BJFE / BearFoot fx Guitar Effects Community

I realize this is a very erudite group in terms of paraphernalia associated with creating music and I wanted to take advantage of this expertise.

Wanted everyone interested to throw out some comments on items of interest for those, such as myself, not as savvy in such matters. So, can you give me some advice on:

1) cables you would recommend to conect pedals, etc.. and why,

2) pedalboards you would recommend and why,

3) power supplies that you recommend, and

4) any errors you made when putting everything together that you wish you had fixed early in the process. (lessons learned the hard way)

For reality sake, let's say I have a budget!!

If this information is contained elsewhere, feel free to point me there.

cork

Cables are important, but alot of it is about total impedance buildup....

The one down side to going to all True Bypass pedals can be that then you are more suseptible to tone loss/shift from various cable lengths....

While too many buffered pedals can realy dull your signal - none can be a different problem that allows all the cables to combine impedance load and also dull your signal.......

so get at least one pedal that has a nice buffer in it and put it close to the end of the board chain (some say placement doesnt matter really and sometimes it doesnt )

For consistancy sake I keep the Baby Pink at the end of my chain....


And spring for a good power supply - Voodoo PP2 is just fine

My advice would be, to make sure you are absolutely positive that choice and order of pedals will not change before you invest in a expensive board. I bought a 3/4 in. thick piece of plywood and attached velcro to it for my first board. I used George L solderless cable and ends and experimented with different pedals and their order in the chain for quite some time. When you think you got it nailed, check out Pumaboard, Trailer Trash, Stompin Ground, and I'm sure there are others for quality boards.

NYC Pedalboards are GREAT! Check 'em out! Lots of sizes, double decker option, pack up nice in a built in carrying case. $ for $, as good as any on the market in my opinion.

I've been using an NYC Pedalboard for 6 years now and it does the job well for me. I'd suggest purchasing a board that will allow you to make changes easily. I find that I've got plenty of room on my board to do that and still fit a couple fairly large pedals on it (there's a photo of my board in the pics thread).

For power, I use the newest version of the Juicebox because it's so flexible. I've got a Memory Lane going at 24v (I think you can run it at 18v if you choose to) and two 18v Toneczar pedals.

I use Canare patchcables, but I can't give a techy explanation for that, other than Lava Cable has been recommended all over the place as the best place to go for cables and the Canares were within my budget.

Paul

Appreciate all the inputs/advice.

- NYC Pedalboards look good from my perspective; rugged, reasonable, and versatile.

- Canares cables and George L's look comparable so I'll go with the Canares (I had no idea how expensive "expensive" cables could be. If I bought the van den Hul's, I'd have to sell my pedals, amp, and guitar but, I'd have some darn fine cables).

- I also use a Diamond Memory Lane so the power supply advice was spot on.

- put my MDEQ at the end of the chain and used the buffer since all my others are true bypass

- will keep it simple and allow for swapping out and maybe a little extra room for growth

Thanks again....