Which Power Supply is Right for You?

hey guys mason marangeli here from vertex effects aka the rig doctor and today we're going through a buyer's guide of the best power supplies to fit your need your context in your pedalboard let's do it today i'm going to be breaking down for you the best power supplies out there for your needs but i really want to identify what are the three most common customers that come to us asking for advice regarding their power supply i kind of separate into three basic categories customer one is kind of the guy that's new to pedals somebody that doesn't have a lot of experience doesn't use a lot of high powered pedals has mostly standard 9-volt stuff not a lot of variety of different voltages or high current stuff customer number 2 is kind of an intermediate a guy that maybe has a few high current pedals but mostly lower current pedals maybe a few digital midi programmable pedals but mostly analog person number three is using all sorts of high current pedals maybe mixing different voltages between 9 and 24 volts maybe mixing ac and dc in their line they have a lot of different types of pedals on there requiring a variety of different voltages and currents that person is certainly going to need something more complicated than say person one so i want to take you through kind of these different archetypes of customer help identify which one you are and then tell you the supply that's going to best fit your needs now be sure to stay till the end where i'm going to make some recommendations about my favorite power supply what my pick is and also what i think is the most bang for your buck power supply and what i think is the best power supply on a budget so stay tuned to the end so you can get some of my choices and recommendations to that end now full disclosure before i get into giving you some of these tips i want to make it clear that i haven't been paid by any of these companies to say anything about them i haven't been given any free power supplies i'm not in any way required to say anything positive or negative about any of these companies i'm simply just sharing with you the best supplies based on my experience in giving you the very best recommendation i can give based on this experience in building all of these professional rigs now before i get into recommending the power supplies i want to just make a quick distinction we've talked about this in a few of our other pedalboard related videos i also did a video about this with sweetwater that you can check out which is distinguishing kind of the two different styles of power supplies that are commonly found in the pedal game one is called a linear supply and these are kind of the older style power supplies that tend to use something that's like a toroid style transformer and this can be great in some context but there can also be some drawbacks in terms of the noise that gets emanated from the leakage from the transformer in the magnetic field that that creates if you're getting that too close to any particular pedal devices it can cause noise now by contrast there's the newer style power supply which has been in pro audio for quite a long time but has not been in the pedal world for that long which is called a switch mode power supply and this is using a completely different technology and is a really really effective way to power your pedals if you want something that's lightweight can cover a lot of different voltages and high current be smaller and more compact and be able to use anywhere on your pedalboard without any consequence of noise and another added benefit is you can take it anywhere in the world and it will work no matter what the input voltage is into the supply itself so there's some more versatility in that and it actually is a better performing device in most circumstances so just to kind of have this idea in mind that we are going to mention some linear power supplies but most of our recommendations are going to be in that newer style switch mode power supply again in this context design for the right application in terms of pedals both can be great but i think that the switch mode is tends to be a lot more versatile and easier to use in most cases so let's look at customer number one this is the person that's new to pedals or maybe as old to pedals but has all old pedals because they don't like anything that's new they want this stuff that's really simple 9 volts nothing too fancy not anything real high current just pretty standard stuff i think the voodoo lab pedal power 2 which is the tried and true linear power supply uses a toroid transformer is one of the easiest ones to use in this case now ordinarily i don't recommend that people use linear power supplies if they can help it but if you are i think this is one of the best ones out there because it does use a steel chassis for the entire power supply which provides some shielding for that electromagnetic field so even if you do have it underneath your pedal train or your temple audio board or some other pedalboard that allows you to mount the power supply underneath you don't have that same consequence of having the magnetic field really be intense and getting into the pedals which causes some noise now this is about as best as you can get it's very reasonable still right around 170 or so is excellently made great warranty from voodoo lab and is going to power all of your standard 9-volt stuff with really no issue getting it nice and quiet it's relatively compact for its age and its style of actual power supply and i think that if you're somebody who's new this is something you can't go wrong bulletproof standard was the standard for many years and even though everything's moving to switch mode i still think it's kind of one of the tried and true staples of the industry for somebody that's getting into powering the pedals now another one that i really like is the mxr iso brick it's very small the ac mains connect separately to it and then you have a power