Best Pedalboards – Reviews and Buyer’s Guide
What are the best pedalboards out there?
Pedaltrain Classic JR — Middle grounder
The design makes it SO easy to arrange pedals and — especially— to route cables. Its lightweight but sturdy aluminum frame is also much appreciated. There appears to be plenty of room beneath the board for a power supply, though I use a One Spot & daisy chain. The soft case has a large pocket for easy access to set lists, accessories, etc. It’s perfect for my application. I use 7 pedals in my acoustic/electric rig, and this board accommodates them with minimal weight & footprint. The included Velcro & cable ties were a bonus.
Temple Audio DUO 17 GM Pedalboard
Temple audio thought of everything when they made this board. The spacing of the patch cable holes is sufficient, the top handles come in handy, and all the modular features let you build exactly what you want.
Attractive, clean and sturdy, and worth every penny. Just add a power source, zip tie your pedals, and you’re good to go. Currently holds 10 pedals of various sizes comfortably, and i could probably squeeze two more in. Note: I’m using it in a home studio, so I can’t speak to its durability for road use, but it’s great in a static environment. Just perfect.
All metal, lots of mounting options for pedals and power. Very sturdy, but light in overall weight. Mounting the handles are a pain, but once it’s done, they don’t seem to be going anywhere.
Temple Audio has created a wonderful design mindset and platform for pedalboards. The ability to move pedals from board to board with concerns about velcro issues and routing all cabling below the board work great.
RockBoard TRES 3.1 — Versatility is the key
Materials. The construction features just one folded aluminum sheet. No weld seams mean stronger construction and sleeker feel to the pedalboard. You can easily carry it to a local gig or on a tour: the construction is very lightweight.
Additional features. The design lets you hide the cables underneath the board to keep things clean and organized. The board comes with a soft case with a strap for easy carry.
Gator GPT-PRO-PWR – Mini Pedalboard
Great product. Minimalist pedalboard is covered in Velcro with lots of space for arrangement. Nice bag for travel or just keeping the dust off when not being used. My only con is that I would have liked a few more slots to slip my power supplies through on the board. Just two long slots at the top so you have to run cords around your pedals to get to the lower part of the board (easily done with a router, though).
Gator Cases G-TOUR Series — Durability champion
Design. The manufacturer definitely went for a more premium look here. The board provides lots of storage for pedals, cables, and accessories. It also has an impressive capacity: you can fit up to 14 pedals here. The case is robust and features retractable tow with wheels for easy transportation. The lower portion of the case has some space to store cables or some other stuff you may need during the show.
Materials. The exterior is made out of aluminum with a plywood frame — be sure that your pedal won’t get damaged. Also, there is an EVA foam interior to help with shock absorption. On top of that, rubber grip handles are spring-loaded with recessed butterfly latches.
Additional features. You will be able to install your pedals with 3M Dual Lock Fastener which comes with the product.
Gator Cases Guitar Effects — Cheap Pedalboard
Design. This is one of the most affordable solutions here. This particular pedalboard has a more simplistic design with not much going on. It does have some space underneath for power supply, but the angle of the board is not wide enough to fit a lot of stuff. The pedals are attached with velcros.
Materials. The main material is plywood, you won’t find any metal here.
Additional features. The pedalboard comes with a nylon carry case. Nylon is a strong material, but it lacks the impact-absorbing spots and just not as sturdy as hard cases of some other setups.
Voodoo Lab Dingbat Medium
Design. This pedalboard features a simplistic design with the ability to fit around 10 pedals. The hook-and-loop tapes that come with the product will allow you to easily assemble your setup.
Materials. American 6061-T6 aircraft-grade aluminum provides both ease of transportation and durability.
Additional features. The gig bag is included here as well, and it offers enough in terms of protection. Anyone needs to be careful when carrying the board around since we don’t have any impact-absorbing elements in here.
The board itself is rock solid and yet not heavy. The pass through cut are very well placed giving you lots of options but not interfering with pedal placement. The power supply comes preloaded with a number of cable lengths, ends, and amperage options. The gig bag is well made with internal straps to hold the board and heavy duty zippers, handles and straps.
