5 Tips for a Smaller Pedalboard

hi i'm mason marangella from vertex effects aka the rig doctor and today i'm going to give you five tips on how to get a tighter and more compact pedal board one thing that we all struggle with in today's pedal market with so many great pedals and so many great manufacturers is how to choose the pedals that are appropriate for our rig and how to get all of our favorite pedals to fit on our pedal board now today our objective is to give you five key tips to help you be able to fit as many pedals as possible on the smallest possible size pedal board so in today's video the real exploration is really to help you optimize your pedal board so that you can fit maybe that one extra pedal that you couldn't fit if you didn't choose the right materials or the right type of plugs or connectors the right types of cables this is going to integrate a lot of different products that i've found over the years really help me add extra pedals to pedal boards when spacing is of the essence and i really need to maximize every possible square inch on the pedal board my first tip is choosing pedals that have top jacks now a lot of companies have realized this and have actually converted old models into these new models that are the same exact pedals but maybe have top jacks i've seen that wampler has gravitated toward this over the last several years and many people have followed suit in doing that because they realize the benefit of being able to just sandwich pedals side by side and not having to use side jacks this allows them to optimize spacing allows them to get pedals as close to each other as possible now one thing that top jacks also provide you and this is something that a lot of people don't consider is that it allows you to have jacks on one side and not occupying jacks on multiple surfaces of the pedal one example of this would be in an ordinary boss pedal not only do you have to have jacks on the left and right side of the pedal but you also have to have a dc jack on the back so you're occupying space on both the left and right side of the pedal and on the back of the pedal so on three of the surfaces you're having to extend leave extra surface area available so you're able to plug in those cables and route those cables to either the previous or subsequent pedals in the signal path this adds more space sometimes even we don't even consider this when we're choosing small pedals like let's say something like the ep booster or some of these mini size pedals when you plug in jacks on the left and right of it and then you also have a dc on the back it's going to not only extend the width of the pedal but also the depth of the pedal and it might make something like an ep booster almost the same size as something like our vertex boost or a rocket archer these would be examples of pedals that even though they look in size to be bigger they're actually smaller once you occupy these pedals with jacks so using pedals with top mounted jacks if you have an equal choice between two different pedals and one has top jacks and one doesn't and space saving is a thing that you need to observe on your rig it's definitely a choice that you should make when considering two similar pedals one having top jacks one without the top jacks are always going to be smaller more compact take up less space tip number two this is something that i think a lot of us overlook especially on pedal boards where we're using switchers or true bypass loopers it's the idea of using risers now risers in and of themselves don't actually save you any space if you were to raise up a whole row of pedals and put them all on a riser it wouldn't necessarily allow you to put pedals even more close to each other but where it does become beneficial is if you are trying to create a tiered system or having maybe different levels for different rows it allows you firstly if you're using the risers like we use from fixed pedal boards you can route cables underneath them so you don't need to leave as much accommodation for cable routing or zip ties to fit in between because you can obviously put cables right underneath these risers and be able to route them into the back of the pedals or into the sides of the pedals the other thing it can do is it can help you offset the jack spacing so sometimes you'll run into issues where you have two jacks that are butting right up against each other and if you're to raise one it'll now gives you the clearance to be able to get these pedals even tighter and on top of each other and especially on switching rigs where we don't necessarily need to touch the pedals i'll often put some pedals on risers so that i can change the placement of the jacks by changing the height of the two petals so that the jacks don't interfere with each other and i can get them really close together without having to worry about the two quarter inch jacks having to hit each other and making me having to space them further away this can also sometimes be beneficial even with the dc jacks if you have two pedals coming right up against each other this is a good way to vary it so one can go higher than the other so they can kind of seamlessly fit into each other almost like a puzzle piece additionally you can see uses of this on our vertex pedal boards and even some of the other tiered systems like the schmidt array systems where it allows you to duplicate surface area above and below the pedal board by having a hinged tear and again this can be really helpful especially when you have a switcher rig or a true bypass rig where you don't necessarily need access to every single one of the pedals and you just want to be able to stash those underneath and when you need access to them you can flip up the tier so that you can make adjustments if you need to but even in some