supply that brings in the input voltage that's already i think regulated to around 18 volts and this is a great power supply if you need something compact small offers a few more voltage options than what the pedal power 2 does but is a very very budget friendly power supply i definitely think that this one is worth looking at now the pedal power 2 provides only eight outputs the iso brick provides six nine volt outputs and two 18 volt outputs and it also has two variable voltage outputs so you can simulate the voltage drop of a carbon battery let's say maybe not emulating the current part of it but you can emulate at least the voltage side of it if you want to fluctuate that for customer number two this is kind of the intermediate person maybe has a few or higher current stuff but mostly is staying in around the nine volt range maybe a few higher voltage and usual voltage things but for the most part stays pretty standard kind of in the middle i think that there's no better power supply in this context than the true tone power supplies the cs6 and the cs7 are switching power supplies the newer style power supplies that i talked about and the cs12 is kind of a hybrid the ac side because as one ac output is a standard linear supply but the rest of it is a standard switch mode style power supply so kind of gives you a little bit of both although i haven't found there to be any noise issues in particular with that ac side of the true tone so i don't think that that's a concern if you're somebody that's worried about having that electromagnetic field really become out of control i haven't seen that to be an issue what i do see is one of the huge benefits of the true tone is the price point is great it offers voltages all the way from 9 12 to 18 volts dc and has an ac option they're very compact very lightweight and really again at the price point they cannot be beaten it really gives you everything that you need and even some guys that might want to go with a higher end supply often will use these because it really gives you everything under one roof very easy single iec into the back and you get all the voltages you need you have all the currents you need it really can power almost any conceivable rig that we've built this is a great unit that i use all the time in particular the cs12 but even on some of our smaller rigs i'll use cs6 or cs7 just depending on how many outputs i need and the voltage range that i needed to cover because their smaller power supplies don't have an ac option and again don't have as many total number of outputs i think this one is a winner no matter what way you cut it if you're somebody that's kind of intermediate you have some high current you got some low current you got lots of voltages this is going to be one that's going to fit the bill almost every single time i really love the true tone power supplies for that purpose now customer number three this is the person that has lots of different pedals maybe they have more pedals than just what one power supply would cover this is something that becomes much more complicated and there aren't as many brands that are making power supplies that really address the need to power let's say 12 13 15 even 20 petals but there's three brands that i can think of that really stand out amongst all of them and those are from voodoo lab with the pedal power 3 and 3 plus chalks with the choc 7 and their addendum power supplies and also the strymon zuma and its extension power supplies by way of the ojai now the reason that i love all these power supplies is because they make extension models that allow you to expand the number of outputs without having to add in another group of ac mains to come into the actual power supply itself all these devices allow for a through to power an extension power supply that can give you in some cases up to eight additional isolated outputs in addition to the main power supply so looking at example at the voodoolab pedal power three plus it offers you a lot of the same things that the pedal power 2 and mondo and 4x4 did in terms of having a variability of voltages between 9 up to 18 volts and it gives you the high current outputs on practically every single one of the outputs plus it gives you the ability to be able to drive another isolated power supply with their x4 or x8 so you can expand the power supply beyond its original number of outputs still keep it all isolated and be able to power a heap more of pedals that's a great way to go and i think it's a fantastic power supply and such a great follow-up to the classic pedal power 2 that brings voodoo lab kind of into the 21st century in being able to have switch mode power supplies has now been a staple in their line now the next one that i really love is the strymon zuma i use it all the time and i love the extension supplies by way of using the ojai which can give you additional outputs depending on which ohio you get you can expand your rig even further have additional outputs to power multiple pedals still all isolated similarly to how the voodoo lab does doesn't have an option for an eight output one but you have a lot of different flexibility depending on how many ohios you use and you can of course expand the ohis in and of themselves so you can actually expand one into the next into the next to the next so you can certainly use multiples and kind of get an equivalency to what's available from voodoolab now the last one that i also really love is chalks now chalks again offers the same thing you can get a choc 7 that has the ac mains on it and then you can build that out into a chox 4 or a chox 8 and only have to use their connection cables in order to expand it and still have it all isolated now the big advantage of the chalks is it actually shows you how much of the total current that you've used up against the main input with the ac main so you can always see what percentage of the total available current of the supply is being used to my knowledge i'm not aware that