Very handy as i am rebuilding my bass pedalboard..followed your advice, worked great...i don't have a set pedalboard, it depends on what i'm doing..live or recording, i only mount what i'm going to use plus a spare TC Electronics Bonafide Buffer & DI pre-amp ...Laney Digbeth (fantastic)...NU-X Melvin Lee Davis (the best i've used yet) or Shift Line Cabzone X A+ Bass DI (really for studio use,10 amp & 10 cab ir's, but has a 75ohm XLR output for live or studio use) used along with a MXR 'Thump' inline preamp...i use a Polytune 3 with the built in Bonafide buffer turned on....a choice of a Boss Bass Limiter LMB3 or Electro Harminox Bass Preacher compressor & for a gritty tube tone an Eden Glo-Plug (low setting & mix at 50%)...bought an angled Pedaltrain pedal board...great....the power supply unit sits underneath on a small ledge held in place with very strong double sided 2mm thick foam tape ,isolated outputs of course, 5 x 9v, 1 x12v & 1 x 18v) made up the power cords for the pedals myself after watching your video showing how to do it, all Ream pancake connectors with Van Dam studio grade OFC silver plated sheilded cable from my bass through pedalboard & on to amp, if allowed to use a bass amp & cabinet...my EBS Magni 500 combo with 15" speaker can be laid on it's side & used as a stage monitor....result
Some really good advice here, some of the small things that you do instinctively like when the heat shrink wouldn't fit over the battery connector you simply stretched it with a pair of longnose pliers … Genius move!, I would have been looking for a larger piece or end up using insulation tape. Right, well I'm off to nick my wife's chopping board and finally put my pedals on something instead of all in my gym bag
Hey, Mason. IMO, your pedal boards are set up in the most logical way. I've been looking at the Friedman board because of the flat lower tier but your boards take that design to another level with the features they offer. I have several slanted boards and I just can't understand why this was/is an accepted design. Having both the upper and lower levels flat with the power supply under the upper level keeps everything above the lower surface and much more manageable. I have thought many times about building a board in a similar fashion or just have a single tier, flat board because of how practical that design seems to be. It's just a more sensible way to deal with or manage pedals....IMO Thank you for a great pedal board product and your willingness to offer great information and insight to all of us Vertex fans!
Thanks for the tips! Is there a downside to fitting all the pedals on the board with batteries instead of protecting the 9v plugs with heat shrink tubes? Also, then you have a safety if something happens with power.
@@VertexEffectsInc Maybe I wasn't clear. I am asking if all the pedals are already connected to a power supply, is there a downside of also keeping the battery in them?
@@shimmoon8061Yes there is, as an old battery will gradually degrade, break down and potentially leak acid which is a huge liability to the internal electronics of the pedals.
Hey Mason, I'm still a beginner but watching as many of your videos as possible to try and get to an intermediate level. 47:00 into the video you talk about "Masking Off" the pedals. Can you go into a little more detail on this? Is it tape your're cutting into small squares for the corners? It looks like pieces of metal the video. Masking to me means taping off an area 🤷♂️
The masking is done during the manufacturing process when the pedals are going to be prepped to be painted. On our pedals they mask off certain areas where there needs to be ground contact - typically under the pot shafts, under the footswitch, behind the input/output jacks, and on the flange that connects the top clamshell to the bottom. Equally on the bottom clamshell, there is a masked section behind the counter-sunk holes so that when tightened the top and bottom and making ground connection to each other and shielding the entire pedal. Many brands skip this step and their enclosures are floating, most typically on the bottom with the more typically Hammond style enclosures.
Just wondering how you deal with velcro on rubber bottom boss pedals? I love my dd-2...does it's buffer mess with my Mesa High wire output buffer, when it's the last pedal on my board?
At the time, it was the simplest way for him to execute his methodology when everything had to be custom made and there were not Pedal Power's or Pedaltrain's in existence. I don't think there is any advantage of doing this now, but some people want Pete to do his thing on their rig so these types of rigs are still made by him. He's basically building the power supply into the entire system and regulating it for each pedal, and buffering between every pedal so they are as isolated from each other as possible (impedance wise).
Woulndt putting the Nova to the left of the riser solve the issue of having a jack hanging off the edge of the board? Kind of a hazard knocking that jack out.
You could but the order would be a bit off so additional cabling would be needed. Full disclose, I pitched all these ideas to Dani beforehand so it was a bit more decided than maybe shown in the stream.
Had a great time watching and learning Mason. Picked up a great tip for my Volume pedal. My Fridays just got a bit more interesting. PBC/6X arrives Sunday. You were right the folks at RJM are great. Okay I can’t comment without asking at least one question. I’m building one of the DIY buffer boxes. What happens if I place that in front of my 6X (which uses the 500Ohm impedance). Does it then become The One Buffer to Rule them all?
