Powering Your Effects Pedals

For a long time I used 9 volt batteries to power my pedals. When I think back on all the money I spent on those things. Not only that, but I've had batteries go dead on me during gigs and that can be a big pain. Some pedals act a little differently when the battery goes dead in them so you may not realize the battery is dead for a while because the lights are still working. With a 9 volt power supply you don't have to worry about all of that.

I finally got tired of spending over seven dollars for a two pack of 9 volt Duracell battery's and decided to buy a One Spot while in a Guitar Center store one day. Now I've heard some not so great things about using a "wall wart" power supply. But, as long as your power supply has enough mA output you should be fine. A One Spot handles up to 1700 mA and that's enough to easily power 4 or 5 pedals as long as they're not all digital pedals. I only have one digital pedal and I've been told that digital pedals use more power. That could very well be true because I sure seemed to go through a lot of batteries with that pedal. For the record, the pedal I'm talking about is a Digitech Screamin' Blues Driver. Its not a bad pedal, but since I got my Wampler Paisley Drive pedal I have pretty much quit using it.

This is a pretty good article that tells you more about powering your pedals and what is best for your setup. Since I only use 3 to 4 pedals the One Spot works great for me. Some people say they are noisy, but that has not been the case with mine. It could be that my noise suppressor is taking care of that, I'm really not sure. Some pedals take more than 9 volts to run them. If that's the case with you, you are going to have to look at a more expensive power supply that has multiple outlets and different voltages. The One Spot is just for 9 volt pedals. For more on powering your pedals, take a look at this short video. This guy does a pretty good job explaining the basics of what you need to know about using the One Spot.

If you want to get something a little more versatile (and expensive) you can check out Voodoo Labs youtube channel and find more information on their products as well. Whatever you decide to use, just remember the cost involved in keeping your pedals powered with 9 volts batteries and I think you'll see it just makes good sense to use an AC power supply instead.

18 Inch Pedal Board

As promised I've got a few pictures to share of my last and bigger pedal board. This one is 18 inches long as opposed to my original 14 inch board that just holds 3 regular sized pedals, this bigger one holds 4 regular sized pedals, You could also get a few more spots on the board if you used some mini pedals which are becoming more popular these days. I learned a little something new today while watching a video with Brad Wampler and a couple of his guys. Brad says the more digital circuit pedals you run on a daisy chained power system, the louder of a hissing noise will be produced. In my own case there's no problem with the pedals I'm daisy chaining together. That could be partially due to the Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor I'm running. If you're going to run pedals, especially several of them it might be best to think about an isolated power source for your pedals. Of course you'll be looking a quite a price increase too. You can get a One Spot for around 20 dollars and an extra 7 or 8 dollars will get you a jumper wire for powering up to 5-7 different pedals. Below you'll see the newest pedal board all set to go, This is a front view of the board and you can see how the patch cables just found a home of their own and sit nicely inside and under the top of the board. I also used a 1x6 bottom on this board as opposed to the 1/4" plywood on my 14 inch board. Its crossed my mind to put a cover over the front but I don't see a useful purpose for it other than cosmetics. With this set up I still have another power plug in my daisy chain line for powering a wah pedal or something else that's bigger. Wah pedals are made to sit as flat as possible and the more area they cover the more stable the pedal will be. I'd need a little bigger board for my Dunlop Cry Baby but I can also just set it on the floor beside my pedal board and it would work just fine that way.

And there you have your top view of the pedal board. I actually like the way this turned out because of the way the finish ended up being on it. I sprayed it with flat black paint. When it dried it felt like sandpaper, so I used a brown Scotchbrite pad on it and smoothed it out. Naturally it took the paint off in spots but it had a used  look about it. I hit those spots again with some more flat black and smoothed it out again with the Scotchbrite pad.  It just has a used look about it while still being a brand new board. I am totally making these boards out of 1x4's and 1x6's in white pine lumber.White Pine is easier to work with, its softer than yellow pine and doesn't tend to warp as much as yellow pine. The board is not heavy despite using the thicker overkill bottom I used. I'm sure it is a little stronger than my first one with the 1/4" bottom on it. But this board is strictly glued together using Gorilla Wood Glue and its pretty damn strong.

