How Many Pedals Do You Need? 5 Pedalboard Setups Pros and Cons
Find out how many pedals you need for your guitar playing. I’m comparing the pros and cons of 5 different pedalboard setups.
Which size pedalboard do you prefer? Let me know in the comments.
Here are links to the pedalboards and power supplies I use in the video:
– Small Pedalboard
USA: https://amzn.to/3bXLzbH
UK: https://amzn.to/3vxpU1q
– Medium Pedalboard
USA: https://amzn.to/2RLiMQw
UK: https://amzn.to/3eDWjfM
– Large Pedalboard
USA: https://amzn.to/3bXyor5
UK: https://amzn.to/334VvuW
– Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus
USA: https://amzn.to/3oTKrLp
UK: https://amzn.to/3xE335Q
– Daisy Chain Power Supply
USA: https://amzn.to/3up6Xg8
UK: https://amzn.to/3u5JbGI
Timecodes:
00:00 – Intro
00:18 – Small Pedalboard
01:47 – Small – Pros and Cons
02:30 – Medium Pedalboard
04:01 – Medium – Pros and Cons
04:43 – Large Pedalboard
09:08 – Large – Pros and Cons
10:17 – Multi-FX
11:43 – Multi-Fx – Pros and Cons
13:30 – No Pedals
If you’re interested in one to one online Skype guitar lessons please contact me via my website https://michaelbanfieldguitar.com
#Pedals #Pedalboard #Setups #Pros #Cons
Originally posted by UCsdzt1tun0Gbe51Qm8SsBQQ at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6uS8iGyg2g
Great video and nice final thoughts regarding getting the sound just with the guitar and the amp. I'm combining that with the middle board and find it to be a good compromise – tweaking the tone and volume of the guitar until I get the sound I want, and then enganging the effects if needed. I currently have the wah/volume + plethora X5 + TS + 2x fuzz (I like fuzz) + EQ on my board, with additional Sonicake Portal so I can mix and blend the OD and fuzz tone in series or parallel and it is awesome
Love the last bit. Even as a player of 30 years who prefers a medium board, it’s always great to take it back to the basics. Learn to use and understand how your guitar’s pickups, volume and tone knobs work. Cheers!
At home huge board.. out playing small
Great video, Thanks! No pedals and small board is the best I think. Make the most of the little you have and there's already lot more to explore than we think. Easier to manage, troubleshoot and good for all live situations. In the studio there's always in-house gear ready to use, from racks to softwares. And if you're after classic sounds, most of the time it's studio trickeries so solving that with a few small boxes is already magical in itself (we really are spoiled children ahah). Average multi-FX usually have good basic sounds and cheap (but fun to explore) advanced ones, so using one for the basics, DI capabilities and ease of setting up it's a good compromise (no need to explore the whole rabbit hole).
Hi I Have 2 questions
1.- isn't the polytune a buffer/tunner pedal? Why a dedícate buffer?
2.- why don't use a compressor?
I run a small board. It does everything I need and enough fun pedals to explore.
Nano+
Pedalboard – EHX Hot Wax >Boss PH2>EHX Mainframe>Demedash Effects T120>Death by Audio Rooms.
Can keep me entertained for hours.
Wait. This isn't Rob Scallon
Depends on the style you play. Shoegaze players need tons of pedals, blues players need very few, if any
How Many Pedals Do You Need?
As much as You can buy/use/fit on the board 😀
Found the same things in my adventures. Small for practice, medium for good gigs, large for studio,and a less expensive multi-fx for less secure gigs. Excellent video, so people who haven't gone through it have an understanding of where they want to go. I would always have a multi-fx for backup.
How can I build many pedals in power supply
ur small pedals sound is terrific .. thx 4 the informations ????????
You can get one of those adapters that plugs into your 18v pedal that coverts the volts from 9 to 18 volts for like $15. I have one and works great with the MXR analog chorus which runs at 18.