voodoo lab or strymon tells you that as you're expanding and using it more and more current by way of expanding these supplies you can't see how much of the maximum you're using so i really appreciate that about the chalks the other thing about the chocks i appreciate is every single output is capable between 9 and 18 volts so you don't have any restrictions on where the 18 volts need to be or where the 12 volts need to be or where the 9 volt needs to be all of the outputs offer the same amount of flexibility which is really handy when you're building a rig and you don't want to have to finagle certain cables to be in certain places just makes it so much easier and so much cleaner to see that i love all three of these power supplies and this is definitely what you need if you're going hardcore you've got lots of pedals you have lots of different devices that have different voltages that have different currents these are definitely the ones that you want to check out but let's talk about my picks of these supplies what do i choose if i'm on a budget i need the most bang for my buck unquestionably the mxr iso brick is a great buy it's small offers you lots of different voltage options allows for high current and is really really versatile small compact inexpensive i think without a doubt it's the best cheap budget power supply that's really high quality there's no compromise here even though the price point is low i think it's definitely my pick for an inexpensive power supply that delivers on the tone low noise lots of options can't go wrong there for best bang for your buck unquestionably it is the true tone the cs12 cs6 cs7 they're incredibly well built absolutely rock solid used by some of the best pros in the industry used all the time by the guys over at xactone which are some of the best rig builders in the country these are really great power supplies very affordable offers you everything that you're going to need has ac options is either a switch mode or a hybrid switch mode version depending on whether you get the cs6 7 or 12 really really great supplies great bang for the buck unquestionably in my pick for the best power supply out there i have to go chalks and the reason why i'm going chalks on this and not with strymon or with voodoolab it's not because they're not great but it's because as a rig builder and as somebody that always wants to know where we are in relativity to the total amount of current available in the supply chocks tells us where you are you have a meter on it so you know how much of the max current you've drawn and having a variable voltage on every single output is so convenient and i can't overstate how important that is when you're building a rig and you want to make sure that even if you're substituting things in and out that may have different voltages or you just want to have the convenience of being able to wire everything centrally and not have to worry about moving cables to specific voltages it's just so convenient and it's such a cool feature that they offer that on every single output to be variable between 9 and 18 volts i love their expansion kits they're incredibly low profile easy to use i use the chalks 8 the chalk 7 the chocs 4 all day long and i'm always building pedal boards that base it off of the chalk 7 and then expanding it with the 8 or the 4 depending on how many extra outputs i need it is just so convenient so easy to use so low profile i absolutely love those supplies so that was my buyer's guide to power supplies choosing the right one for you and your context for your rig i gave you a couple of different typical customers that come to us kind of identifying those archetypes and then kind of suiting each one of those with the appropriate power supply and i hope you see yourself in some of those different customer archetypes so that you know which power supply to get that's going to be best for your actual context and then you got to hear my picks for budget for best bang for the buck and the best overall in my opinion i haven't been paid by any of these manufacturers to say this this is truly my experience and having used these power supplies having investigated these power supplies and really relaying to you the best information i can about which ones might be best for your particular context if you enjoyed what you saw today i highly recommend that you like you subscribe you leave us a comment maybe tell us some other of your favorite power supplies that we might want to include in this list and maybe a future video also if you want to support what we're doing here i highly recommend you head over to vertexfx.com you can buy a pedal from us or one of our authorized retailers or head over to therigdr.com where we sell patch cables midi cables trs cables velcro tie down mounts zip ties all the stuff and materials that we use to build pedal boards it's all available there for sale and we also offer consulting services if you're interested in having me help you build the rig of your dreams you can hire us to do different consulting show you how to build your rig showing you our best practices and really getting in deep on your specific rig and giving you coaching on how to get the most out of your rig so please do check that out if you haven't checked it out already until next time i'm mason maringella from vertex fx aka the rig doctor see you later you

Channel: Vertex Effects

Views: 83,394

Keywords: Mason Marangella, Vertex Effects, Rig Doctor, Pedalboard, Pedalboards, pedalboard power supply shootout, pedalboard power supply reviews, pedalboard power supply vs daisy chain, pedalboard power supply setup, pedalboard power supply comparison, pedalboard setup, pedalboard build, pedalboard diy, vertexeffects, rigdoctor, pedalboard setup tips, pedalboard building tips, pedalboard build diy, voodoo lab pedal power 3, cioks power supply, Truetone power supply

Id: OIORdun-XNE

Length: 16min 40sec (1000 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 21 2021