Multiple Boards? Or Build One And Stick?

[stewblack]

As I put my board together for Friday's gig, it occurred to me that I didn't used to build a pedal board for every gig.

Does anyone else enjoy doing this? Or am I alone, perhaps slightly insane?

 

[MichaelDean]

I've never had enough pedals to build different boards for each gig! Sounds like it could be a fun way to do it as long as it doesn't bring an extra element of pre-gig panic. 

[jimbobothy]

… I have a few pedals and a few boards. I tried going down the D’addario XPND board route and stick to a larger home board and smaller gig board (church and Motown stuff).

 

However I’m not a fan of Vecro in any way (at least for pedals lol) and much prefer Dual Lock. So I have a few Pedaltrain boards of different sizes and will change my boards according to need/taste.
 

Currently I’ve a board for Motown stuff, a board for church stuff, a practice board and a mini looping board. 
 

I’ve come to realise I like the idea of having a choice, like when using a multi fx, but with an analogue pedal setup ha ha 🤪

 

Oh, and I love building boards also 👍🏼

Edited August 26, 2023 by jimbobothy

[jimmyb625]

I have 2 board, my small main one, which I use for gigs and a bigger one, which I use in practice to annoy the drummer! 🤣

[fretmeister]

I’ve got 3 boards. Nano+ for 99% of live work, PT Jnr for the rest, and a PT2 for silly noise home use that is too heavy to carry.

 

There are a couple of pedals that I have to swap between them though. One day I’ll buy some duplicates.

[stewblack]

I think it's all linked to my obsessive pedal buying. I just like pedals. Enjoy collecting them, regret selling.

By putting boards together I get to use a bunch of different ones rather than them just sitting on a shelf.

Each board is usually quite similar to it's predecessor.

Comp, octave, boost, dirt, modulation and envelope filter. I like the flexibility to be able to create synth sounds with pedal combinations, otherwise I like to add a synth too .

[ordep]

got 2. A PT2 sized for all the gigs, and a metro 16 for gigs that I don't want to risk bringing my big board.

[ahpook]

I have one board  - mostly staples and some guests now and again, depending on what I've been building - all with velcro in a ~15 year-old pedalcase and not at all neat !

 

I don't think I'd ever make up different boards for different gigs, just mix up the one board. Each to their own of course.

 

Edited August 26, 2023 by ahpook

[Franticsmurf]

I make up different boards for different bands. For a recent three piece gig I had to add a few pedals to thicken the sound, and a McMillen 12 Step keyboard controller so I could play some synth for a couple of songs. We're exploring adding two more people to the line up for some gigs, so the board is as fluid as the suggestions for songs to add to the set list! But the established band (The Hulla) has a small board with just a tuner, Bass Clone and Laney Digbeth and that hasn't chsnged for about 12 months. 

 

Some would say it's due for a review. 😃

[JapanAxe]

I have just put together my first bass ‘board in over 15 years, and that’s only for ampless/silent-stage gigs - normally it’s just bass-tuner-amp.

 

On guitar though I currently have three:

 

1. Big all-purpose board on a Pedaltrain Classic;

2. Minimal rock’n’roll board on a Nano;

3. Ampless board on a Classic Junior for one particular tribute band that I’ve been depping with quite a bit.

 

I do make changes from time to time but it’s important for me to know my ‘board and what it can do, so I’m not constantly chopping and changing.

 

Pedals that are not currently on a board sit on a shelf within easy reach, and I have a PSU block on my music room desk so that I can quickly patch any pedal into my setup.

[MrDinsdale]

I've got 2, one which I use in the band and one which has the Mod Dwarf on I can use more for guitar and experimentation.

 

 

The way it's set up is pretty handy as I have really easy access to pop the Dwarf in the post fx loop if I want to play with some delays and really nice convolution reverbs or I can just go out of my main board and into the Dwarf if I want to use some of the analog pedals in front. All stuff I'd never have a need for in the band I don't think. 

 

I only have one expression/volume pedal which I need to swap between them but pretty manageable!

[fretmeister]

I’ve just rebuilt my nano board. I had an old Ibanez Tonelock phaser on it. On guitar it’s great, but I was getting serious tone suck and loss of punch on bass.

 

I didn’t mind so much in the house but as the new term arrives I need the heft for rehearsals to start in about 2 weeks.

Assuming I don’t quit as I’m mightily annoyed with many things over the last year. I have those 2 weeks to decide.

 

So I might end up building a multi-board set up with each board feeding into the next!

[gafbass02]

Three boards for three roles, acoustic/bass/electric guitar. But it’s not quite that simple. I use the acoustic board as an auxiliary board for electric and also have a bass fly rig in my kit bag in case of board failure. Plus, I have two boards for bass, a Pedaltrain novo 32 with choice of hard or soft cases and a Harley Benton spaceship 60xl. If I have a run of bigger venues coming up, I use the novo, if it’s smaller venues I transplant to the much tighter and not as well made Harley Benton. A couple of recent change means I’ll probably be moving back to the novo 32 full time though, which will be a pain in tight spaces!

[BigRedX]

That's one of the great things about the Helix. Not only can every preset have a different selection of effects in a completely different order, but using the set lists I can keep all the different requirements completely separate. So I have one set list for each band I play in plus one for when I'm playing/recording guitar at home. One each set list I have one or two default presets that have all the effects I would normally use with that band in the order that I would normally want them, so creating a new preset for a song has been made much easier.

[SumOne]

I've spent hours mucking about with multiple pedal boards - literally doing the woodwork to make custom boards to fit pedal setups, playing tetris with pedals, then changing pedals and their order for certain sounds/gigs, I had a 'utility' type board that basically stayed the same and the other more fun board could be added to it which changed all the time. I enjoyed figuring it all out but it did take quite a bit of time and effort, and bulk, and cost of pedals, and room for error playing live.

 

Lately I've gone for maximum convenience and only use a Boss GT 1000 Core - basically doing all that pedalboard re-arranging (and more) with presets within one small box and no actual pedalboard at all. It is flexible enough that I've also used it for Guitar, Keyboard and even as an extra FX tool for DJing. The biggest downside for Bass is the synth and envelope filters are nowhere near as good as the individual pedals so I might add them to it and step back onto the stippery slope of pedalboards.

[BigRedX]

I briefly experimented with using my Linn Adrenalinn in one of the effects loops of the Helix which would give me the sorts of synth sounds I wanted but still with the flexibility of signal chain positioning that the Helix allows. In the end I decided that it was too much faff, and if I couldn't get the sounds I wanted out of the Helix on its own, I'd stick a "keyboard" synth sound that I wanted on the backing, and blend it with a suitable bass or guitar like sound from my playing through the Helix. That has worked perfectly well for me.

[uk_lefty]

I have one big board which has a wireless system plus ten pedals, and another smaller board... the big board hosts everything I own apart from one guitar pedal I've loaned to my guitarist. The smaller board was bought to take the bare minimum to a gig abroad so it could fit in my case with clothes and everything. 

 

After having two gigs scuppered by effects board failures I need to investigate the issue and will probably strip things down to the smaller board for a while, at least until I resolve the issues. I also sold my wah pedal as I haven't used it for ages, it only got the middle 8 of one song and I stopped doing that with wah ages ago. I'll probably rationalize further in the next few months.

 

I've never thought of having two boards just for bass. I'd love to just build up the big board and leave it but technology just keeps messing me around!