|||| FORMUFIT PEDAL BOARD |||| brilliant but can be pricey ...or not! ....PRIORITY READING

THE TWIN BOARDS    

So it is time for me to retire my 60 pound Jumbo pedal board.
Too big ...too heavy and TOO Small LOL

I am going to make 2 boards 2'  6" by 1'  9"
deep. The TWINBOARDS
I will link them with 4 ordinary guitar chords going into an Art mini patch bay ...one on the corner of each board.
The one with the Switcher will also have 2 more cords in it. One in from the guitar the second goes out to my amp.
The old board had only a small gap to put chords thru.
The new board will have 5" in height from one tier to the next.

This will allow for 2 more rows of pedals
under the 'steps' to place pedals that need only be set turned on and left.
Some could be 'always on' pedals. Some could be
pedals that only the on/off switch need be activated.
The 5 inch height is enough ...to see and get your hand in for repairs or adjustments.
In short there will be no wasted room. Yet the footprint of the board will be relatively small.

I will have a total of 25 ft. of pedal space between the 2 boards
.
 Reliability but easy access to replacement parts ...like cords and cables is a must.
The idea is to allow you if you are  in a corner to be able to buy cheap substitutes 
even at Walmart or Best Buy.

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THIS POST IS TOTALLY FULL OF 'have to know' info for every player who will ever use a pedal board!

Forget my pedal board if you want. BUT do not skip past  the cords ...cables ...adapters and a Switcher info. 
Learn what to buy cheap and what to pay extra for. It will save you a fortune on costly mistakes even if you will buy a cheap pedal board or just use a scrap of plywood
.
I am not being sarcastic about the plywood ...some top pro's still use a piece of plywood.
Red Hot Chili's just for one!

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THE PARTS

I am going to make my new board from 1" plumbers pipe. It is very strong and very light.
I will use hardwood door stop wood for the shelves. It too is strong but it is thin 1 3/8"x 3/8"

FORMUFIT make furniture grade 1" plumbing pipe with custom fittings more appropriate for making furniture. You can make do with regular plumbers pipe & fittings which are MUCH cheaper or mix the two. It would take 2 to 3 fittings to make a substitute for a corner piece

shown above. So it is a reasonable compromise to buy Formufit for many pieces.

Home Depot and Walmart sell Formufit 

They sell them ...but only in some countries.

On line can be cheaper at Amazon and eBay but getting the right parts or colors is a major hit or miss. The most plentiful parts come in white.You can interestingly mix colors but that is not easier because you will want to limit your choices to 2 or 3 and want things in at least pairs
.

If you are importing the fittings the shipping will not kill because they are small and light enough to be mailed.

The pipe however is 5 ft. long. It must be shipped by a courier like UPS or FedEx.
With shipping and various tax. Import prices of $55.00 USD just for one pipe is not uncommon!
 
So use real plumbers pipe instead. Yes you will be
limited to either grey, white or black depending on what's available
where you are. So choose your fittings to compliment your pipe colour.

Yes big saving can be made using real plumbers pipe. It is made in black, white and grey.
Your local supplier will stock only what's cheapest and in demand for plumbing ...so what you see is what you get!
It is however plastered with specs and the name of the mfg.
It usually will not come off with anything that will not damage the pipe. Try varsol if it
works ...great. If not you are out of luck.



The hardwood door stop is perfect. Most hardware stores stock it but call it any of a number of names.
It has fallen out of favour with builders who can use cheaper MDF or plastic door stop which is not strong enough or is has rounded or ornate edges. It is fairly cheap and comes in 10 ft. lengths.
Once you make your board from pipe. Perhaps with 2 or 3 steps that act as support for shelves you can put 2 or 3 pieces of door stop with a strip of velcro (the fuzzy carpet like) strip running along each. You will have to put a couple of small strips of the plastic part with the teeth in it across
the bottom of teach pedal.

The base should be 1/4 inch plywood. Strong thin and not too heavy. It will stabilize the light framework of pipe and keep dirt away from you chords and pedals.

Have another look at the old board. The steps idea works but they need to be higher so you can push and plugs or cords etc. under them. The first step holds the Switcher so the first step should be flat on the floor for it and any Wah, volume or modulation pedals you need to activate with your feet. The second or third etc.can be high
because you will only be clicking their switches or spinning their knobs between tunes.