cases with non-switcher rigs even on some of my small rigs i'll use the tiered system just to stash my power supply underneath in my buffer interface underneath and then that allows me to put pedals on top that i would still have access to all the main pedals in the front i would have access to but the things i don't need to touch like my power supply and my buffer interface those live underneath and you can see that on my personal pedal board i've done it exactly that way and it allows me to really fit a lot of pedals in a really small space my pedalboard is only 17 inches by 10 inches and i've packed that thing full of pedals and it wouldn't fit on a normal size flat board or normal size pedal train or style that you would put the power supply underneath because i don't get that advantage of being able to stash the interface down there too this gives us a little bit more flexibility and also everything's top mounted so i can flip up that lid make adjustments if i need to troubleshoot if i need to and not having to flip back and forth the pedal board between two sides tip number three is using low profile cable and low profile connectors if you've been watching this channel for any amount of time you can see that we are huge proponents of the square plugs and i almost always exclusively use the sp400 plugs and the sps4 plugs these are the lowest profile pancake and straight plugs out there they're incredibly reliable up to this point i haven't even had one failure due to the connector on either models of the square plug so they're absolutely bulletproof but beyond that they're the lowest profile that you can get for a high quality soldered cable now there are some solderless varieties that may offer a little bit more space saving than this but you have to weigh that against the reliability factor and often these solderless cables are not going to be reliable long-term even if the cable itself is good the connection is a compromise and we have plenty of videos that we talk about this compromise between solderless and soldered cables but to get back to low profile connectors the square plugs are the absolute best you can fit lots of them side by side and if you're fitting maybe five ten pedals side by side on a row of pedals on your pedal board this is definitely going to add up to several inches of space savings because they're just not as deep as their equivalent in switchcraft or g h plugs these are going to give you plenty of room to be able to add extra pedals if you have a long sequence of pedals in the add up of all those quarter inches being saved because it's almost a quarter inch less deep than maybe a standard switchcraft plug it's going to mean that you're going to have that extra room at the end of the chain for another pedal so that's always a great thing equally with using low profile cable it's incredibly important because it doesn't take up routing space i love to use the mogami 2314 and if you've watched our cable shootout where we've shot out patch cables it is within the top two in every single category high gain low gain humbucking pickup single coil pickups and it's the lowest profile it's a spiral shield so it's very easy to be maneuverable and flexible on a pedal board and it sounds great so it's not a compromise there and it works great with the square plugs the sps4 and the sp400 so using something like that whether it's mogami whether it's another brand cable that's also equally low profile like that it just gives you a lot more space to be able to maneuver cables and you don't have to worry about running into areas where you have a huge buildup of a routing loom that's going to impede with other pedals it's going to allow you to keep things really compact and not have to occupy a lot of space with your cabling and interconnections by making those choices of using square plugs and something that's a thinner diameter high quality cable like the mogami 2314 which we also sell on therigdr.com if you're interested in having some pre-made cables made exactly to the sizes that you want right on our website tip number four is using low profile power supplies there's several great manufacturers now that are creating supplies that are only one inch thick now one of those power supplies is made by chalks in fact they have a whole line that's all one inch in terms of the thickness the dc7 the chox 8 the chox 4 these are all great examples of high quality power supplies all switch mode you can put them anywhere that you want on the pedal board with no issue of magnetic leakage or any sort of emf issue equally true tone also makes the cs6 which is an extremely low profile just a little over one inch in terms of its thickness which provides six outputs all switch mode again offers all the great things that you'd want from a switch mode and that it can offer a lot of power offer a lot of current lots of different voltage options and you can use it anywhere in the world equally voodoo lab has a couple of smaller switch mode extension supplies things like the x4 and the x8 all really low profile allows you to have a lot of outputs that are all isolated and not having to use something that's too large this is really great if you're just trying to make the pedal board as low as possible and some of these are so low you could even just put pedals right on top of them and they're not going to make your pedal board overly high like in the old days if you try to put a pedal on top of a pedal power too or something like that you'd have a pedal sitting up you know four or six inches off the surface which could be a little bit odd if you're trying to reach for that pedal or you're trying to fit it into a case these are really great power supplies that are almost invisible they're so low profile and again offer all the benefits of being