I've got a 14 inch board in the works and its close to being put together now. I'll get some pictures in the different joints I'm gluing  and we'll catch up there. I'm thinking of maybe using a Hammered looking paint or maybe camo or something wild. In the mean time, check out this short video from Brad Wampler and friends discussing ways to power these pedal boards. The pedals you see hooked up here have no hiss or any kind of noise at all. A lot of that could be because of the noise suppressor I run. I think I only have one pedal that might qualifiy for "digital" and that would be my Digitech Screamin' Blues Driver but other than that my pedals are not noisy like pedals were 30 years ago. If I get what I have I mind to get I'll probably sideline my blues driver before long anyway. I've got my mind about set on a Wampler Ego Compressor. I know there's cheaper compressors out there but I already own one Wampler pedal and love it. Brad Wampler is a guitar player himself who happens to be an electrical engineer genius dude. I've been around rockin' since the 70's and one thing about it, the effects pedals industry has gotten so much better than back in those days. All those old pedals had tons of hiss in them no matter how you hooked then up.

Anyway, take a look at this short 5 minute video from Wampler Pedals and get the low down on powering your board. Especially if you want something twice the size of mine. I could carry my 14 inch board around in my gig case. My 18 inch board isn't going to go inside my gig bad so there's yet another thing to think about on the 18 inchers. I make even build some bigger ones capable of holding 10 or 12 pedals. Something like that would require you to invest in one of those VooDooLabs type Power Conditioners. With the price of 9 volt batteries these days you're money ahead if you can power your whole board from one unit even if it does cost you a hundred dollars or more. It doesn't take that much to run through those 9 volt batteries when you're gigging

Simple Pedal Board - DIY Cheap And Nice

Okay folks, I hope everyone had a good weekend. I took it pretty easy still recovering from being sick and all but I feel a little better today. I actuality felt like doing something today and I haven't felt that way in a couple of weeks. I managed to get a little time in at my shop this afternoon late. Its still like an oven outside here in SW Arkansas but that's pretty normal for late July. It gets a little hotter before it cools off a little. A lot of people tend to stay inside as much as possible during July and August around here because its just too hot to want to get out and do anything. If you want to mow this time of year its best to have some headlights on your riding mower because the only time it gets cool enough to mow is close to dark thirty.

But back to the pedal board .... The one I've chosen to build and show picture progress with is a 14" pedal board. That just means its 14 inches long. Just right for holding 4 normal size pedals like the Boss TU-3 tuner pedal for instance. Personally, I have a Boss TU-3 Tuner on my board but you can always get a good clip on tuner and use that spot for something else. I pedal I will always keep on my board, and always last in line, is a Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor. That was the very last pedal I bought and probably the best pedal I ever bought. I also have on my board a Wampler Brad Paisley Overdrive Signature Pedal. I've always been a little tight when it came to buying pedals. I've always actually had a little something against using them at all. I love the sound of a good guitar plugged into a good tube amplifier. Nothing beats it when you have a person operating the guitar that's pretty damn good at playing it. Something else about that, it keeps you on your toes and keeps you honest. The cleaner you play, the more telling you are of your skills. If you're a sloppy player who rely's on pedals to get by, you're probably not going to have a good time. Just sayin'

So the pedal board .... I took a 1x4 piece of pine and cut it into two strips about an inch and a half wide using a table saw. I had already cut my 1x4 to 14 and a quarter inches beforehand with finishing the length on my miter saw.to 14 inches + I put the plus mark in there as to mean about a sixteenth of an inch over isn't a bad thing. We'll see why when we get to the end of the project. So, yeah, keep in mind to feel free to add a sixteenth of an inch to that 14 inch finish we want to come out with, Its really freakin' cool what we'll do here, trust me.

Everyone pretty much knows a 1x4 isn't actually one inch, right? Its more like .750 inches or 3/4"
The 4 isn't 4 inches either. Its more like 3 1/2" or 3.500" ......... so I set my saw guide at around 1 1/2" to 1 5/8" and ran the 2x4 through twice. Using the straightest side against the guide and then using the cut side of the left over (wider) piece run it through the saw again and you'll have two pieces from 1 1/2" to 1 5/8" wide. That's a good width because it provides plenty of room between the pedals to work your patch cords. You can also buy a roll of Velcro from Wal-Mart or wherever else you might find Velcro. What I use for my boards is 1 inch wide, black, and has a very sticky back on it. You can get a 1" by 36" roll of it for about 8 dollars by the time you pay tax on it.