GOTTA KNOW STUFF

CABLES AND CONNECTORS

Keep in mind the best route to chain together your pedals may not be where you want them sitting on your board. Hence you can not always run several pedals in one line linked with just buck each mini patch cords. You will need a number of sizes. I need over 20 that are 3 ft. long. I even surprised me. lol
OK on the old Jumbo I used and tried it all.
The do it yourself solder free cables are just great!!! Damn expensive and if like me and live in the real world you will have to unplug them for changes and additions.
They all are living breathing things that hate being touched ...so ...in the middle of a gig they will short out, break ...usually intermittently so it takes hours to troubleshoot!!!!
In short EXPENSIVE & UNRELIABLE and impossible to find at local small music store let alone a gig out of town!!!

OTHER CHOICES
Not a lot. Stores and suppliers will have very short pedal patch cords both cheap and pricey ones.
Otherwise you only get 10 ft. guitar chords!!! Even worse none have anything but straight ends.
Then on line you get these new premade flat cables. Actually really, really good with small right angle jacks. BUT again ripoff prices  If bought direct from China $2 each but ya gotta buy 500 minimum order!!!

More or less ___4 inch ....7 inch ....11 inch ....23 inch
There are 3 or 4 makers now. All expensive!!!

Of course worth checking out to see if some are on sale.


So what is the best alternative

HOSA ....
Most better stores stock them.
They spec out adequate for sound, construction and reliability.
Down side is you should not use them for things not tacked to your board as they are not robust enough for long term pulling out
wrapping up ...and tossing around.
They come in 6" ...1 ft. and 3 ft. only.
When routing cables they need to go neatly around                            things.
               
You may really need a 2 ft. one and even a 4, 5 or 6 ft. one ...
but this is not available by anyone premade. Daddario claim they have some ...BUT???
                 
In some situations you need a straight jack on one end of the chord.
They use pancake right angle jacks. Where they fit they are ideal. Low profile great shielding and they use the least amount real estate between pedals. BUT some pedals have the insert jacks too close to put them beside each other or the D/C cable from your power supply gets in the way.

PLANET WAVES....

Another good one is Planet Waves. For a start they are only second to the pancake jacks for not protruding out into the input jack of the pedal beside them. Best of all you can fit them beside another chord or D/C jack that is too close
However they are about a third more. Unjustified because they are made in China. They do  6", 1ft. & 3ft. sizes too.
You can get a pack of 6 Wanna Be's for a third of the Planet Waves ...and the spec is comparable.
Unfortunately you can only get them in a 1ft. size.

I just bought some... I got 18 WANNA BE'S  on sale from AliExpress for a buck each with free shipping. They will most certainly arrive in my mailbox both tax and duty free!!
Yes the pkg. says ammoon but they don't make them. Just look for the one's
that have a rounded elbow. The ones with a small protrusion on the elbow like the pic of the blue one aren't as good. Note the white one is rounded on the elbow. The blue one takes up more room ...I know it doesn't look like much but it adds up over several pedals. Nothing will drive you nuts more then having a space on your board that is just 1/8" to small to fit a pedal in. Trust me it happen
Lots of brand names. They are sold separate or 6 in a pack in
different colours. I have seen black ones ...for higher prices?
In the real world when trouble shooting the different colours help.


Unfortunately there are no other sizes except for a 10 ft. one
with straight ends.
I could not even find a Chinese manufacturer who makes them. Yes someone can but it should not be so ridiculously hard to find them.
At one time a 6 ft. one came with every beginner guitar you bought???

OK...back to P. Waves. They do a 6" ... a 1 ft and a 3 ft.
I ordered a few 3 ft. ones.

That's it until further notice with the cables. I will mix and match. Most ...Hosa ...then China cheapies, finally Planet Waves.
But if cornered one or 2 flat jobbies.

ADAPTERS
OK... a few work arounds.

A 1/4 inch straight chord or pancake right angle adapted to a 1/4 inch right angle.
I ordered them from Guitar Center. I can not find them elsewhere.
At $6.00 USD they can solve a lot of problems ...and they will not get rough treatment on my pedal boards. So being all metal is enough insurance that they should be reliable.

