Building A New Pedalboard (Patreon)

A while back I started planning and putting together a new compact, lightweight and easy-to-use pedalboard, mainly with the Smackbound shows in mind. Here's how the process went.

1. PLANNING THE PEDALS

1.1. Main Sound / Amp

The Neural DSP Quad Cortex (later also "QC") has been my main amp/guitar multitool for soon two years so it was easy decision to choose it as the heart of the board. I love how the unit sounds and works. The processing power it packs, touch screen, cloud backups, small footprint and light weight (1.5kg) while still having 8 preset/scene buttons make it very versatile yet compact unit.

Like with Wintersun, Smackbound doesn't use physical guitar/bass cabinets on stage so there was no meed for a separate poweramp.

1.2. Wireless

The second most importart element of the board for me was the wireless. Previously I've used several different Line6 units (G30, G50 - in the photo below, G70, G90 and XD-V75) over the years but this time I wanted to try the Shure GLXD-16E set that I had heard a lot of good things about. Both transmitter and receiver are very sturdy. I like that there's a quick mute/tuner option. It has a smart automatic channel switching which helps to avoid dropouts. Also a long lasting (up to 16h) USB-rechargeable battery is so much more convenient than having to always switch AAs after 6-7h of use.

1.3. "Double Tracking"

Since I'm the only guitarist in Smackbound I wanted to use the TC Electronic Mimic to create a wider "double tracked" stereo tone for live. With Wintersun we've also done this previosly for some parts with Axe-Fx but I think the Mimic does a better job with its random algorhythm. Hoping that some similar double tracking effect will be added to the Quad Cortex at some point.

I had the standard sized Mimiq for a few years now but to save space on this board I got the Mini version.

1.4. Other pedals

I was considering using a few other pedals too:

Gate - I was first thinking of using Fortin Zool+ as a separate, super tight and precise gate but after some testing I realised the QC's own Adaptive Gate was enough.

Vol/Whammy/Wah expression pedal - I love the Lehle Dual Expression pedal and was first thinking of putting it to this board but ended not doing it in order to save space/weight and also because I don't really need it with Smackboud.

Harmonizer - I was also considering using a separate harmonizer pedal for a few parts (like "Those Who Burn" solo) because there wasn't one in the QC until a couple weeks ago but luckily the latest update took care of that and the QC has it's own "Minivoicer" for the harmonizing now.

2. THE BOARD, LAYOUT AND POWER

2.1 Research and virtual pedalboard

I browsed various forums for pedalboard pictures and also used Finnish pedalboard builder Custom Boards' guide and gallery for inspiration and ideas.

I tried a few different virtual pedalboard builders to have an idea of the look and measurements. I found PEDAL PLAYGROUND working best for my needs. 

2.2 Choosing the board + case

There were two boards that seemed to fit my needs the best in terms of size, the RockBoard 3.0 TRES and Temple Audio Solo 18. I first ordered the RockBoard because it was easily available with its own hardcase, whereas the Temple was only available with a soft gigbag and even the gigbag was backordered at the time.

Unfortunately the Rockboard + case combination had two issues:

With my planned layout the board would be quite hard to lift up from the deep case, because there was no handles, unless you'd lift it up from the pedals themselves, which didn't seems like a good idea to me.

Yet, inside the case around the longer side of the pedalboard there was a bit of extra space so the board didn't really stay there snug but moved around just a little bit, which I didn't like.

I returned the Rockboard and ordered the Temple Audio Solo 18, which has roughly the same footprint (a bit wider but a bit shallower) but has handles on the sides. For case I decided to use my Samsonite carry-on luggage roller case for now, perhaps putting the board in a Peli 1535 with custom foam later on. 

2.3 Power

Instead of using QC's stock power supply and a separate 9V adapter for the other pedals I wanted to go with the highest quality power solution. The Mimic and Shure both take normal 9V power but the QC is pretty power hungry at 12V/2A so there wasn't many options which could supply for all those at once.

I hadn't used any Cioks products before but had heard great things about them and seems like in the last years they've become the market leader offering a wide range of high-end power supplies. They have three products that can be used to power up the Quad Cortex, the HI5 MOD (made especially to be used with Temple Audio boards), CIOKS 8 and DC7. Because of the lightest weight out of the three HI5 MOD would have been my first choice but it was out of stock at the time so I went with the DC7. 

With all of the Cioks option you have to daisy-chain four power outputs at 12V/500mA to get 12V/2A for the QC.  You have make sure to set those little flip switches to the correct position, otherwise wrong amount of power will likely cause some issues.

The four outputs are connected via three of Cioks' own Parallel adapter Flex cables (available separately). 

...And they're then connected to the supplied (black) adapter cable that attaches to the QC.

3. MOUNTING AND CABLING

3.1 Dual Lock

There are several different ways to attach pedals to a pedalboard and Velcro or something similar is probably the most-used option but usually it's not a very sturdy solution. Temple Audio has some quick release Pedal Plates which I was first thinking of using but decided to go with the most common professional solution, 3M Dual Lock, which I had in stash.

When attaching Dual Lock (or any tape really) it's important to first clean the surfaces of any dirt and grease. 

Those Dual Lock hooks are actually super strong but attaching pedals is one thing you want to rather over-do, because it's annoying if you pedals come off the board accidentally in transit. 

This doesn't looks like much but with 3M Dual Lock this is already bit of an overkill as one pair of strips has a rating of 3.3kg and the QC only weights 1.5kg.

3.2 Attaching the power supply

The Cioks came with it's own attachment screws so no need to use Dual Lock there. The underside of the pedalboard has a good amount of space for the installation.

To get the main power cable out from underside of the board I opened one of the Micro MOD slots on the side of the pedalboard.

3.3 Cabling

I needed three power cables (to QC, Mimiq and Shure), two patch cables to connect the QC loop (Send and Return) to the Mimiq In and Out and one patch cable to connect the Shure output to the QC input. For saving space I chose two EBS flat patch cables and one George L patch cable that had in stash.

I hid them underside the board as much as possible.

...And then attached the pedals to the board.

3.4 Securing the cables

To clean up the underside of the board and to secure the cables I used cable ties and cable tie holders from Thomann's Pedalboard Organiser Kit.

Before:

After:

4. EXTRAS

4.1 Wireless Midi

I also wanted to try wireless midi and CME Widi Jack  seemed like a great solution with its small footprint and being powered from the QC midi jack.

This device connects to a Mac computer easily with Bluetooth and at home within short range it worked great for me. But at the band rehearsals I had a couple dropouts so I decided to use normal 10-meter midi cable for the shows (connecting the backing track computer's interface that sends midi to the QC for sound changes).

4.2 LEDs

The final touch was adding a LED strip underneath the board.

5. SUMMARY

All in all the pedalboard turned out quite nice and functions really well. Later I might still change the power supply to the lighter Hi-5 MOD and perhaps get a pass-through power module with an on-off power switch.

Thank you Thomann for providing the boards, Cioks, EBS cables, Widi Jack, midi cable and Pedalboard Organiser Kit!

-Teemu