As you can see above I have my main 4 pieces laid out in separated pieces. The ones in the middle are the 14 inch + 1x1 1/2" boards. The angled pieces were made using a 1x6 standard piece of pine and setting my miter saw at 10 degrees. I don't actually measure anything when I make this cut. I use a piece of my miter saw to "eyeball" it where I want it to be and it comes out at about 1/2 - 3/4 inch at the small end. Depending on how I chose to eyeball it I guess. Keep in mind I was just making this up as I went along. I just happened to measure it later so I could reproduce it if I wanted to. After I give them all an initial sanding I will put some Gorilla Wood glue to them and carefully piece them together while clamping them into place for an overnight stay. On my first pedal board I used wood screws, but in hindsight I think its a little overkill. I used nothing but glue on the 18 inch pedal board I made and I think its probably fine that way. But I am thinking about sticking some finishing nails in it just for good measure. After I pre-drill the holes of course. You don't want to split the wood. You want to drill the hole just a little under size so you get a good grip with the finishing nail. Squirting a little glue in the hole with a syringe ain't a bad idea either. Another old carpenter trick I learned a long time ago was to tap the sharp end of your nail with your hammer a couple of times to dull the end of the nail a little. Its keeps from splitting the wood, trust me ;)

And this is how it will set together once we get it sanded and glued. I'll try my best to make that happen tomorrow evening-night sometime. On my first pedal board I used a piece of 1/4" plywood for the bottom piece. It gotten the job done quite well on several gigs after I built it. Before that I was laying them side by side in the floor poor boy style. You can still consider this pedal board "poor boy style" I guess. I've seen a lot of these pedal boards people pay a lot of money for and to me, it ain't worth it. Especially when you have the means to build your own. I'm more set up for working with steel in my shop. It is a small machine shop after all. But I do have some wood working tools. I've got a few more things I'd like to have but I'm working on that. Last but not least is a picture of my first ever home built pedal board, minus the Velcro. I took the Velcro I had on it off so I could put a full strip on it like I did with my last one. Since I had stained it I wanted to show the wood color as much as possible so I just used 2" wide Velcro pieces and cut them into pieces just big enough for each pedal. I also used wood screw in this one and did not try to hide them. The Velcro will cover them anyway when I put a new strip on it.

Pretty simple and straight forward so far. Next we'll look at a front view of this board and you can see where and how I mounted my keeper.holder for the One Spot harness end piece. I used a simple door latch like you might use on a storage shed or even a chicken house door. I think they cost about 2 dollars for a brass one and its perfect size for making a good tight grip on the One Spot jumper harness for you pedal power.

More on this later ... thanks for looking in.

Pedal Boards and More...

I've been looking at pedal boards for quite some time now. What the market is offering is either way over priced and or cheap crap. I'm not going to mention brand names here. I really don't like trashing other people's business' because that can come back to haunt you one of these days. Karma really is a bitch, and I'm convinced after 50 plus years of living that its got to be true. If you pay attention to things and keep your thoughts in your subconscious mind as much as possible you'll notice that any bad deeds you do to another human being (or animals) comes back right at you. Sometimes even tenfold it seems. It might take a little time, even a long time in some cases, but it will pay you back. That just seems to me to be how the laws of nature work out. Be kind to everyone and chances are they will return the kindness. Be a dick to someone and you might just get a black eye or even worse. People's lives have been totally ruined over something they did to someone. Its just not a cool thing to do. Not to sound all religious on you but I strongly agree with that bible quote, loosely paraphrased ... "Do unto others what you would have them do unto you". Unless you're just a sucker for punishment, 

Back a little over a year ago I was in very bad financial shape. I'm still not doing good by any means, but I'm usually able to pay the bills on time. Sometimes there's even a little left for food. I've come to the conclusion that I really need to find something I can do to make some kind of a modest extra income. Even twenty dollars here and there would be better than my current situation. 

Well, I couldn't afford a fancy pedal board at the time, so I started thinking of a cheap way to build one for myself. I wanted an affordable way to make one and possibly even sell a few at an affordable price after I get good enough at doing it. My first board was 14 inches long and held 3 common size pedals, like Boss Pedals for instance. The way I went about it, I wanted to make it as short and light as possible and small enough to fit my gear bag, which happens to be a Winchester pistol shooter case I found on the clearance isle of Wal-Mart I found one day for 10 or 12 bucks. It wasn't made to be a music gear bag but it turns out it make a damn good gear bag overall. And its a well made bag as well. I think they go for about 40 bucks when they're not on clearance but still worth it in my opinion. I'm pretty sure Winchester isn't going to give the go ahead to just anyone, and it had to be a good quality product before they allowed their trademark on it.

