Help me build a pedal board

The Lounge Other Gear
#21

Yeah stymon make a good power supply. They are extensible too which is handy. Their pedals are real good.

Get a bigsky or bluesky for reverb imo, i think analog delays are real nice, and analog chorus is great on synths. Strymon el cap isnt analog but its a great delay.

I wouldnt bother with a compressor if ur using synths, they help with guitar for longer sustain but synths u can control it thru the patch. Not that they are useless but should be something for when u have some cooler pedals.

Budget for some utility to control gain, synths can be a lot louder than pedals can handle, particularly the more boutique ones. Radial EXTC is real nice but pretty bulky and expensive and has specific requirements around power so make sure ur power supply can handle it if ur thinking about it. I just plug it in seperately but gain is more of an issue when using eurorack.

Also embrace mono, most pedals are gonna be mono, you miss out on a lot limiting urself to stereo only, and some pedal makers have weird ideas on how to do stereo which can lead to phase issues.

Having a nice reverb right at the end lets u run a mono signal thru the board and then open it up into a nice stereo field at the end, which is also where some chorus can sound great.

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#22

Sound advice from Mr Wood. Don’t make it a big thing. Just grab a few boxes and dial in something glorious. Cheap can be as inspiring as boutique.

I like Cioks too. (Dc-10)

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#23

Excellent suggestions and advice, very much appreciated.

I will be using it (mostly) for synths but still want to reserve the ability to run whatever else into it (mics/guitar/drum machines etc)
And it will be for studio use not live use.

Cost is definitely a factor at the moment, I was initially going to build a modular FX box instead (I haven’t ruled it out) because there are some incredible effects in eurorack but I speced out a 6U 104hp all effects modular of modular effects that have been on my wish list for years and it was just around the $5000 mark which is way out of the question for the foreseeable future.

If I go down the pedal rabbit hole I am definitely seeing a lot of boutique stuff that I like but I like the idea of throwing a bunch of cheap pedals together to get things started

#24

Oh, and one more thought. Pedalboards are great for live use and maybe to have everything ordered in the studio and to avoid clutter. On the other hand being able to pick a few loose boxes, put them in unusual orders, or create odd combinations like putting two phasers in series etc – allows for a lot interesting sound design, happy accidents etc – which you might not get if you have everything in the traditional logical order: dynamic pedals, modulation pedals, timebases effects etc.

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