On-Stage GPB3000
I bought the GPB3000 pedal board to make an acoustic guitar board. I have a few other boards for my electric guitar rigs including an On-Stage GPB2000 which is the smallest board I have that I use for a mini pedal board. Love the GPB2000 so much I knew the GPB3000 would be great for my acoustic board. I don’t need a lot of pedals, but I wanted a little more depth. The GPB3000 is about 3 inches deeper than the GPB 2000. It’s perfect for the pedals I’m putting on it (tuner, comp, TC bodyrez, chorus, delay, reverb, looper and the LR Baggs Para Acoustic DI. Very sturdy heavy duty board, with just the right angle. Also has plenty of room underneath to mount a power brick/supply. The soft case is nice and has an inner pocket for paper notes, picks, extra strings, etc. I also dig the soft handle. Big fan of the GPB series of boards!
Pedaltrain Classic Pro — an Honorable Mention
Design. Pedaltrain manufactures a wide range of modular pedalboards — those which are similar in their design but come in different sizes. The size of the pedalboard depends on the number of pedals you’d like to install on the board. For instance, Pedalboard Nano can fit only 4 pedals.
Here we are talking about Pedaltrain Classic Pro — it is a pretty large model, with the ability to fit up to 13 differently-sized pedals. The pedal has Pedaltrain’s classic five-rail “pro” design with traditional rail spacing. With the open front and elevated angle design, it is very convenient to mount the power supply and switching system.
The pedalboard also comes with 160″ of Professional-Grade Hook-and-Loop and zip ties for fast and easy setups.
Materials. Even though it doesn’t look impressive, the pedalboard will surely get you through years of rough usage. Pedaltrain Classic Pro is built from aluminum alloy for the combination of durability and lightness.
Additional features. There are two case options to go with: soft case and wheeled tour case. The soft case is made of heavy-duty cordura nylon, with the solid panels sewn inside the sides — that’s a quite good amount of protection we’re talking about.
Another case option also features reinforced stress points, and its construction is enhanced to be 35% lighter than previous iterations.
Pedaltrain Nano — Small Pedalboard
Design: the product features a very small and compact soft-case body. There are no feet underneath the board, so you will have to come up with your own solution to fit a power supply.
Materials: the primary material of that pedalboard is aluminum. It makes the pedalboard light and sturdy.
Additional features: due to its small footprint, the boards can only house one row of pedals.
I bought this specifically to build smallest possible rigs for various applications, plus I had one of those Mono Tick bags and this Nano fits in it. I much prefer the tougher, fully open-able Mono bag to the half-zipper PT bag that came with the board. These PT boards are great, I have several sizes for different things. Just be aware the Nano and Nano+ do not have much room underneath for any power supply or power strip, etc. there’s a Volto supply available that supposedly fits, but I’m not confident it has enough current capacity for the stuff I use. So the supply is off-board for me. I kind of knew that going in with these little boards but I wish PT would make a model that accommodates a Voodoolabs or something. It would probably have to be a taller board, maybe it’s just not ergonomically desirable. Anyway, otherwise very happy with PT pedalboards.
Boss BCB-60 — Minimalist Choice
Definitely the perfect size and versatile enough to accommodate different pedals other than the Boss pedals. The provided patch cables might not always be useful if you are planning on using multiple pedals from different manufacturers, so in this case you will need to custom make your own which is a lot of work, but once you are done it is rewarding. It is large enough to accommodate even a Cry-Baby – I opted for a smaller Boss Volume pedal and it fits fine. Carrying a pedal board this size is not too bad at all and because it is made of plastic (that is very sturdy) is light compared to the ones made with steel. There is enough cushioning in the lid that helps prevent the pedals from moving. I did not have to use tape or any other method to secure them in place and it has been working just fine like that. I certainly recommend this pedalboard for anyone that has to use multiple pedals even from different manufacturers.
Simple to use, especially routing power lines. The foam makes the need for velco tape a non issue. Only drawback is you are limited to around six pedals, less if you use a full side expression pedal (mini recommended). If you have a need for portability, easy setup and don’t use more than six pedals, this is perfect.
Pedaltrain Metro 16
Everything about this pedaltrain is great from the sturdy flat design to the included Velcro & zip ties to the fact this bag will 100% protect my pedals from damage.
I like the Pedaltrain Metro 16 boards. I like the size and how lightweight they are while still feeling generally pretty durable. Buying one that includes velcro strips is super helpful. This board fits about half a dozen pedals comfortably depending on placement and size of pedals. I usually put 4 across the center with 2 pedals placed sideways in the corners. I might buy a Metro 20 next time just to be able to compare how the next larger size accommodates the same number of pedals. I like the brand. I like Pedaltrain products and enjoy building boards of various sizes with their pedalboards. I own 2 of these Metro 16 boards now and also a huge Pedaltrain Pro. The Metro 16 seems like a nice compact size that can still accommodate a decent number of pedals despite the compact size.
