How To Build A Pedalboard: A Beginners Guide 

"I don't need a new pedalboard, I want a new pedalboard.. No I need it, I need it!" Me justifying buying any gear

Don't believe anyone who tries to tell you that you don't need 15 tubescreamers

If a flat board is cheaper but you want an angled board, you can always add risers to the back to raise it up.

3 ring modulators 5 wahs (Kirk Hammett signature if possible) 5 metal zones 2 digitech whammies any Squier guitar of your choice Any low-end line 6 amp

“Are you a gigging guitarist that needs a variety of sounds? Are you a studio guitarist that needs an even broader range of tones? Or do you just sit in your room experimenting with new sounds?” Me: Yes

Not sure why I'm watching this. I already have a pedalboard. *Glances at dismantled skateboard deck with pedals loosely plopped on

Totally agree with your take on guitarist comparing themselves to other guitarist. I’ve been telling my students for years the only person you’ll ever be better than is the past version of yourself. Cheers man!

Also, take all your pedals and lay them out how you want them on the floor. Take some tape and tape a rectangle around the pedals. Remove the pedals. Measure the taped rectangle. That’s the size board you need.

Peter Piper pondered a post on picking the perfect pedalboard. He provided the important prerequisites and a promising plan, but plugging it into power proved perilous as the polarity wasn’t precise and the popular personality’s perseverance in proper practice was exposed as a pile of poop... and his house burnt down.

Lol I feel like he outed me when he pulled out the 1 Spot daisy chain power supply

love how the automatic subtitles give us: „HI I‘M RACHEL“

This is good information for an old dude like me (I'm 65). After years of playing acoustic, I dusted off the Epiphone Les Paul and am trying to get my electric chops back. Then I joined a band. We cover a lot of genres from classic country to hard rock, and everything in between. So I'm adding pedals as I go - so far I have 3 on my self-built one that I carry in a suitcase. I've been lucky so far with my daisy chain power supply and meager collection. Thanks, Rhett!

Why am I watching this, I have one pedal...

You need a pop filter.

Steps to building a pedalboard: 1: Scheme 2: Source 3: Shop 4: Slap together 5: Scream and weep 6: Sit back and reconsider your choices in life 7: Salivate over the next build Or do it the right way as Rhett has so graciously tried to demonstrate here.

Nice to see Rhett explaining the important stuff about pedalboards. Wish I knew this when I built my pedalboard! Didn't take into account the need of a good pedal switcher until I started rehearsing and jamming with bands again. A power source with isolated outputs like the Zuma is expensive, but it pays a LOT in the long run. If you run your guitar through 5 or more pedals, consider also a good buffer circuit in the audio chain, especially using long cables. Oh, and some digital pedals (like TC's) don't like to be daisy-chained. Last but not least, use quality guitar cables, they DO make a difference.

I’m sooooo late to this channel, and so late to this video, but this video is straight up awesome!!! Super helpful. I’ve watched a ton of videos about pedals and pedal boards and this is the only one that really helped me to begin to understand the technical aspects of putting a pedal board together properly. Thanks Rhett. You did your thing.

I've literally just put together my first proper pedalboard, and I can testify to the good advice here. I would probably add: the planning stage might benefit from the odd diagram, so that you can see where you will be stomping and what the cabling requirements are. I benefitted from sitting in the place where I play to get an idea of what length the cables needed to be. Another thing to bear in mind is the implications of what you're plugging into. In particular, if an amp, does it have an effects loop? For the record, if anyone's interested, I ended up with a Pedaltrain Nano+, powered by an MXR iso brick mini, with a TC Electronic Flashback 2 and an EH Ocean's 11 in the effects loop of my Victory V30, and in the front end an Xotic BB preamp mid-boost version, with an old Morley wah possibly going after it (but not on the Nano+). Andertons have a good video on this with Danish Pete, and they have an excellent web page supporting it too.

I charge my board with a giant phone battery with a usb to a daisy chain I got on Amazon. It's like 40,000 mah. I power like 8 pedals for weeks with that thing. Best part zero noise and no extension cords. Just make sure your total power draw doesn't exceed the battery output. Only down point, that big bastard takes 8 hours to charge.

Finally someone put a useful RU-vid video for someone(me) building their first pedal board.

