed for this to fit into the mix because the rock board black patch cable for the looper, as you can see, is just a little bit longer than I'd like for it to be. If I put this where it needs to be, it's actually like butting into it. This thing does not want to focus. So by putting these two on a riser, I think it will eliminate that problem and I'll be able to fit all this on here without causing undue strain to the patch cable inserts back here. And also, it allowed me to identify the fact that I cannot put my EQ on top of the board that you cannot see because it's not focused. I cannot put my EQ on top of the board because there's space constraints with all of the jacks in place. Now I see that. So that's why it's good to do a dry fit before you just start sticking pedals to your board. And now that I know that, it lets me know that I need to put my EQ pedal under the board. And just like that, problem solved, right? Nope. The pedal that I decided to hide away was the EQ. However, upon closer inspection, the pedal would not power on automatically when the board was powered on. Now, if this was going to be mounted underneath the board, that meant that I would have to flip the board over every time that I set up. And with the bottom plate accessory that I chose to add on, this was definitely not going to work. Of course, obviously, I could just as easily mount the compressor under the board instead of the EQ, but then I couldn't adjust the compressor's level knob on the fly, which I wanted the freedom to do. So now what? Well, I knew there had to be a way to trick the EQ pedal into thinking it needed to be powered on with the board, but I wasn't necessarily sure how. So after a little research, I disassembled the pedal, examined the PCB board, and found two lugs under the pedal's foot switch that gave me the continuity beep on the old multimeter. So after finding the two lugs that completed the circuit, I simply just soldered a bridge between those two lugs, simple as can be. Now, before I put it back together, I decided to plug it in, and guess what? The light came on and stayed on. Yes, victory. No. This particular pedal had a microcontroller that actually bypassed the switch's newly soldered bridge. I guess it was to keep it from popping whenever you would plug it in. So buy a new EQ pedal. As tempting as that was, I decided not to. I decided to keep persevering, as this is a story about persistence and perseverance, right? So I hunted down an old 1K transistor that I bought from Radio Shack years ago, basically for guitar mods, and after some trial and error, I found the lugs to actually bypass the microcontroller. I flipped the pedal back over again after soldering a bridge with a 1K resistor between those two lugs, plugged in the power supply, and it worked. Now, unfortunately, this was only the beginning of my setbacks, but we'll move on for now. With the dry fit accomplished, pedal orientation mapped out, and the EQ's power issue resolved, it was time to make things a little more permanent. So I started by installing the Mod 3 patch bay in the back of the board. Now, this little gem allows you to send a stereo signal through the two XLR outputs and even connect a microphone to the XLR input as well. The three TRS through connectors allow you to connect effects pedals to the effects loop of your amplifier or run a left and right mono signal out to a DI box. Likewise, with the DC barrel connector on the outside, you also have the necessary power that's needed to patch in a pedal quickly that's not on your board. All right, so next up, it was time to start prepping the top of the board. The rock board came with more than enough hook and loop. Now I just had to apply it to the surface neatly. So first I performed a thorough wipe down with a 50-50 blend of isopropyl alcohol and water and taped off two straight lines on each side. This would ensure that the Velcro would not be seen from the side view with the pedals in place. Yeah, I know I'm being picky. Next, I flipped the board over to install the rock board power supply. This beast has 12 transformer isolated and highly filtered power slots as well as a USB slot if needed. Now four of the 12 slots offer switchable power adaptation between nine volt, 12 volt, 15 volt and even 18 volt options. The IEC input in conjunction with the rock board IEC patch cable allowed me to mount the power supply under the board and utilize the IEC slot on the mod three to plug in and power the whole board externally with minimal effort. Now this is where I ran into my next problem. In order to mount the power supply exactly where I wanted to, I was gonna have to remove some lugs off of one of the bottom braces that it was running into. Now, please know that this did not have to be done. This modification was made because honestly, I'm an old man who set my ways and just wanted it to be exactly where I wanted it to be. So with that in mind, just know that. So with the lugs out of the way and the power supply mounted in place with Velcro, I then began plugging in the power patch cables that I would need for this build. Now, having built a few pedal boards previously, I knew that if there was a power issue or a pedal swap that needed to take place, it helps to know which pedal is plugged in and where. So I used collared electrical tape to create cable markers for each pedal, making it easier to track down where each cable was plugged in. At this point, I decided to go ahead and color code the patch cables of each pedal as well to match the power cable that it would be using. For instance, all of the cables that are marked white belong to the LAM overdrive. Just with a quick visual, I can look at that and say, that goes to the LAM. Next, I knew that I was going to be implementing some cable management as this is a personal pet peeve of mine, as you could guess. Likewise, this was the main reason that I wanted the bottom plate accessory that Rockboard sells, was to hide those cables. So I proceeded to line the bottom of the board with cable tie mounts in alignment with where a majority of the cables would be running. I did a little overkill on this area in hindsight, but it gave me options to ensure the cables weren't being placed under any undue stress when I began tying them down. And now I was ready to start attaching the pedals to the board. This part was pretty straightforward after all of the front end work that I'd done. So one by one, they were attached and routed to their appropriate power cable. Now, as each pedal went on and was plugged in, I started quickly seeing that I was very happy that I got all the cable management stuff in order because there was a rat's nest under this board. Now, I was actually going to include a picture of that at first, but when I