Aesthetically pleasing pedalboards?

[stevejamsecono]

So this is kind of dumb (who am I kidding this is the OSG, if anyone else would understand it, it's all of you), but recently I've been kind of bumming on my board a little.

All the stuff on it works and sounds great but it's kind of.... ugly? All the colors are either red, white, or blue, and it's just really uninspiring to look at. I know that this shouldn't have much to do with what's on there but man....

Anyone else have this problem? It makes no damn sense but it does bug me.

[marqueemoon]

Why do you hate America?

[fuzzjunkie]

All the pedals on my board are of some shade of grey to black. Not 50 shades of grey, just 7-8, but there is none more black than the black. I get inspired by the sound more than the look. It is aesthetically pleasing in a minimalist sorta way.

[stevejamsecono]

Why do you hate America?

Oh man, I could answer this in so many ways, but I won't.

All the pedals on my board are of some shade of grey to black. Not 50 shades of grey, just 7-8, but there is none more black than the black. I get inspired by the sound more than the look. It is aesthetically pleasing in a minimalist sorta way.

This is one of those things where I wonder if it factors into it, because there are definitely pedals that I love the look of but can't get a good sound out of to save the life of me.

[DrQuasar]

You could always paint the ones you do like. Jack White had all his Raconteurs pedals copper plated.

[Shadoweclipse13]

That's tough when you like the sound but not the aesthetics. I always tried to buy pedals that inspired me visually as well as sonically.


For the most part, my board looks great to me, though not all of the colors mesh. I'm thinking about painting the EQD Organizer as it stands out in a bad way compared with the rest to me, but not sure.

[InLimbo]

Paging Sid Nitzerglobin, or whatever his name is....

Aesthetically pleasing to me is more of an organization and cable management, with a last focus on colors. I can't stand sloppy cables poking out, or even giant voids on a board (I actually have a pedal on my board that fills a void that's not even plugged in, just for this reason). Having the pedals on the board straight is important to me as well. Getting all of that squared away in that functionally works is doubled (literally) when running a stereo setup, and significantly limits color choices. I'm pretty please with mine for the moment, and don't really know another way to get it set up to meet all the criteria (minus painting pedals, but nah).

I also refuse to spend the insane amount of money for the George L cables, even though they may make life a little easier.

[Sid Nitzerglobin]

LOL, I thought this was a thread for me

I'll freely admit that probably about a quarter of the pedals I've bought were motivated by me missing a box that served a function I "needed" on a particular board and didn't have one that worked aesthetically w/ the other pedals on the board I'm cooking up. Usually the concept for the board starts from a combo of pedals that I want to use together and that would dictate the aesthetic requirements for the rest of the ones that fill out the necessities.

In just about every case, I buy pedals that do cool stuff and sound good as a requirement for consideration but it definitely bothers me if the setup on my board hurts my eyeballs to look at since I spend a good portion of my playing time staring at them The trick is finding the ones that look cool and/or match and are also awesome in sound and function.

Layout is also really important to me, but that's usually more prioritized by ergonomics/ease of use rather than aesthetics.

[leokula]

I saw Paul Gilbert in an interview saying how he loved a voodoo lab pedal but couldn't cope with the color, so he printed out a cover of an album that he liked and sticked to it LOL you're probably not alone there.

I'm a sucker for EHX's big pedals, it's so impractical, but I also want to look at some badass pedals that don't just sound good, but look great. I'm pretty happy with how my pedalboard looks right now with loads of crazy psychedelic EHX logos

[higgsblossom]

What would be an aesthetic foundation for a board? I mean the board itself would have to be looking good and then maybe go for an all-Boss or all-EHX board? To keep things in line and have easy access to all switches, that would make sense.

[stevejamsecono]

I've always been fond of those like... circa 80s Cure boards where it was just all boss stuff. Makes it easy to know what's what and has that nice rainbow effect.

Honestly it's not THAT big of a deal, but sometimes I look at friend's boards and go "Man, mine's pretty bland looking compared to this."

[Leon]

I quite like color coordinated boards (the pedals are of course chosen based more on how they sound and play well with other pedals on the board, not just on how they look), here's a few of my boards (hope I'm not spamming with this many pics):









I'm considering switching from all Pedaltrains to all custom colored wooden pedalboards matching the pedals, but I really like the lightweight metallic construction of Pedaltrains and their hardcases...

I also have guitars to match, but most of these are not offsets so I'm not posting those pics here.

[Shadoweclipse13]

And with color coordinated velvet-looking covers. Sid, you slay me, you sly dog

[Leon]

And with color coordinated velvet-looking covers. Sid, you slay me, you sly dog

Who's Sid?

What would be an aesthetic foundation for a board? I mean the board itself would have to be looking good and then maybe go for an all-Boss or all-EHX board? To keep things in line and have easy access to all switches, that would make sense.

If you wanna see all-one-brand boards, here's a couple of mine (ranging from 3-6 years ago):

[Shadoweclipse13]

And with color coordinated velvet-looking covers. Sid, you slay me, you sly dog

Who's Sid?

My bad Leon! I saw all the color coordination, and I immediately thought it was Sid Nitzergloben, as he does that quite a bit. Haha. Great looking boards man!!