Just so happens that case fit my pedal board inside of it perfectly,  with plenty of room for other gear like patch cables, strings. picks, wall warts, and adapters. It was also perfect size for my Audix cab grabber mic holder. I highly recommend those too. Someone did their homework when they designed those cab grabbers. No more bulky mic stand to have to pack around just to mic your amp when you're out . You can get them at Guitar Center by clicking the link here, 

Tonight I just finished up making an 18 inch long board. I could do a few more thing to make it look more professional (and I will) but its for me to use and I don't care if there's a few minor flaws in it. I'm making practice runs at them and getting the learning curve down, There is cost involved in making these things but I think they will stack up to a lot of what's on the market, which is pretty much a thin piece of metal with velcro stuck to it if you're lucky. A 36 inch long by 1" wide strip of industrial velcro is going to cost you upwards of 8 dollars. The piece of metal these corporations are stamping the popular pedal boards out at at no telling how many units per day are pretty cheap to build. A few spot welds and some paint and velcro and its out the door. Truth be known they charge 79 - 100 dollars for something that may have cost them 10-20 dollars to make. I know, and I'm including overhead and employees and machinery to keep the wheels of corporate capitalism greased. But were does that leave us poor folk amateurs who can't afford to drop over a hundred dollars om a cheap pedal board?  Don't get me wrong, there are nice ones out there, but you're going to pay good money for one when you find it.

The bottom line is that I needed something durable and affordable for us poor folks. I had a lot of 1"x 6"  white pine lumber laying around so I decided to use it for something. I think it took me more time to come up with sketch than it did actually sawing the boards on a table saw and power miter saw. Once I knew what I wanted it was all a matter of cutting the pieces out and putting them together. I decided to go with Sedona Red wood stain by Minwax. Man, that is some pretty stain if you like reds. I've used that pedal board at countless gigs and its just as good now as when I started with it. Its nothing fancy by any means. I didn't try to hide what few screws I used on it. I used some 1/4" plywood for the bottom cover and it turned out nice for a throw together board. I used a One Spot AC adapter with a 5 piece jumper (the site shows a 7 jumper cable). My five jumper works for me with one left over in case I want to plug in my Dunlop classic 2 tone sunburst Wah pedal. Fortunately I haven't had a bit of trouble with my One Spot and the price sure beats those power modules they sell for well over a hundred dollars, some are closer to 200 dollars. They also have a newer model out that's pricier but not as much as those "bricks" being sold on the market.

This time around I decided to paint it flat black. After hitting it with some fine sandpaper I touched up the spots where any paint sanded off  with another coat of flat black. When that was good and dry I lightly went over it with a brown Scotchbrite  pad made by by 3M. I got it smoothed out pretty well and hit it with a coat of satin finish clear coat, also made by Minwax. I bought a 36" roll of industrial strength  velcro made by Velcro USA INC. in Manchester, New Hampshire. You can check them out at Velcro.com and check out all of their products. The self stick adhesive on this stuff is plenty strong and easily does the job. They also make some nice cable ties I like to use for all my cables. I think you can get a 6 pack of those at Wal-Mart for around 3 or 4 dollars. Each one is different colored too so you can use them to organize different types of cables.

Since I've dug through numerous pictures, trying to find one of my first pedal board, I've decided that pictures will have to wait until another time. When I get a chance to take some decent quality photos of them and post them here. If you have access to a table saw and a miter saw you can make these all day long yourself. For those that are not too good with woodworking I could build one for you and paint or stain it in any color you'd like. I just picked up some Ebony wood stain and I'm going to give it a try as well. I plan on making at least a few more of these to let some friends borrow for a while. Maybe they'll get me some orders for some custom pedal boards. I'm a pretty honest guy when it comes to doing business with folks, so truth be known I'll be lucky to break even on them. Minimum wage wouldn't be so bad. Its something I can tinker with when I'm feeling up to it. My back is pretty messed up with Harrington Rods and I'm in chronic pain most of the time. But every now and then I get a good day and I'm able to accomplish a little something. I take a LOT of breaks when I'm messing around doing wood work. I just can't deal with standing in one place very long and bending forward is a real buzz kill too. It sucks when your doctor tells you to avoid bending, squatting, and lifting more than ten pounds at all cost, ever again. I see why he told me that too. I really pay dearly when I overdue things. Its something I'm still working on training myself at after 6 years and counting.