Hi Rhett, just came across your video on Pedalboards for beginners. Best and easiest to understand explanations I've seen yet. I've recently bought a pedaltrain Metro 16 board but haven't sorted out the power cables yet, so ur vid was very informative and easy to understand for a beginner like me. I like your presentations so much that I've subscribed to ur channel. A big thank you! 👍😎

Great timing Rhett! Im currently putting together a mini pedal board to coax the clean channel on the Fender Frontman 10g I got for x-mas to make a sweet little practice rig, since this is my first pedal board build and I didn't know better I WAS going to cheap out on a wall wart. But after seeing this, it confirms my suspicions that im gong to need a better power supply to suit the goal the board is trying to achieve. The steps you broke the process down into where really helpful, I had picked out the right pedals for the job but failed to realize I didn't have the proper power supply in mind to get the most use out of them. Thanks Rhett you just saved me at least 20 bucks on a wall wart that wouldn't cut it, now ill happily wait and save for the right tool for the job and avoid the frustration.

This is really excellent. I’m originally a sax player and now born again musician on guitar 🎸 as of a year and a half ago. For my first pedal I bought a ‘guitar lab’ which has dozens of effects, it’s programmable, has a tuner, basic looper, expression pedal, and rhythm machine-all for only $100. This is of course not really a substitute for having a populated pedal board, but it got me started. First actual pedal, a top of the line looper. It’s awesome. Then I bought a Roland Go Mixer. Next I’m thinking a great Blues pedal. Well, I play outside a lot, no wall plugs, you get the picture. Plus I have to plug and patch everything in each time. Answer: Pedal board. I gotta say though, when you got to power supply, I was thinking I’ll just ask the shop guy. But at least I’m not blind to the issue now, so thanks.

Thank you so much for making a series out of this! I've been trying to figure out a good plan for making my first pedal board, but got really overwhelmed trying to figure out where to begin. This helps so much dude!

I've played for over 20 years now and just now started messing with effects pedals. Every band I ever fronted, I've just used my amps on-board effects/overdrives, if there were any, and made out fine. But now that I'm spending a lot of time home, I've started exploring effects pedals. As I'm sure you're ALL aware... opening this can of worms has QUICKLY got out of hand. Not a bad thing, but yeah.. this is what kept me away from effects pedals and od's.. I know me, and know how I obsess over things like this haha. Being ocd.. putting together my first pedalboard has actually been therapeutic in a variety of ways, but also overwhelming at times. I thank you, Rhett, for your videos, because I've referenced so many other RU-vid videos, along with yours, and feel like I've found the right overdrives, effects, pedalboard, cords, cables, ect. To build the board to my liking. Thanks for the help! And just a little tip for anyone who might need it, if you're playing in dark rooms, find one of the music stand or piano music sheet lights that can be powered by a USB. They mount perfectly onto a pedaltrain with a clip, have two brightness settings, and don't need batteries (although they do make ones that do for less cords) I'm sure I sound dumb because I'm sure people have better ways, but it works great for me and was really really cheap, under 6 bucks I believe. Anyways, lovin this! Hope to have a few discussions about other people's boards!

I just shared this video with a friend who is building his first pedal board. Great video! For a small(ish) pedal board, the Boss PSA-120S is pretty quiet. I gig with it and power five pedals with a daisychain cable. I don't think it's quiet enough to use for recording, but for someone on a budget building a basic gig board, You can't go wrong if your pedals don't draw more than 500 mA current. It filters out a surprising amount of noise. It's so affordable--about $33--you can carry a spare and still save $50+ over a power supply with isolated sockets.

Im a welder so I fabricated my own small angled pedal board out of stainless steel. It's holding up great so far and I can make modifications to it over time if I need it to be bigger or accommodate a different power supply, ect.

I'm really excited to continue watching this series!really needed the insight. Thank you :)

It's formally called "Pedalboarding" and is currently undergoing review as a potential olympic sport ...

Great video! One thing to note is that if you already have the old Voodoo Lab PP2+, there are dip switches that allow you to switch between 9 and 12V, as well as voltage doubler, current doubler, and splitter cables available from Voodoo Lab for just a few bucks each. You can often share a 100mA tap between low-current pedals, and couple taps 5 & 6 to feed pedals that need up to 500mA. You can also couple two 9V taps to power a pedal requiring 18V, or use the dip switches and couple to achieve up to 24V. Xotic also makes a voltage doubler connector that goes between the power tap and the pedal (about $30). You can even use the courtesy outlet on the back for a wall wart that comes with a high current pedal, in a pinch. All of these options add up a little bit, but for some this will be a good option as a new power supply is definitely more expensive!

Me: I need a pedal board. Me: I have no pedals...