What is the best all-around pedalboard?
There you have it — some of the most balanced pedalboards on the market right now. Your choice depends on your setup, the number of pedals you need, the amount of travel, and so on. But here’s what we can outline to make the choice easier:
PT-CLJ-SC Pedaltrain Classic JR — that will definitely meet most people’s requirements. The design is solid, it fits a good number of pedals, and you can choose from two cases to have it shipped with.
RockBoard TRES 3.1 — this pedalboard is for tech pedal savvies. The design allows to have various pedals, and it is very durable for its price.
Gator Cases G-TOUR Series — premium solution. The case provided is durable enough to survive the wildest and the longest tours. It fits up to 14 pedals.
Gator Cases Guitar Effects — the least feature-packed, but the most affordable. The material is lightweight, and the pedals can be easily installed with velcros.
Voodoo Lab Dingbat — another quite well-balanced pedalboard. Quite durable with a decent capacity, it comes with a spacious case with some protection.
FAQ:
First of all, you need to understand that the sizes of guitar pedals vary. The length of one device can be up to 19 inches. If you take the pedals from the “Boss” company as a standard, then you will be able to install up to 5 pedals in a row. There are a total of 10 small pedals because of two rows.
The PT-CLJ-SC is a versatile pedalboard. Almost all pedals are easily mounted on its surface. However, to be on the safe side, just enter the name of the desire pedalboard in any search engine and find the desired pedalboard with your pedal among the pictures.
This hole is for installing a special “RockBoard” device. At the moment there are 6 devices for which this hole is intended. They are all patch bays. The simplest of these is patch bay for five channels. This means that you can connect five pedals, which will feed the signal to five independent amplifiers. The second device is also a patch bay, but with the ability to connect to a computer and equipped with a MIDI interface. Another variation of “RockBoard’s” patch bay is the patch bays for singers and acoustic guitars. A distinctive feature of this device is the presence of a large number of XLR inputs. The most original patch bay from “RockBoard” is a Wi-Fi receiver. The company produces two varieties of Wi-Fi patch bays. The most useful is a patch bay with built-in effects and DI box option.
Compared to other manufacturers, the “Gator Cases” from “G-TOUR Series” are quite heavy. The weight of one pedalboard is 12.2 lbs. . This is a lot if you have to constantly carry the pedalboard in your hands. Its indisputable advantage for use on tours is the presence of a top cover that protects the pedals from damage during transportation. You just need to put the pedalboard on the floor and open the lid. After that, the entire stack is ready to work. Therefore, if you do not need to carry the “Gator Case” in your hands, this is a great solution for traveling musicians.
The “Gator Cases” company has been producing equipment for professional musicians since 2000. The headquarters and factory are located in the United States in Florida.
In terms of size, the wide version will definitely do the trick. Nevertheless, the company “Gator Cases” produce cases specifically for Line 6 Helix effects processors. The advantages of the cases from “Gator Cases” include a paraffin coating on the inside of the lid, which will protect the expensive effects processor from damage.
Unfortunately, the strength and versatility of the Gator Cases pedaling design is offset by the lack of a cable solution. They just bulge out of the back, as if the pedals were right on the floor. For this reason, being inside the case under the pressure of the foam rubber pad, the wires are frayed and need to be changed more often.
In a bag from “Voodoo Lab” pedalboard, in addition to the pedalboard itself, wires or several pedals can easily fit. There is a lot of space left. In terms of usability, the bag is easy to carry in your hands or behind your back. The bag itself weighs very little. And the durable, water-resistant material will protect your pedalboard for years.
The AC adapter built into the “Voodoo Lab Dingbat Medium” pedal board can power up to six guitar pedals, which consume a current of 9V.
For this, special velcro straps are used. One side is attached to the pedalboard surface using an adhesive surface. The second part is attached to the pedal. The advantages of this method include versatility. Regardless of the presence or absence of mounted holes, any pedal can be installed on the “Pedaltrain Classic PRO”. The disadvantage of this method is the constant need for velcro straps. You should always have a few in reserve.
John Carlton Smith 