Beautiful looking guitar & great demo .
Great video again, Michael!!
I run 2 other options of small size boards.
First option: Zoom MS 50 G (amp/cab/rvb) and Zoom MS 70 CDR (mod/dly/rvb) affordable, light, easy, going to DI box (no amp) but I can only on/off 1 setting per pedal (works fine for my trio). Fits in gtr case!
Second option: 2 small boards, one at the front of the amp (sd1, ds1, fz5, tr2, mo2) and one in fx loop of amp (re2, te2, rv5, tu2, (ir2)) still light and affordable, easy to use/troubleshoot, runs with 2 daisy chains. Still able to ride on scooter to studio practice! Perfect for my bigger band.
Just sharing.
Stage size can be really deflating. You have a big board and amp, a few guitars, you like to move about… then the social club you’re playing gives you about ten square feet to fit a 5 piece band with drums ????
I went from 12+8 pedals, on a pair of boards to 3 pedals… including the tuner…
Honestly so much happier.
Need? With digital amps today, 3. Tuner, looper & the amp's own proprietary control pedal. Most of us have more, but that's all I use 95% of the time.
I think the smaller you can get the better. Mainly so that I’m less tempted to buy more pedals since I’d have no room available lmao, and it forces me to upgrade my existing ones
1 pro for the 3 – 5 pedal board, that it can be powered with a daisy chain and is small and prortable without having to disconnect everything when you want to move it.
I feel 8 pedals is the optimum number for a single board. Start with the basics – 1 dirt, 1 modulation, delay or reverb. Once you establish your base tone, decide from there what else you want… extra dirt pedals, a compressor would be good if you play a lot of funk or country music, different modulations, maybe you want both reverb and delay. I usually leave things like wah, rotovibe and my volume pedals off the board; but I may look at seeing if I can make space to at least put the volume pedal on there as its useful all the time while I don't always want wah and rotovibe.
Actually, I liked the sound of only the amp the most ????
Your "no-pedals" demo at (13:30) was a GREAT example of the guitar sounds versatility that can be made from using different combinations of the guitar's volume and tone controls, the guitar's pickup selector switch, and the amp's volume. You made your guitar sound like it was going through several different pedals!
Brilliant viid thanks,really insightful! As a bedroom/hobbyist guitarist for now, I'm currently in the process of building and putting together a medium sized pedalboard purely for fun and creativity purposes.Nothing high-end or boutique going on there,just well chosen essentials for their sounds and flexibility chosen using vids like this to confirm my choices (and some fun stuff too obvs..) But that said,I could never be too far away from an acoustic guitar
with which to use fingers,picks,bottleneck slides etc,to create a few rather enjoyable effects of my own!
I love if people playing huge Pedalboards and get amazing sounds out of it. But it doesn't works for me. After all These years of trying, it is Just a Tuner, Overdrive and a Boost for me. It's a pitty, I know ????
distortion/OD, Delay, and Chorus for me. Oh and Tuner pedal if im doing live shit. but that's all
Thanks for the great video. I like the last bit. no effects at all. Now I just got a small one-row pedalboard which limits me to the bare essentials. I prefer to play than mucking around with gadgets.
Digitec RP50, Donner Yellow Fall Delay. Kokko Comp. Sorry skeptics. I’ll take the RP50s you don’t want.
It took me years to realize how much I was missing as a guitar player by not taking advantage of the volume control on my guitar. It has made a huge difference in what I do now. I don't switch on and off effects pedals nearly as often as I used to. Somthing so simple yet so foreign to me for many years.
I've been researching starting my pedals journey… and have decided to start with a Headrush MX5, it's small and flexible, and will cost roughly as much as the tuner I would have chosen, a Ditto+ looper, and maybe 1 pedal or 2 of the cheaper options on my pedal wishlist … then there's power and cables…
I think the MX5 is small enough that later on a few specific pedals could be added to create a hybrid pedalboard…
I had a GT1 and sold it as made everything sound crap even from clean. Back to basics with pedals now and far better but yes more expensive but far easier with no menus to remember where I found something. On/Off buttons are great!
a daisy chain supply is good to have while you're figuring things out.
beyond that,
noise is the anti-good sound … with that few pedals; individual wall warts, and a power strip, is the next step.