@@VertexEffectsInc Mason, RUclips is great and all but I’m “joining” so I can call you day and/or night! Lol! Not really, but seriously, with an investment of upwards of $1500 in my/our board (platform, switcher, pedals, cable, cable components, power supply etc) guidance of a more personal nature is required and it looks as if that can happen with a Patreon sub. First I’ve ever done.
@@VertexEffectsInc I may simply change out that resistor and be done with it. Although having that audio loop is pretty cool. Worth building a box just for that!
@@VertexEffectsInc I actually do mean the IEC that plugs the power supply into the wall/power strip, looks like a pretty nice right angle! (in the thumbnail)
Hi Doc great vid full of useful tips as always. New boards sound epic ,I love my vertex ,was able to get 4 Keeley / Catalinbread size pedals on the 12" riser ! Also bought 2 Fix boards purely for size restrictions .I hope you're new one's match some of there sizes.Take care Have a great Halloween .Before who ever is honking at you ,parks on you ; ) could you tell us the name of that first chorus, and that heat shrink Thanks .
@@VertexEffectsInc I hav some already and find its way to strong to get pedals off unless I use very little pieces in a pyramid shape, and pedals sit uneven, any ideas
Any issues with pedal casings touching on a crowded board? I understand it’s best practice to not have pedals or cable ends touching between pedals in the fx loop and ones in the front, but is it a rule in general or kind of a non-issue?
If there is an issue with the ground, this can be a problem, however done right it shouldn't be a problem. You can also separate them with head shrink on the plugs' exterior, the paint on most pedals will also not conduct electrically.
I have to ask...who is Saint Bob of North Hollywood, Patron Saint of the Rack? I see this in your shirts you have for sale, but I need to be clued into this mulleted saint!
@@VertexEffectsInc I just looked him up...what an amazing and interesting guy. It looks like CAE is still a going business in LA...I will have to go visit them.
Does Vertex sell the interface boxes or are they all diy? If they are all diy, there are many of us who would appreciate it if Vertex were to sell completed interface boxes
We are releasing two interfaces with the same features, one is built into our pedalboards as a module, the other is a stand alone unity for those that don’t have our Pedalboards but want the same functions. They’ll be 4 buffers available in it and will do mono, stereo, 4 cable method, 5 cable method, wet dry, and wet dry wet routing all in one.
@@VertexEffectsInc That is exactly what I am needing. Do you have a timeline for when they should be available? I know with the parts shortages it probably is hard to give an exact timeframe
@@VertexEffectsInc I believe the capacitance point. As far as damaging, I am not sure. But one thing for sure is that the in and our of the 2 pedals have to be perfectly aligned... with is not the case 90% of the time.
@@thornil2231the damage comes when you have pedals that don’t have vertical sidewalls or sockets that are exactly the same height from the board - any deviation is critical when you are stamping on the things, and the socket is attached to the PCB inside.
Now that I have everything I plan to do mine in the next day or two. Thanks for the million videos I have studied.
Good luck!
Never get tired of learning from you. Thank you for your contributions to the guitar community
I appreciate that!
This is THE tutorial. Thanks man. Hello from Slovenia.
Glad it helped
Very handy as i am rebuilding my bass pedalboard..followed your advice, worked great...i don't have a set pedalboard, it depends on what i'm doing..live or recording, i only mount what i'm going to use plus a spare TC Electronics Bonafide Buffer & DI pre-amp ...Laney Digbeth (fantastic)...NU-X Melvin Lee Davis (the best i've used yet) or Shift Line Cabzone X A+ Bass DI (really for studio use,10 amp & 10 cab ir's, but has a 75ohm XLR output for live or studio use) used along with a MXR 'Thump' inline preamp...i use a Polytune 3 with the built in Bonafide buffer turned on....a choice of a Boss Bass Limiter LMB3 or Electro Harminox Bass Preacher compressor & for a gritty tube tone an Eden Glo-Plug (low setting & mix at 50%)...bought an angled Pedaltrain pedal board...great....the power supply unit sits underneath on a small ledge held in place with very strong double sided 2mm thick foam tape ,isolated outputs of course, 5 x 9v, 1 x12v & 1 x 18v) made up the power cords for the pedals myself after watching your video showing how to do it, all Ream pancake connectors with Van Dam studio grade OFC silver plated sheilded cable from my bass through pedalboard & on to amp, if allowed to use a bass amp & cabinet...my EBS Magni 500 combo with 15" speaker can be laid on it's side & used as a stage monitor....result
extremely useful tips in here. thank you so much!