Dude I used that line "I need it" when recently buying a new amp and guitar...lol. I went from just jamming on my own and writing and recording my own stuff to jamming in 2 bands out of nowhere. Now I got a evh 5150 50 watt head after I sent back the katana and I got some pedals coming and I'm gonna need a pedal board. I got a noise gate coming, a delay, a chorus, and I got my old crybaby wah.

11:08 can we just acknowledge how natural that sounded? I fr thought that was a real sneeze/cough (until I heard Strymon Volante)

I think that one major consideration is how some pedals sound if the chain of pedals. You could change which pedals are connected to other pedals and the sound could change for you to like it more so I would consider switching pedals until you get the sound best to you.

Best video I have seen about pedalboards. Simple and complete. Thank you!

Great video, you've successfully talked me into ditching my 1 SPOT for my board build, thanks for all the helpful info I didn't know before building my first board.

Looking forward to the next video in this series. So far it's been very helpful 👍

I’m currently building my own pedal board and this was very helpful. Great video. Subbed

Very helpful, thank you. There's a lot of stuff that I've never heard of but through RU-vid regarding gear setups and important-to-know electrical what-not.

for someone that had only used digital effect-boards over the years this video was really helpful. just customized my first proper pedal-board today^^ thanks

I wish you had posted this video 3 weeks ago. I've already outgrown my current board, and I just got it for Christmas!

Man I lol’d at the plosives. Super funny and great editing

Rhett, I watch your channel all the time. I've never felt a need to talk about this before but this just happened in the past few months and it's really important and it's about pedals! Okay, I'll be concise. I built my first pedalboard about two years ago. I never really liked how it sounded. It looked amazing but nothing special in the tone department. Over $2,500. I was going to sell ALL my pedals. Decided I'd never use pedals I was happy with my Clean and Dirty/Overdrive Channels and my favorite tube amps. But wait, not yet. I re-did the entire pedal board, the big one. Now it was a REALLY great sounding and looking pedal board! I was really happy with it and still am! BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE! Now I had left over about three pedals that were just sitting in my gig box for a month or so. Then VOILA, it hits me! Those three pedals would make an amazing Experimental Rig and the pedals were an MiniVan Echo/Delay pedal, a Bit Commander/Synth/Octaver pedal AND a Distortion Factory/Tube Screamer/Rat pedal... It turned out that this Echo/Delay/Synth/Octaver/Tube Screamer Combo was FRIGHTENINGLY GOOD AND AMAZING SOUNDING!! I'M SWITCHING TO CAPS!! I WAS SO FREAKED OUT BY THE TONES THAT I WAS GETTING THAT I LITERALLY COULD NOT PLAY FOR AN ENTIRE TWO WEEKS, AS I WAS ABSOLUTELY SO AWESTRUCK BY THE TONES THAT I HAD TO MENTALLY RECOOPERATE!! VOODOO? YES, IT WAS SOME KIND OF TONE MAGIC VOODOO!! I'M TELLING YOU THAT THIS IS SOME TYPE OF HOLY GRAIL OF PEDAL COMBINATIONS THAT I HAVE DISCOVERED!! IT'S LIKE THE KIND OF TONE THAT STARS ARE MADE OF!! SUPER CELEBRITY TONE!! THERE ARE NO WORDS!! I HAVE NO WAY TO DEMONSTRATE THIS TO YOU RIGHT NOW BUT THOUGHT THAT YOU MAY ACTUALLY ALREADY HAVE THOSE PEDALS OR SOME SIMILAR COMBINATION THAT YOU COULD EXPERIMENT WITH ON YOUR SHOW!! I AM TELLING YOU, THIS IS THE MOST EXCITING TONE DISCOVERY I HAVE MADE IN OVER 30 YEARS OF BEING A MUSICIAN, GUITARIST AND STUDIO TECH!! I WOULD LOVE TO PATENT THIS TONE, TO BOTTLE IT AND MAKE A PEDAL THAT COULD MAKE THIS TONE THAT I'VE DISCOVERED IN THIS COMBINATION!! I HAVE NEVER SEEN OR HEARD OF THIS EXACT PEDAL COMBINATION BEFORE BUT ONE COULD BUILD THEIR LIFE AND CARREER AROUND THIS TONE I'VE CREATED, AS DESCRIBED... I HOPE THIS ALL MAKES SENSE TO YOU. I LIVE MUSIC, I'M SURE YOU CAN TELL THAT NOT MUCH ELSE REALLY MATTERS TO ME AT THIS POINT... I thought about keeping this pedal combination a secret but then I felt that I could not do it. I wanted to hear others experience the same joy I have found with this combo. It's just three pedals! Oh and to make it REALLY over the top, if you put a FUZZFACE into the "Line In" on the MiniVan, it brings on yet ANOTHER ENTIRELY NEW DIMENSION OF SOUNDS THAT YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD BEFORE, ARE TOTALLY ANALOG SOUNDING, (AND THEY ARE), AND WILL JUST ABSOLUTELY HAVE YOU PUTTING YOUR GUITAR DOWN FOR AT LEAST ONE WEEK JUST TO GRASP REALITY AGAIN, THAT'S HOW BLOWN AWAY AT WHAT YOU JUST HEARD YOU WILL BE! I say no more... LoVe, LoVe, LoVe your show!! FANTASTIC!! Such an EXPERT!! LOVE IT!!

