Pedalboard Layout Nerdiness

[npfrs]

If you make thee sorts of drawings or find this intriguing, you might have a problem... I know I do.



I laid out the pedals before diagramming it out. I found a suitcase today that's the exact size I need. I'm hoping to finish this board officially over the next couple of weeks.

[coldbrightsunlight]

Wow, cool board and complicated too! I definitely see the need for a diagram with a signal chain like that. I use boring pedal 1 -> pedal 2 ->... pedal x -> single amp setups though because I'm too dumb for fancy routing, so there's no need.

[erector]

I love doing this sort of thing (and looking at other people's drawings/diagrams).

...I occasionally draw diagrams featuring pedals/equipment that I don't even have.

[goroth]

I have my current pedal board in a scale drawing in Inkscape. All pedals are too scale. Every time I make a purchase I put it into the diagram and rearrange my board digitally.

1) it's nerdy fun
2) I have saved so much time and hassle by planning it this way. I used to hate winging it then being short half a pedal and having to rip up everything.

So in conclusion: your diagram rules and the whole process of diagramming a pedal board is awesome.

[goroth]

Btw: I understand nothing of that signal chain. My brain refuses to compute parallel chains and especially fails to understand the key master. Unless you're incorporating a ghostbusters VHS in your rig. I get ghostbusters.

[Glenouille]

I was doing it a lot when I had a huge board, and then I moved on to doing different things with smaller boards which were somehow simpler.
I found this pic from back then:



I need to do some drawings for the pedz I'm trying to sync, it really helps.

[Ghost Hip]

I used to think of pedal orders I'd try before a new pedal arrived. I'd draw them out in my notebooks in high school.

When I was planning the God Machine with Devi through email, I was drawing different ideas for it in my Anthropology class.

[sonidero]

YES!!! I have a couple notebooks full of diagrams and layouts and notes... I write down all the weird chains and tape projects in a notebook called "The Sounds and How I Made Them" so I can remember what the hell I was doing... I think about sounds all day and am always plugging and unplugging pedals and noise makers in my mind... Seeing stuff written or drawn out really helps you get a grasp of whats going on and lets you figure out whats really happening with the signal flow... Also I need a Keymaster bad...

[Jero]

Used to do it a lot when work was slow or I had new pedals on the way. I still find random pieces of paper with diagrams of pedals I no longer have

Btw: I understand nothing of that signal chain. My brain refuses to compute parallel chains and especially fails to understand the key master. Unless you're incorporating a ghostbusters VHS in your rig. I get ghostbusters.

[warwick.hoy]

Ya'll pretty nerdy.

I like to formulate a signal chain before I tear down my board for a rethink. Usually that involves finding whatever piece of paper is handy and jotting down the names of the pedals in the flow that I envision.

For me the obsessive part comes when I'm trying to go to sleep and I'm just laying in bed agonizing, loosing sleep, over signal chains (or excitement over a new gear acquisition).

[sonidero]

I was gonna say that I once figured out how to use my 2880 as an awesome Delay with Reverse and Octave but I forgot to write it down and it was lost but I just figured it out again so I'll post here for nerdiness...

Arm the 2880 for a new loop and move the tempo slider all the way up, push record twice as fast as you can then push record again and play over the top and you have a delay where the time is set by the tempo slider... It works with the reverse and octave and if you let it record a lil longer you can get really long gnarly lo-fi delayzzz for dayzzz...

[npfrs]

Btw: I understand nothing of that signal chain. My brain refuses to compute parallel chains and especially fails to understand the key master. Unless you're incorporating a ghostbusters VHS in your rig. I get ghostbusters.

It's a secondary looping-only pedalboard for a folk/electronic project. The signal hits my ABY and A goes to the Keymaster.

In loop 1 of the Keymaster is a small Mackie mixer with 4 inputs. The first is my guitar, with highs dimmed and lows boosted, for when I use my baritone or Whammy Oct -1. Second input is a microphone. Third input is a banjo and the fourth is a wildcard, but most often an SP-404 Sampler. The mixer output (mono) then goes back into the Keymaster to close the loop.

In loop 2 of the Keymaster is a Boss RC-3 loaded with sampled sounds (ambient, motifs, etc) into a killswitch (I'll explain) into a Freeze into an M9 then back to the Keymaster. The idea with this loop is padding. I can use the RC-3 samples to create pads and use the M9 to manipulate them OR I can create a pad with the Freeze and manipulate that. The killswitch means I can keep the loop open and the pad going without having my guitar signal run through the M9 and be affected. I might switch the order of the RC/killswitch now that I think about it...

The Keymaster then goes out into the right input of another RC-3 (used for looping) then the right input of the Boomerang III then the A input of the Voodoo Lab Amp Selector which splits to a SF modded Super Reverb and an Ampeg Micro VR 2x10 bass amp.

The B of the ABY goes into the left input of the looping RC-3 then the left input of the Boomerang III then the B input of the Voodoo Lab Amp Selector which splits to a Dr. Z Maz 38 with 2x10 cab and an Orange OR15 with 2x12 cab.

I think that explains it all?

[MrNovember]

...I occasionally draw diagrams featuring pedals/equipment that I don't even have.

I do this ALL the time when work is slow! It's the number one reason for my obsessive gas for pedals...I DEFINITELY HAVE a problem...

edited my dyslexic grammar.

Btw: I understand nothing of that signal chain. My brain refuses to compute parallel chains and especially fails to understand the key master. Unless you're incorporating a ghostbusters VHS in your rig. I get ghostbusters.

[npfrs]

I forgot to point out there is no Ghostbusters VHS involved but there is a Point Break one.

[Greenfuz]

jesus christ my pedalboard consists of like 3 things, maybe 5 if I'm doin somethin a little psych-ish