Some really good advice here, some of the small things that you do instinctively like when the heat shrink wouldn't fit over the battery connector you simply stretched it with a pair of longnose pliers … Genius move!, I would have been looking for a larger piece or end up using insulation tape. Right, well I'm off to nick my wife's chopping board and finally put my pedals on something instead of all in my gym bag
Thanks Jay!
Great stuff every video. Thank you this really helps and is interesting.
Glad you think so!
Hey, Mason. IMO, your pedal boards are set up in the most logical way. I've been looking at the Friedman board because of the flat lower tier but your boards take that design to another level with the features they offer. I have several slanted boards and I just can't understand why this was/is an accepted design. Having both the upper and lower levels flat with the power supply under the upper level keeps everything above the lower surface and much more manageable. I have thought many times about building a board in a similar fashion or just have a single tier, flat board because of how practical that design seems to be. It's just a more sensible way to deal with or manage pedals....IMO
Thank you for a great pedal board product and your willingness to offer great information and insight to all of us Vertex fans!
Thank you so much Victor! I hope we earned your subscription!
loving these lives!
🙏🙏🙏
Thanks for the tips!
Is there a downside to fitting all the pedals on the board with batteries instead of protecting the 9v plugs with heat shrink tubes? Also, then you have a safety if something happens with power.
Maybe just get our battery power supply: www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/VBPS--vertex-effects-battery-power-supply
@@VertexEffectsInc Maybe I wasn't clear. I am asking if all the pedals are already connected to a power supply, is there a downside of also keeping the battery in them?
@@shimmoon8061Yes there is, as an old battery will gradually degrade, break down and potentially leak acid which is a huge liability to the internal electronics of the pedals.
I feel like I owe you money,anyway,for all I've learned by watching,so I'll hook up soon on Patreon.
Thanks for that! No obligation - I’d do this for free it’s so much fun for me. If you feel inclined to support, we appreciate it!
Hey Mason, I'm still a beginner but watching as many of your videos as possible to try and get to an intermediate level. 47:00 into the video you talk about "Masking Off" the pedals. Can you go into a little more detail on this? Is it tape your're cutting into small squares for the corners? It looks like pieces of metal the video. Masking to me means taping off an area 🤷♂️
The masking is done during the manufacturing process when the pedals are going to be prepped to be painted. On our pedals they mask off certain areas where there needs to be ground contact - typically under the pot shafts, under the footswitch, behind the input/output jacks, and on the flange that connects the top clamshell to the bottom. Equally on the bottom clamshell, there is a masked section behind the counter-sunk holes so that when tightened the top and bottom and making ground connection to each other and shielding the entire pedal. Many brands skip this step and their enclosures are floating, most typically on the bottom with the more typically Hammond style enclosures.
@@VertexEffectsInc Thank you for expanding on this. Much appreciated👍
Just wondering how you deal with velcro on rubber bottom boss pedals? I love my dd-2...does it's buffer mess with my Mesa High wire output buffer, when it's the last pedal on my board?
Turn them upside down and you can mount to the metal and not rubber. As long as the Mesa is first and last, you're ok.
Since we're talking layout, what are your opinions on Pete Cornish's method of putting every pedal inside an enclosure?
At the time, it was the simplest way for him to execute his methodology when everything had to be custom made and there were not Pedal Power's or Pedaltrain's in existence. I don't think there is any advantage of doing this now, but some people want Pete to do his thing on their rig so these types of rigs are still made by him. He's basically building the power supply into the entire system and regulating it for each pedal, and buffering between every pedal so they are as isolated from each other as possible (impedance wise).
How do you shield the pedals? You mention it while opening them up.
Please does wood good for 3M dual lock
Woulndt putting the Nova to the left of the riser solve the issue of having a jack hanging off the edge of the board? Kind of a hazard knocking that jack out.
You could but the order would be a bit off so additional cabling would be needed. Full disclose, I pitched all these ideas to Dani beforehand so it was a bit more decided than maybe shown in the stream.
Had a great time watching and learning Mason. Picked up a great tip for my Volume pedal. My Fridays just got a bit more interesting. PBC/6X arrives Sunday. You were right the folks at RJM are great. Okay I can’t comment without asking at least one question. I’m building one of the DIY buffer boxes. What happens if I place that in front of my 6X (which uses the 500Ohm impedance). Does it then become The One Buffer to Rule them all?
Disable the input buffer in the RJM if you don’t want a duplicate input buffer.
@@VertexEffectsInc Mason, RUclips is great and all but I’m “joining” so I can call you day and/or night! Lol! Not really, but seriously, with an investment of upwards of $1500 in my/our board (platform, switcher, pedals, cable, cable components, power supply etc) guidance of a more personal nature is required and it looks as if that can happen with a Patreon sub. First I’ve ever done.