What can I say though? I've always been an ambitious type of guy. I worked hard all my life doing various jobs that aren't easy on your back, much less the whole body. I always enjoyed working though. I'm somewhat of a perfectionist when it comes to machinist work. I did that for about 25 years plus. Carpenters don't like me much as a saw man either. I tend to cut the boards to whatever length they tell me. And I mean within 1/64" or closer. I found out quickly that carpenters don't deal with tolerances like we do in the machine shop/tool and die making where we go by hundreds of thousandths of an inch. The last carpenter I worked for finally figured me out and started telling me measurements and saying "short" or "long" when he did it. From there on out we had a system and did pretty good accurate work for people. I was just getting it down good when a pretty big machine shop called and offered me a job. I tested for the job and beat over 75 other applicants for it. They called me back on my last day of carpenter work job (on my way to work) and wanted me there the following Monday morning. My carpenter boss was happy for me that I had finally found a good paying job with benefits. He was so happy for me, he told us all to knock off at noon and call it a day. He couldn't afford to pay very well and was doing work for his mother, the real estate agent, and everything had to be cheap. She wanted us to take shortcuts which I didn't like, My last day there was Friday July 24th 2009. I never made it to the new machine shop job on Monday. I wrecked my Harley that Friday night and woke up from a coma about a month later in August. That whole thing changed my life drastically and 6 years later I'm still trying to get over it. For anyone who's never heard of Harrington Rods take a look at the picture below. Its not my actual x-ray but its pretty close to what I have, One of my vertebrates had to be taken out in tiny pieces.  It turned out pretty crooked, but at least I can still walk. No running or ladder climbing though. If I try to run I instantly fall face first into the ground. And if I try to climb a ladder, even a 3 step ladder I loose my balance. Its one of the common after effects of having that surgery. I've also got "trigger finger" in both of my middle fingers. They lock closed when I'm  asleep mostly and I have to pry them open when I wake up. There's lots of other health problems going on with me, but those are the major ones. My neck still hurts sometimes from being broken and my right shoulder blade too, but the hospital either couldn't or wouldn't do anything to fix that. I didn't have health insurance at the time and my motorcycle policy was eaten up and then some with just the air life flight. 

Anyway, I'm getting way off topic here now so I guess its time to recheck my spelling and punctuation as best I can and call it a night...... I've got a really hot project in the works right now too, but so far its been nothing but figuring cost for materials. I want to make a good product with good quality parts/hardware as cheap as I can and pass on the savings to people who might want to give one a spin. I won't go into details right now except to say it has something to do with guitars. Stay tuned and I'll fill you all in when the time is right.

Until then, may everyone have a great day/week/month/and life ..... Life is too short to sweat the small stuff we can't control anyway. If I can deal with a back like that, you can too. With lots of good pain pills of course lol.  Anyway .....Peace out brothers and sisters, and be nice to each other. 

  ~ Its All About The Music ~ .........


Oh, one last thing. I'd like to share a video of one helluva young and up and coming blues lady. Not only can she sing like an angel, she can sure play blues guitar, and she's got some of the nicest looking legs a man could ever hope to see. Seriously, check her out and buy her albums if you like her. She works very hard at what she does, and it shows. This little lady deserves fame and fortune a lot more than some of the crap I see selling records out there these days. This particular video has Paul Nelson sitting in on guitar. He's played for some pretty famous acts over the years and has solo work done as well. Check 'em out doing this Rolling Stones cover of Sympathy For The Devil. Paul Nelson really shines bright on this video. He worked with Johnny Winter a lot during his career and shows no signs of slowing down. Click here for his Paul Nelson's site.

Also, if you're a big time blues fan such as me, check out Blues Broad's Youtube channel for a lot more high quality videos . Subscribe to her channel so you never miss a great blues act when they come to her turf. She's got it down when it comes to HD videos and editing skills ....You won't be sorry you checked her channel out.......... Peace!