A Guitar And Gear Support Forum

How many pedals to you use?
For me, I use: a distortion, a fuzz, a delay, and a wah wah. If I want to go crazy I add a compressor, and a chorus.

Idealy, I like the idea of going straight into an amp, with my fingers, the volume knobs, and the tone knobs being my "effects." Quite often I actually do that.

At minimum I use only one pedal, a tuner. Does a tuner even count?

Bare bones would be the tuner and a dirt pedal.

When I go crazy it would be tuner, wah, dirt, phase.

Earlier this week I received a Chase Tone Secret Preamp (Thanks @Partscaster!) and in that short amount of time I've already been convinced that I can't ever live without it. So that will go at the end of my chain, starting with tonights gig at The Barracuda Taproom.

My current board is:

ABY > Tuner > Compressor > Overdrive > Distortion > Fuzz > Phaser > Chorus > Delay > Reverb > Stage Right 15W Tube Amp

I just moved back into a smaller board. I had built one a year or so ago that pretty comfortably fit 14 regular sized pedals in two rows with staggered heights. As cool as it was, I built it out of solid scrap wood I had laying around, so it weighs about 1000 pounds. Also, and this is my bigger complaint, every time I used it, it was nothing but knob twiddling and seeing what happens when you play both overdrives and a distortion through the phaser and both delay pedals, or the endless puzzle of "where do I put the clean boost?' It became much, much less about playing guitar, and much more about playing with the sounds. Which is very cool sometimes, but just isn't my thing right now.

A month or so ago I tore apart an old broken dresser. One of the drawer backs was still solid, so I threw down some velcro strips on it. I glued some angle pieces to the edge so it tilts up slightly. 4 pedals fit. Right now it's EHX Green Russian Big Muff -> TS808 -> an awesome phaser/vibe based on the EQD Grand Orbiter (built for me by the amazing Ryan @rmfroyd) -> Boss DM-2W delay. But, because of its size, this board's population and order changes almost every time I use it. I like to play with reverb so my HoF mini gets in the last slot a lot. I have a pile of other dirt pedals, too. I have a rat clone from Chicago Stompworks that I absolutely love. That sees a lot of time on the new board.

It's much better now for me. I still get to play with different sounds, but my playing is now far less interrupted with breaks to fiddle with settings.

Tuner, OD, Noise Gate, and Delay for me.

Never really had a board in the last 30 years. So wife gets me a gift certificate from GC XMAS and i bought a pedal train, it's under there somewhere. Deciding what to sell and what to keep, homemade pedals aren't even shown, that's about 10 others. Some are chibson branded. Building a daul 9 (18 jacks) slot true isolated regulated power supply for underneath, (individual regulators for each dualjack) will weigh as much as the pedals.

I'm quite minimalist if I can get away with it: two at most. That's a boost for solos, and a wah. (And the wah only if I need it.) If I absolutely need, distortion and reverb are on the pedalboard, but usually I'm using the amp for those.

That said, I'm in a punk rock band, so effects are not a big part of the sound. When I was in a cover band, I needed a phaser, delay, chorus, etc. even if they were each just for one or two songs.

I have one massive board and a smaller travel board.
Though I most often plug "straight in", almost. I have ordered a second Chase Tone Secret Preamp to use when otherwise plugging "straight in" so the other can stay-put on the smaller travel board.

Tuner > Jekyll & Hyde OD/Dist > Joyo delay > Traynor YCS50 amp.

self-admitted pedal junkie - but i don't feel like i go too crazy with my boards, because i'm usually singing which tends to limit my "dance moves".

minimal for me would be a tuner, distortion or fuzz, and a delay

current band board:

1. ernie ball vpjr tuner > 2. amt wh-1 wah > 3. mxr phase 90 > 4. boss bd-2w > 5. colorsound freakenbender > 6. boss ce-2w > 7. boss ps-2 > 8. boss rv-500

Multifunction pedal with multiple effects types and amp/cab models. The effects are not quite where i'd like them but the amp models are stellar and bring out those harmonics that make me smile.