@@VertexEffectsInc I may simply change out that resistor and be done with it. Although having that audio loop is pretty cool. Worth building a box just for that!
What is the alternative to duel lock you are using? What's it called and where do you get it?
Power Grip, sold on our site: www.therigdr.com
Where do you get those low profile IEC cables for the power supply? Or where could I get the parts to make them?
IEC power cables are the cables that plug into the wall. You mean the DC cables to the supply? Those are 2.1mm x 5.5mm DC male plugs.
@@VertexEffectsInc I actually do mean the IEC that plugs the power supply into the wall/power strip, looks like a pretty nice right angle! (in the thumbnail)
@@mikebottiglieri6460 got it...I think I got them from Mouser, Digikey, or Grainger.
@@VertexEffectsInc thank you!!
How do you like that Nova Delay in comparison with something like a Timeline or DD-200?
Nova Delay is great, the big differentiator would be MIDI and whether you need that or not. Tone wise the Nova is up there with those or better.
Awesome!
Thanks!
Great tips as always Jason, thanks! Question, would a Line6 HX Stomp XL fit in the front of that cool and compact pedalboard of yours?
Yes, it can. Both compact versions, the Travel Lite (17 x 10) or Travel Compact (20 X 11) would work.
@@VertexEffectsInc thanks for the quick reply!
Hi Doc great vid full of useful tips as always. New boards sound epic ,I love my vertex ,was able to get 4 Keeley / Catalinbread size pedals on the 12" riser ! Also bought 2 Fix boards purely for size restrictions .I hope you're new one's match some of there sizes.Take care Have a great Halloween .Before who ever is honking at you ,parks on you ; ) could you tell us the name of that first chorus, and that heat shrink Thanks .
Chorus was the Jacques Meistersinger, heat shrink I think was just a 3:1 1/2” heat shrink.
What's the velcro like tape you use?
Here it is: www.therigdr.com/products/powergrip-6-20-ft
@@VertexEffectsInc I hav some already and find its way to strong to get pedals off unless I use very little pieces in a pyramid shape, and pedals sit uneven, any ideas
Any issues with pedal casings touching on a crowded board? I understand it’s best practice to not have pedals or cable ends touching between pedals in the fx loop and ones in the front, but is it a rule in general or kind of a non-issue?
If there is an issue with the ground, this can be a problem, however done right it shouldn't be a problem. You can also separate them with head shrink on the plugs' exterior, the paint on most pedals will also not conduct electrically.
What brand are your scissors?
Wiss is the brand name.
I have to ask...who is Saint Bob of North Hollywood, Patron Saint of the Rack? I see this in your shirts you have for sale, but I need to be clued into this mulleted saint!
Robert Bradshaw, Custom Audio Electronics. The godfather of the rack.
@@VertexEffectsInc I just looked him up...what an amazing and interesting guy. It looks like CAE is still a going business in LA...I will have to go visit them.
Where are you located again?
I live in Oakland, but our showroom and manufacturing is in LA.
You’re the Bob Ross of pedalboards
Hahahaha! I just need his hair!
Does Vertex sell the interface boxes or are they all diy? If they are all diy, there are many of us who would appreciate it if Vertex were to sell completed interface boxes
We are releasing two interfaces with the same features, one is built into our pedalboards as a module, the other is a stand alone unity for those that don’t have our Pedalboards but want the same functions. They’ll be 4 buffers available in it and will do mono, stereo, 4 cable method, 5 cable method, wet dry, and wet dry wet routing all in one.
@@VertexEffectsInc
That is exactly what I am needing. Do you have a timeline for when they should be available? I know with the parts shortages it probably is hard to give an exact timeframe
@@VertexEffectsInc I need that with a MIDI thru as well to do amp channel switching. I may have to build one.
Wow sexy pedalboard!
Only the sexiest!
just happened to be wearing my Marbin shirt when I watched this
❤️❤️❤️
why don't you use Guitar Pedal Couplers?
They damage the pedal jacks, and often have more capacitance than a few foot cable.
@@VertexEffectsInc I believe the capacitance point. As far as damaging, I am not sure. But one thing for sure is that the in and our of the 2 pedals have to be perfectly aligned... with is not the case 90% of the time.
@@thornil2231the damage comes when you have pedals that don’t have vertical sidewalls or sockets that are exactly the same height from the board - any deviation is critical when you are stamping on the things, and the socket is attached to the PCB inside.
Pro tip #1. Get a cordless drill
They can be handy, for small stuff I prefer to do by hand and in videos the noise can’t be talked over.
56
Huh?