Last night, I saw what I thought was a prity good idea. A guy converted an old vintage Tweed Guitar Case into a Very Portable Peddle Board. He had everything hard wired and powered by a universal power supply. If any of you have other interesting ideas I would like to see them. Check this one out.
----Danny,

http://youtu.be/KZ6X_L7LjaQ

My main pedalboard these days was made from a briefcase. Does the job perfectly, houses six pedals and my power supply with no fuss and even makes you look like you have a proper job when you're walking into the venue.

mine is a custom job i made myself at work...if you haven't seen it before, here it is again, i love showing this thing off...
it's all aluminum, TIG and MIG welded by me, with piano type hinges , tool box latches (i worked at a tool box / truck accessories manufacturer) and a 2 dollar drawer pull from home depot. i think all in all it cost me about 20 dollars in scrap aluminum. cant find the other picture, but the back of it opens up and that's where i have a 50' extension cord rolled up and ready to pull out the holes on either side. very "utilitarian" i guess.



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~Dan

these pics were right after it was finished.. i need to take an updated picture with the current pedal loadout.

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~Dan

sorry... here's the back door pic.

so i'm thinking once i get my own welding machine i'll start selling these.
here's one i made for a friend of mine .. kind of "briefcase-ish"



he hasn't gotten it all set up yet, but the idea is that he'll lay out his pedals and then cut out spaces in the foam i supplied so that everything stays nice and tight and safe in there. get to the gig, take the top off, plug in, rock out.

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~Dan

The board in that video is impressive looking but it also looks heavy. It's larger than I think it needs to be and it looks like he used too thick of material. Looks like ½" plywood. I've used ½" ply before and it's overkill. ⅜" is plenty strong enough.

I've built a few pedalboards but it's only been recently that I finally figured out what is most important to me in a board. I once thought the most important thing was easy swapping of pedals and I built and modifed boards with that ability as my main priority. The idea was that I wanted to be able to customise my board easily any time I wanted to.

I run a much smaller and more simplified board now and I have different priorities. I don't try every newfangled gadget on the market. I've tried enough crappy sounding re-hashes of the same old category of pedals to know what I like and I buy it in quality rather than quantity. I want my board clean; meaning no unsightly mess of cables. I want it small because having a smaller footprint on stage is always a good thing. The most important thing I want is easy access to the actual pedals themselves by my toe. I don't want to have to balance on one leg while I spend 3½ seconds carefully pointing my toe down towards a button in the back row because I am afraid I might unintentionally hit another pedal button or roll a control knob on a neighbouring pedal in the process. I want to be able to wait 'til the last quarter of a second to hit my boost for the next 8 bars and still make it in time without screwing up any of my pedal adjustments or inadvertantly turning something else on or off. The most recent board I've built has a slightly flatter incline than most guys run and it has a raised level for the pedals in the back row to sit on. I can swing my leg up from a standing postition and tap at any pedal in the back row in a split second with no worries about touching anything else.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

Someone on here built a tweed pedal board awhile ago. I don't remember who but did a very nice job.

Here's my pedal board made from a recycled pellet.





This was the setup way back when, some of these pedals are no longer mounted. I'm now powering my board via a Voodoo Labs pedal power 2+.



Here is the current setup.

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Its a lifestyle.....

nice pedal pallet! how much do you love that surf rider? i've been watching some vids on youtube.... i think i might have to get one.

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~Dan

Thanks, I love the surf rider. It does a VERY good impersonation of my BMR reverb. Honestly the only reason I have the surf rider and a supa term is for my 18w Marshall. I miss the reverb and trem from my bandmasters when using that amp. We do some Ventures cover songs and they are a necessity.

Oh, and I would highly recommend picking someone's thrown out pellet if you're ever wanting to put together your on P.B. I've had mine for at least 2 years with no problems. Easily modifiable and very sturdy, and if you screw it up, it didn't cost you anything. Literally one mans trash.....

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Its a lifestyle.....