such a well produced and straightforward video. thanks for helping us avoid the trap of expanding just because there's space! i was already opting for a smaller, lighter board and this just confirmed my hunch. you don't need 20 effects when you're gigging. you just need to play your damn guitar.

This is awesome, I've needed to revamp my board for a while now and I've been really interested in doing what you're going to do with this series and board.

First off, great vid! I just wanted to say that the center negative that pedals run on is the exception in the electronics world; most 9v supplies (unless specifically designed for pedals) will be center positive, as that is the standard. Most wall-warts too, so pay special attention to this. Secondly, any center positive can be converted to center negative bu simply reversing the wires on a standard cable (cut, reverse, solder, heatshrink). The isolation thing is very important though, and i woul recommend any begginer in this marvelous field to simply stick to a good power supply made especially for this. Cheers!

Just built my first pedal board. Thanks Rhett!

That Strymon Zuma Power supply is excellent!! Great video Rhett!! 🏆🏆👍

I've been binging your videos this weekend, great job!!!

Perfect pedal and power supply with plenty of plosive opportunities. Had me cracking up! Looking forward to following the build. I recently put together my first real board: a Pedaltrain nano+ and it's made a huge impact on my live playing. 1) No noise, 2) easy to setup, and 3) I sound better because of it. Using the 1Spot CS6 for power. Order: Boss tuner, JHS mini foot fuzz, Dirty Shirley, Spark mini boost, flashback and HOF (both full size). Sounds great, gives me a few options, and boost after OD is killer for soloing.

Thanks Rhett . interested in seeing how you’ choose to set your gain and volume settings. Do you go for parity volume or do the pedals push the front end of the amp.

The Voodoo Lab Pedal power 2 plus has 8 little switches on the bottom, and if you flick them the outlets provide 12 volts instead of 9. So it would work fine on your board with the eventide and 12 volt pedals.

Great video! The H9 actually runs either on 12V or 9V (from the manufacturer) so you can have more flexibility. You just need to match the current (amperage requirements). 9V@500mA or 12V@400mA

0:02 - 0:09 literally my excuse for every piece of gear i have ever bought. except maybe ear-plugs, definitely NEEDED those.

What power supply would you use to power HX Stomp and/or HX Effects?

Used to always daisy chain and had all kinds of noise issues…then got a $40 isolated power supply and it was life changing. Clean and smooth sounding.

Man, I got a straight up piece of wood, 3 9v power adapters and all my drives running through the loop of a boss NS2, it's a goddamn mess but it sounds great and is nice and quiet. Looks like shit but I can't justify spending so much on a metal rack I set things on lol. Works for me.

Thanks Rhett this really helps me to know what to do when building a board.

I love the CIOKS power supply. It fits perfectly underneath the pedaltrain like it was designed to and can power almost everything you throw at it

Thanks for this. I've just started and I've already bought a 9 plug "wall wart" power supply and there is all kinds of noise. At first I was worried all my new pedals were bad but now I know how important a good power supply is, that will be next on my shopping list thanks

This is super informative, really helped me with my build! Thanks!

I too have been guilty of building a monsterously oversized pedal board and have use both the Voodoo Labs power supplies and the Strymon Zuma. Both were great but if you're gonna be using Eventide and or Strymon pedals that Zuma is just the best option out there. Great informative video! I enjoy all of your content.

Great info, Rhett! Thanks for this video.

Needed this as I’ve been trading away other gear to increase my pedal collection. Beetronics fuzz pedal on the way😄

0:02 Me trying to explain my life problems to my mom

Really love this video. Any reason why you didn't carry on with the series. I was very interested in your take on which order to place pedals in the signal chain and which should go into your amp's effects loop. Obviously there are "rules" but I'd love to see your thoughts on this.