The three questions when considering pedalboard size are 1) type of music you play, 2) are you using the amp as a pedal platform or are you utilizing the amps distortion, and 3) are you using the effects loop? If you use the amps distortion (which is why you buy a good amp), you can get away with a small pedal board. If you play metal, like me, you will need to tame that amp at any volume. This will require at least a medium board because you will need to use utility pedals. You will need a gate in the loop as well as before the preamp. You will also put the time based delays in the effects loop. On my medium size board, out of 10 pedals, only about three are effects pedals. Simple to use. The rest are utility pedals that shapes tone and tames sound and noise. If I wasn’t using the amps distortion. I would need a large pedalboard because you would need about three pedals as different gain stages as well as the mighty mighty boss ls-2 to change “channels” between pedal distortions. Only these blues and country players have the option of small boards.
For the small pedal board, I'd insist on some kind of modulation pedal in place of one of the overdrives. You can make a good chorus, phaser or flanger sound like three or four different pedals if you know how to tweak them., And you can set a good amp to be pretty dang clean with the guitar's volume rolled back a little and a gentle picking style, and downright crunchy with the guitar volume on ten and a more aggressive attack.
So you can still stack gain more or less the same way as using two different distortions/overdrives, even if your amp has only one channel.
Different playing dynamics and using the guitar's pots/pickup selector can give you several different clean, OD and even distorted tones with the same pedal and amp settings. But modulation is very difficult to "fake."
Need? Or want?
I spent many years playing with nothing but a tuner and a Boss chorus that I almost never used. And a footswitch for the amp itself. I never really felt like I didn't have enough gear to get through any gig.
My 2-channel amp had plenty of gain, as well as reverb and chorus built-in. The verb stayed on all the time, but I didn't use the amp chorus very often.
People might be surprised how simple of a rig you can actually get away with and still do a fine job with all sorts of tunes and styles.
The answer is as many as i want
It depends on the Gig or rehearsal..jams small..small short gigs medium.or small…2hours or more Big medium..
Great clip Michael, I too own the Nautila and wanted to ask your thoughts on that pedal, thx !!
I'm always using only one tube overdrive pedal with a small tube amp, taking the sound with a microphone. If no amp can be used, I replace it with tube amp modeler pedal. When live, dry sound only. Environmental effects I apply only at recordings as postprocessing.
So basically I don't even need a board for my pedals.
What worked for me was a medium sized board + a small multifx unit (like a Zoom G3X or a HX Stomp). Those models work like individual pedals, and you can take advantage of the enormous amount of modulations, for instance.
It's super versatile and you can experiment with sounds before deciding to commit to "the real thing", if you ever decide to do that.
Hey Michael, I always wondered what brand that Les Paul-style guitar is. Please tell!
Great video btw.
What Prince used is the perfect pedal board hehe
I've got mine down to 10 including the tuner. Tons of versatility. I use the mod on the analog delay and a keeley seafoam or mooer elec lady flanger for modulation. The buffer is part of the friedman pedalboard buffer bay.
Hi – super Video! What beautiful guitar – which is it?
VG from LA(ndshut) ???? near Munich
Very nice presentation mate…. Great job.
Very good video, so as your others. For me as a „beginner“ very helpful. I went a step back or two with my board. For the reason to concentrate more on practice I switched to a small board. Thanks!
Having seen your demo of how to get chorus like effects from the Boss flanger I'd be tempted to have that as the default modulation pedal on my minimalist board. It certainly seems abl eto kill a few birds with one stone.
I’m so happy I discovered this channel! Awesome content!
Excellent video to the point. Thank you Michael.