You can put Hosa in one to fit into a tight or impossible spot.
Yes it may look a bit goofy but it will not stop you moving the knobs




Female to Female 1/4 inch straight adapters are very common. You can use stereo ones for mono without trouble. They are even more common for those that extend headphones etc. so can be found dirt cheap. $5.00 USD should be tops! I think you may find $3.00 USD ones.

Turning two chords into one for either a bit of length or to pop in a short right angle chord just to fit a pedal is both practical and actually cheaper as I pointed out already.


 POWER SUPPLIES
According to everything I have read God Will strike you dead if you do not buy a high quality Power Supply with isolated outputs.

OK Then I would like 2 with 35 outputs each

I DON'T THINK SO!!!

First I had one Chinese cheapie die on me out of 4 I bought and had for 4 years. It could have been from the board getting slammed moving it. LOL

Joyo make the best from just a totally regulated daisy chain with a noise filter to totally isolated output ones not to mention the best ones with a rechargeable battery with zero noise or electrical probs.
The Joyo daisy chain jobbie brags at being world's quietest and puts out a generous 2amps ...thats
2000 ma.
Even a state of the art digital whatever...reverb ...delay will not take over 500ma and a common dirt pedal wants 10ma LOL.

This JOYO Power Supply 2 - is the hot one!!!

9 outs that are 100ma 0ne that is 500ma and one 12 volt and one 18 volt

The one they make for less is too cut down And the one above is a lot more because it has isolated outputs.

Joyo rebrand this for many others...

in fact Mosky are ...as are all Caline & Donner & Nux etc.

Only Mooer make their own and they are mini ones.

So some have a name that may disappear next week. BUT you can pay anything from 

$28.00 USD to $65.00 USD for the Joyo

for the same damn box

I have got one in silver and a Donner in black and 2 Mosky jobbies are shipped 

and they are white. I don't have a blue one ...they want another $5 for it LOL

The box does not have isolated outs but the whole unit is protected so if anything dies you will be OK

AS for noise I have 5 gates ...3 are smart ones. I needed them for pedals that were just as noisy linked as tested on their own.

So if I got a bit more noise added by anything unless it was serious I would never know. My whole system is stone cold silent!!!

There was a company called Little Bear that made what they called an Audio PSU-1 It was like a long small patch bay but the outputs are power supply jacks. For $15 you got ...10 outputs and a set of  standard  power supply cables that go out to each pedal included.
You then bought a 500ma or a 1 or 2 amp adapter and presto you have a cross between a Power supply and a daisy chain. Virtually the same as a daisy chain but much, much neater and pro looking.
You could have any voltage you wanted. So if you had a few pedals that took 12v or 18v you could have a whole unit for them.
They evaporated. Fortunately I got 4 of them. Each has a 2 amp Joyo adapter complete with an unneeded daisy chain.


LAST BUT NOT LEAST -you need a SWITCHER
At it's simplest a pedal switcher turns off one or more pedals by clicking one switch.
A lot of pro's have each pedal in its own loop with many switches to turn on. Each switch has one or more pedals they like to use together. Someone makes the board uses an expensive Switcher etc. etc.
Down here on earth we do things different.

First the loops. If you have for example 5 loops you can place in them either things you always use together or thing you never use together. As many as you like.
In my loop 5...I have 12 pedals mostly medium and high gain OD's with a Compressor on one end and a smart noise gate on the other. 

For example on a song when I choose loop 5 with high gain pedals I pick & turn on a OD ...choose to put on the compressor or not and do a minor adjustment on the gate. It takes seconds. 
Now on the same song I use a low or medium gain pedal on the verse ...so I do the same with it that is in loop 4. Maybe a comp and one low gain pedal stacked on a second.
On the mid eight I go to loop 3 and choose a Fuzz and it is going thru a delay in loop 2.
This takes seconds between songs.

Now each loop is already programed at home with
loop 4 on a switch ...loop 5 on a switch and loops 4 and 3 together on another
So every part of the above  song I hit just one appropriate switch as I go thru the song. One click on the first note/chord gets hit at the beginning of each ...verse ...chorus ...mid 8.etc.

So I can use 60 pedals easily. If I use high gain pedal X I do not use Y sitting in the same loop beside it. In the following song I turn off X turn on Y and use a different sounding high gain on that song.