I share @aullucci 's paralysis by analysis issue. Besides a compressor, I try to stick to one OD and two delays (a slapback and something not too over the top). I included my tuner as a pedal but I never feel like I should. We should post a poll on it's pedal status.

tlarson58 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 06, 2021 2:19 am I share @aullucci 's paralysis by analysis issue. Besides a compressor, I try to stick to one OD and two delays (a slapback and something not too over the top). I included my tuner as a pedal but I never feel like I should. We should post a poll on it's pedal status.

Tuner is a pedal.. Just a utility pedal vs an effects pedal.

I agree that a tuner is a pedal. But I don’t own one. I don’t play on stages so I just use my phone or a headstock tuner. Which frees up more space for the rawk.

To be minimalistic, I use a mfx/modeler + frfr cab, and I am done! It has everything I need and more! Comes with tons of amp and cab simulations and a lot of effects!

I have that same HeadRush Gigboard.... I like the tones and it is dead simple to use, but the USB circuit board failed twice on me. The first time they fixed it in 11 (damn) weeks, the second time refused to return communications at all.

I’ll never buy anything from them again.

I have pedals but mostly never use them. Occasionally a JamMan Looper, Trio, and a TC Harmony Vocal G...but rarely.

^ I am similar, RP1000 MFX, use a trio+ sometimes, a TC Helicon GXT and an ABY

Milkman wrote: ↑Sat Feb 06, 2021 10:41 am I have that same HeadRush Gigboard.... I like the tones and it is dead simple to use, but the USB circuit board failed twice on me. The first time they fixed it in 11 (damn) weeks, the second time refused to return communications at all.

I’ll never buy anything from them again.

I am sorry for your experience. I had mine for more than a year now and had no problems whatsoever.

If I'm using a real amp and hardware I usually just go direct. Maybe a bit of chorus or phase, but rarely.

If I'm going into Amplitube, I'm more likely to use some effects, a light delay, or run a stereo set up, maybe some reverb.

All in all, I usually prefer a thick, dry sound as opposed to a real coated one.

My small board is all I use anymore.

EB Volume -> Tuner -> Floridian FX OD -> MXR 78 Bad Ass Dist -> Floridian FX Lonely Housewife Trem -> Generic Delay -> Digitech Verb.

Does all I need.

I use a small business suitcase (American Tourister) for a pedal board, and that sets my limit. My pedal number is or has been 4-5.

The 4 pedals I use are more than single effects. This is my order.
Boss Tuner - Tuner, A/A+B pedal
Lovepedal BBB18si - Treblebooster/Fuzzface
Danelectro Money Laundry - spinning speaker sim (chorus and vibrato)
ScreaminFX Uverbia - reverb, gain/boost, and EQ shaping.

I have run my time based effects on the Boss tuner channel A and FuZz etc on B, but through my deluxe it’s not necessary to separate them. Usually I just hold back my volume on my guitar and either turn up for solos, or tap on the fuzz.


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I currently have 5 pedals on my pedalboard, but I often don’t use the pedalboard at all.

'tis a tough one...

I consider myself using a minimalistic pedalboard, when I use a GT-8 and that's it.
Basically 90% of what I use from it is EQ and a little boost/OD. Very rarely some wah and volume pedal, and sometimes I use it to get a 'clean' sound.

Meaning that 90% of the time with the band I'm just on one preset, on some songs I use another one, and in one song a third one and a couple of songs a fourth one - but they're basically all the same, with just a little different EQ and OD/boost amount and/or some slight verb added or removed.

So I think it's ultimately very minimalistic.

I have a lot of pedals because I use to make a lot of pedals, but I have slowed down. I have 4 power bricks on my pedal board and 2 buffers. One at the beginning of my chain after the looper and one at the end.