Really funny video man! Love the format and content in your new videos

Voodoo labs dingbat really streamlined my build process... amazing board for any level of guitarist 👍

I got a bad case of the Volante's as well. Love the editing in this video. It's poignant too, my Novo 24 arrives tomorrow.

such good stuff always. Thank you for the thorough explanations.

Great video! I liked it a lot. Makes me wanna be a rockstar one day

Thank you for this video! You touched on all of my questions!

Great video, Rhett. Very straight to the point. Tanx 🤘

Great video and instruction Rhett. Could you do a video about best affordable jazz amps for us oldies? Cheers

Hey man, great vidio, I'm about to put a hoard together. Hopefully it'll be half decent. What're you're thoughts on the 1 Spot CS12?

Ive always been confused with pedals like some of the stuff from EHX. Much of their pedals require voltages that arent an even 9v, 12v, or 18v. Do I have to use the provided power supplies to these pedals, or am i able to power them with conventional power supplies like the voodoo labs?

Thanks for this rundown. Clarifies something. I want a Helix. And a good DI box. So much simpler. I travel by bike, so paring down the things while still being able to make the sounds appeals, as long as quality is maintained. I just got a Roland Cube, a mid sized one. Feels great, the models satisfy. I know the joy of tubes, but damn, can't carry those well on a cargo bike and so heavy. Pedalboard, yeah, tempting. But with multiple pedals, multiple angles for noise and break in signal flow. A Helix is much simpler that way. Especially for travel.

Hey Rhett, Hi, I'm just preparing to set up my first Pedal Train board. I have a few pedals (Boss RC500 and Fishman Aura Spectrum DI) that have rubber feet firmly attached to the pedal. I will likely need to use these pedals separate from the pedalboard, so I'd like to avoid removing the rubber feet permanently. Any suggestions?

Rhett Shull picked a peck of underpowered pedals.

Is there more segments of this coming? I'm new to guitar, and just looking into pedals and either starting a pedalboard , or getting something like a Headrush Gigboard....

Great video, seems like I cant find quality vids on gear anymore but this is the exception

Mini iso brick from MXR works fine for my 4 pedal acoustic board, fits in the pedaltrain nano+ and looks kinda cool , from right to left , tunner,reverb,delay,loop all 9v center negative

This is nice! I'm a keyboardist starting to put together a bit of a rig, and wanting to make my own pedalboard. Even though most of these guides are for guitar, I'm still learning a ton. Like the bit about power supplies. My first "attempt" at a pedalboard is just a volume pedal, a delay pedal, a mixer, and "wall warts". (I made an informal video about it!)

Really great video. Like all the consideration that you recommended before you start laying anything out.

All solid advice. Nice job.

I may have missed it but you mentioned issues with power cords and patch cords? What do you recommend? Great vids

Enjoyed seeing your plosive-induced descent into madness

building on a Temple Audio Duo 24. currently only running 7 pedals not including my Boss RC-1 Loop Station. (leaving space to grow) What are you thoughts on the Ojai or the Ojai R30? You can apparently power one Ojai with another. I have to keep size of the power supply small because the Zuma is just slightly to tall to fit underneath the board. So the idea is 2 Ojai instead of the 1 Zuma. Love your channel. Always well done and thoughtful videos! Keep them going

Very helpful video, i hadnt considered polarity for my board. Thank you! :)

Great on point video! 👍 Ordered an Cioks DC7 today 🙂

Used a cabinet door as my pedalboard for 10 years and finally got a pedaltrain. Does the same thing honestly but it just looks so much better

If I have a multieffects but also have some pedals you want to use on top of it (I have a BOSS ME-25 but I also have a tube screamer, source audio collider, a chorus pedal not sure the brand but its more of a filter and a digitech Jam Man solo running into an orange micro terror) which order would give me the most clarity?

Lol, the Puh sound. Please pick a phenomenal pedal placed perfectly on the physical pedalboard from your pre-planning pictures.

Any power supplies you recommend for 24v pedals like the Electro-Harmonix Q Tron Plus? I am struggling to find one that is large enough for my board and has the necessary outputs. Awesome video, Rhett!

Nice video! But I read on the JHS website that the Colour Box can alternatively be run on 9v or 18v power. Currently I use a trex fuel tank jr, which is 9v only on all 5 outputs. I was planning on getting a Colour box in a few months. Should I also buy a separate 18v power supply?

Great information, covered everything you need to know..

Thanks! Learned a lot from this video!

I've been using a Godlyke Powerall for my board for 20 years + with no problems and no noise. It's powering 8 - 9 pedals that are all nine volt pedals.

I think I'll just remain faithful to my acoustic guitar.