So having so many pedals need not be confusing. You can pre-program most of it.
You just have to remember what you used on each part of each song so you can put on the right pedals for each of 5 loops before starting the tune.
Often you are leaving the gate and comp on and just choosing an OD and you only need to use 3 loops not all 5 in a song. Only the odd tune needs something a little more. Extra parts needing extra sounds so more loops used etc. But they are so infrequent they get remembered better then the easy ones. LOL

I use a lot of dirt pedals but on every third or 4th tune I set up a sound with a comp going into a Vox treble booster going into pedal that emulates a twelve string guitar then going into a second compressor. Instant Roger Mcguinn Birds ...Ricky sound. I even have a guitar with a real Ricky PU in it another with a Magnatone PU which sounds like a Ricky dual coil and still a third that has a Gold Foil which sounds like a fat Ric sound. All three guitars have a PAF in the bridge as I always switch back to parts that use my famous OD's in those same tunes.
I keep a simple note for each song on my phone. I leave on it have it showing the tune I am doing ...it takes 2 seconds. I then take 3 more to click on my choices. After a few band rehearsals it is nothing to make the changes. It becomes memorized. It takes longer to tune ...a lot longer LOL.

My recommendation is the 
BOSS ES-5   $400.00 USD

5 loops should cover it.

It is not the cheapest but the 'pro' is using 
one from $1200.00 USD to over $2000.00 USD

Joyo have a few.  
So do Moen both cheaper & simpler.

The Boss does 10 times more then
what you are ever likely to use. 
The boss is not user friendly but there 
is a great online video for it.

 The main reason to buy the Boss is 
reliability and service at any major 

city on the planet!!!



AUG 14/18

My Chinese orders ...the coloured  1' pedal cords and various power supplies are on there way... 6 weeks is good for Chinese product so I am looking at mid Sept.
All my U.S, board parts and various cables have arrived. 14 pc.  Hosa 3' and 18 pc. Planet Waves. With 5 a channel switcher...you need 10 for looping 4 more to come and go to the patch bay...an extra 3' for looping into each smart gate. Then where the same loop is on 2 tiers another one there. Etc!!! In short about 30 give or take.
today I will prep my work area and line up my ducks!!!
Still waiting on back ordered jacks. 
I need to get some Guerrilla tape for various bits and pieces.
I will have to get the 1/4 plywood and the door stop.  I think it best to do so after the pipe part of the boards are made. It is easy to gain or loose or gain on lengths and widths. Best to measure the finished pipe frame and then get the plywood cut.
Will I use 2 or 3 strips of door stop for the shelves?? Once again being able to even put a width of cardboard on and gently lay on a pedal to size up pro's and cons. Less is less weight and more room to push cords thru ...but more ads stability etc.

TO BE CONTINUED WITH MORE AS I BUILD MY BOARD OR FIND SOME CHEAP
NEW SOLUTIONS FOR A STRONGER, LIGHTER, BETTER OR MORE RELIABLE BOARD!

FOR ONE THING CASES WOULD BE NICE. I HAVE LOOKED BOTH FOR INDUSTRIAL
& MILITARY SOLUTIONS I EVEN CHECKED OUT CASES FOR CAR ROOF TOPS AND INCLUDED EVEN COMMON LUGGAGE. 
EVERYTHING IS TO BIG TOO ...OR TOO SMALL. NEARLY ALL CASES ARE RECTANGULAR. 
THIS NEEDS NEARLY A SQUARE BECAUSE OF THE HEIGHT OF THE THIRD TIER WITH THE PEDALS ON IT. THE BOARD IS    2FT 6IN. ....BY 2 FT. ..BY 1 FT 3 IN. THE HEIGHT INCLUDES  THE THICKNESS OF 3 PIPES WITH 4 INCH SPACE BETWEEN THEM AND 3 INCHES FOR THE PEDALS ON THAT TOP SHELF.  

AUG 28/18

OK I have most of my ducks in order.
A sh2t load of parts have been bought and delivered.

I  finished the final draft on my plans.
I have gone over everything so many times I have actually ended up memorizing the length 
of every piece of pipe needing to be cut to turn the whole frame into a kit that only need be glued together when done.

I think of the 2 boards as
T.D. Dee and T.D. Dumb
Dumb is the board that is ALL OD's LOL
I would have called it Dum 
but I know you guys. You are already calling it Dumb!!!
Aren'tcha.

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