was documenting the process, I went straight to organizing because I literally would have tossed and turned all night knowing that my board had all that cable clutter. The struggle is real. Now, one tip that I would give you during this phase is to not close your zip ties too tightly as of yet. First, make sure that you don't need to swap out any cables. And why do I say that? Because guess what? I had to do just that. Several of the cables that I used were ones that I had soldered myself to keep down on costs and to have less cabling involved. Well, some of the solder joints didn't stand up to the wear and tear of pedal board building. Now, this was partially because my vision is not what it used to be and I simply couldn't see that there was a problem in the solder joint. I did test every single cable I made on my handy dandy cable tester, which by the way is a must have if you're making your own cables. But I believe I got in a little bit of a hurry there towards the end and didn't do the wiggle test on this one, which come to think of it is actually another great tip for the DIY guys in the audience. If you make a patch cable, it should be tested first, but don't just plug it in to the tester and think that a passage signal is the earmark of perfection. You really need to wiggle that cable while it's plugged in and look for issues on the cable tester now before you plug it into your cables. I would also, I would say, listen for issues if you're plugged into an amp. Don't make the same mistake I did. No worries though, it was a quick fix. Now, the worst part was how this was found out. I decided that the suspense was killing me and I needed to hear my guitar signal being passed through the board before I made any more things permanent and I plugged it in, powered it up and got nothing. Just some hum from what sounded like a bad ground. My fear was not misplaced. The cable that I spoke of earlier did in fact have a bad ground solder. With a quick repair, I was able to put it back on the board and everything worked just fine. Now, along these lines, why would you even want to make your own patch cables in the first place? Well, I actually find soldering kind of therapeutic and the accomplishment of making my own cables, honestly, it feels good at the end of the day to know that I made that. Now, I chose to buy some bulk Mogami 2319 cable as well as some low profile barrel plugs and some pancake plugs to fulfill my patch cable needs. I even then went the extra mile and spray painted the connectors flat black as well. I don't recommend this. If you want black connectors, just buy some. They're only a few cents more. All right, let's talk about what happened when I finally flipped this thing over again. Okay, so all the cables are in good working order. Signal is being passed and most of the pedals are stuck to the board. I say most because I'd actually left off the tonex and the x-space until I absolutely had to attach them. Why, might you ask? Well, to keep with the theme of overcoming obstacles, I quickly realized during the drive fit phase that the space limitations caused by both the Unity 6 and the x-space pedals was going to present a problem later with cable management. The position of both the x-space and the tonex, because they were side by side, both had to be pushed up quite a bit to accommodate the patch cables on the back of the Unity 6. And this actually presented two problems at once. The first problem being that the patch cables on the back of these two units were now going to be hanging off the back. And secondarily, this placed them in an area where they did not have a through hole for the patch cable to run under the board. So creativity kicked in again and I set out to make a couple of pedal risers for both pedals. Now, I'll be honest, running into these little setbacks and then hunting down ways to overcome them is actually really fun to me. So I hopped in the car, I headed over to Home Depot and I started to search for solutions. Now, it didn't take me long at all to stumble across this idea as I'd already had in my mind developed a way to make these things work. It was simply trying to match up in the real world what I was seeing in my head. And that's where I found these awesome little plates that were designed as a brace for joining two studs together. Now, once I pulled one of these out of the package and looked at it, I knew immediately that the size was going to be really close to what I needed. To my surprise, when I got back home, they were a perfect fit. Now, I just had to come up with a way to create a little channel under the pedals. Luckily, I had some MDF board laying around and I cut them to the dimensions of the small metal plates that I just bought. And then I went to the nuts and bolts section of a local small parts store and finally landed on these tiny little truss head binding posts. I installed one of these in each corner of the MDF squares and lined up the threaded inserts with the tiny holes on the tie plates. Then, after screwing in the truss head screw, I had a little 3-8 riser that allowed me to attach pedals to the board and run cables under them. I went ahead and drilled a few holes in the MDF squares as well, just in case I needed to route cables through the bottom of them. But I actually didn't end up needing to do that after all. Oh, and one more thing. I found a hole plug that would fit the sides of the pedal board and decided to go ahead and plug the holes up on both sides as well. Okay, all the pedals were attached. The power was routed to each one of them and the signal routing to the back of the board was finally completed. Now, all that was left was attaching the bottom plate and giving this thing a good playthrough. Needless to say, it was surreal. The sounds that I'm able to achieve with this board are absolutely amazing. And the fact that I could actually take this to church on Sunday and have it sound the same great way, whether it's at church or in my studio, is very rewarding. Now, I have yet to implement MIDI as I'm waiting on some special patch cables that will allow me to keep things tidy. But I'd love for you to hear the board in action. So I'll play this video out with a quick improv jam that highlights some of my favorite tones on this board thus far. However, before that begins, I'd like to close with this. Building a pedal board isn't just about gear. It's about the process, the problem solving, and the satisfaction of creating something that's uniquely yours. If you found this video helpful, go ahead and give it a like. And I'd love for you to share your pedal board stories in the comments. What is something special about your board that makes it uniquely yours? Or what workaround have you found in creating some great tones? Enjoy.