switch mode offer all the benefits of having variable voltages especially on the chocks between 9 and 18 volts on every output and you can use them in any country in the world again super compact a great way to save space on the rig by using these and you can even see on my wet dry wet rig that i'm building right now i've put three pedals on top of my chalk seven and everything fits great in the last tip tip number five is choosing high quality pedals that can double up as a high quality buffer now again i've always talked about the spec that you really want to look for which is pretty much going to guarantee that you have a high quality buffer and 99 of the scenarios is having a one meg input impedance and 100 ohm output impedance now there's some pedals on the market that are tuners that actually already meet this criteria and one of my favorites that meets this criteria is actually a very budget-friendly option in the tc electronic polytune and polytune mini these have a one meg input impedance and 100 ohm output impedance and putting that first in your chain is going to give you all the high quality input buffering that you're going to need and that low impedance output to drive the signal through all of the pedals on the pedal board now equally having something at the end of the chain that meets that 100 ohm output impedance which is really kind of the critical number that you want to worry about in your output buffer would be stuff like the things from strymon from eventide from source audio these are all companies that have really low output impedances on their pedals and if these pedals are on or turned into the buffered mode can actually double as a pedalboard buffer that doesn't require you to have to get a separate unit like some of the items that i recommend like the mesa boogie high wire or our diy buffer which i'll link above if you're curious about how to build a buffer of your own that meets all your routing criteria this is a great way to double up to not have to require more power to have a separate buffer and having it all combined within pedals that are already out there those could all be great ways to ensure that you're getting the highest quality output buffer but utilizing effects that you already have and that you already use on your pedalboard so that you don't have to add an additional unit or have to power an additional unit if you're already strapped for space or you're already strapped for outputs on your power supply so those were my five tips of easy ways that you can make your pedalboard smaller and more consolidated often using things that you might already have maybe you have some of these pedals already with integrated buffers or maybe you already own some of the fixed pedal board risers and if you don't head over to fixed pedal boards and check out the risers they have options for all different size pedals and this can be a great way to vary where the jacks are on your existing pedals so you can offset them in a way where you can maximize the space especially again if you're using a switcher or some sort of true bypass looper equally you can check out the vertex effects pedal boards or the pedal boards made by schmidt array where they allow you to have a tier where you can duplicate the space underneath the tier and on top of the tier so that gives you extra surface area without having to make the pedal board any bigger also it can be a great solution for people that have switchers because you can stash all the pedals that you don't need access to underneath the riser and have the ones you do need access to on the top of the riser just doubling up that space or if you have a small compact pedal board like i do using our vertex pedal board that's 10 by 17. i put all the pedals on there i don't use any switcher at all and i just stash my power supply and my buffer interface underneath and i have more room than i would on any other similar size pedal board to add pedals these are all great ways to duplicate and replicate the existing surface area and allow you to expand with more pedal boards without actually having to get physically bigger in size and also using low profile connectors like the ones that we talk about from square plugs which we also sell pre-made cables on our website therigdr.com or using top jacks all great solutions but i'd like to hear from you about what some of your solutions are to save space getting more compact creative ways that you can sort of fit those puzzle pieces together maybe you're somebody who's an expert at tetris and can give us some insight on how you're maneuvering all these different pedals to be able to fit them in the smallest compact spaces i'd love to hear from you about how you're doing that and your best practices so please do put that in the comments below and if you like what you saw in this video and you enjoyed the content i welcome you to give us a thumbs up make sure that you subscribe and hit the bell icon so you can stay up to date with all the great things that we're doing at vertex effects and the rig doctor and the content that we're releasing on a weekly basis until next time i'm mason maringella from vertex fx aka the rig doctor see you later [Music]

Channel: Vertex Effects

Views: 50,978

Keywords: Mason Marangella, Vertex Effects, Rig Doctor, Pedalboard, Pedalboards, guitar pedals, pedalboard build, pedalboard tips, guitar rig tips, how to make more space on my pedalboard, pedalboard space saving, 5 tips for a smaller rig, 5 tips for a smaller pedalboard, How to make your pedalboard smaller, how to fit more pedals on your pedalboard, how to build a pedalboard, fit more on your pedalboard, pro pedalboard build, guitar tips, beginner pedalboard tips, vertex pedalboard

Id: bzat3gsvPR0

Length: 15min 21sec (921 seconds)

Published: Thu May 27 2021