Building a Bass Pedal Board

I’ve been playing bass since I was 13. The same 1993 Korean-made Fender Squier Precision Bass since I was 13. You might think that would make me very advanced. I’m a decent bass player. However, I didn’t practice as much as I should have for the past decade. Life gets in the way — work, marriage, kids, etc. Recently, my friend Brandon Jordan of KillRadio invited me to come play with him and his drummer friend. I jumped at the chance, as playing in bands has been something I truly missed about being younger.

I rededicated myself to being a bassist and started to really focus on what kind of sound I wanted to have. We play mostly heavy ’90s alternative and punk, which is a ton of fun. Obviously, that has a very specific sound. I started thinking about that sound and how I could achieve it with the instruments and pedals I already had. I had an Electro-Harmonix Bass Big Muff Pi and an old Digitech DigiVerb, but wanted a fuller sound. Also, with bass you really don’t need a reverb pedal. In 2023 I had bought a Fender Squier Bass VI, which is a really cool instrument. I thought about how that would sound with fuzz and delay. I had the Bass VI set up by my very talented friend Matt Bradford, who let me borrow his Keeley Eccos pedal. The Eccos is a delay pedal that also has a looper and flanger effects. Needless to say, I was blown away. I got one. Matt also gave me a DigiTech JamMan Express as a dedicated looper.

So with four pedals I decided to make a board. My first board, which I made out of leftover wood in my garage, was spray painted black. I got a cheap 9-volt switch and daisy chain plug off Amazon and some Velcro. I didn’t measure the board and was lucky that it fit the four pedals.

Of course, as it goes with pedals, you have to get more. My next purchase was a Boss OC-5 Octave pedal. This is a really cool pedal that has the option of creating a sound up to an octave above and below the input, a poly/vintage switch, and a low knob that can go down by about 2 octaves. You can use it with guitar or bass, so I switched it to bass and got to practicing. Mixed with the Eccos and Big Muff, the OC-5 gave the bass an almost synth-like sound. I dropped the JamMan Express from my 4-pedal board and added the OC-5.

I still wanted to expand my sound. I’ve always liked funk and the bubbling sound a bass has when playing that or reggae. I considered getting a Dunlop 105Q Bass Wah pedal, but realized that for my purposes I could probably get by with just an envelope filter. I did some research and asked ChatGPT about it. All signs pointed to the MXR M82 Bass Envelope Filter. This pedal effect is triggered by how hard you play the strings and gives it a really bubbling, funky, thump sound. I got it for my birthday, and then I realized that I didn’t have room left on my board. Time to build another one.

I went to Home Depot and bought a bunch of poplar boards and some rubber feet. I got home, ran my plans by ChatGPT, and landed on a simple wedge design. The board would have 2 rows with spacing for wire management, enough space underneath to house the Ghost Fire GP8 isolated power supply I had gotten on Prime Day, and a stained golden oak finish. I started building it with a solid bottom and two sloped sides that went from 0” to 3.5” over a foot. That was a gentle enough angle to accommodate some stomping without being too steep. Building the board didn’t take long. I sanded everything down and got to staining. I gave it two coats of stain and let it cure overnight. The next day I started sealing it with spray clear lacquer. I gave it 3 coats, one every 4–8 hours, and let it dry in the California summer sun. The result was a really nice finish. I put four rows of Velcro on it, mounted the Ghost Fire, and wired everything up.

It really made a difference, and having access to all the pedals allowed me time to experiment with the sounds. I then realized that I should probably be in tune prior to experimenting, because you really cannot tune while all the effects are on. Enter the Boss TU-3. This is the industry standard tuning pedal. I use it in chromatic mode. It works equally well on both guitars and basses. That put me at 7 pedals. Room for one more. I’m considering getting the Keeley Bassist Compressor Pedal and the Electro-Harmonix Bass Clone pedal. Both would really round out the sound, in very different ways. For now though, I have a professional-looking and -sounding bass pedal board, which has opened different avenues of experimentation with my preferred instrument.