Gear / 31 July 2020

#monopfx: Best pedalboards of July 2020

July brought us more new board builds. Which #monopfx pedalboards reign supreme this month?

Big boards, little boards — we don’t discriminate. Here are some noteworthy submissions that caught our eye for their detailed layouts, tonal options and more.

The Lite Heavyweights

Sometimes it’s the mini setups that inspire. Musicians that belong to this camp turn to boards like our Pedalboard Lite to keep things trim on their tone hunt. No extra baggage allowed here — every effect unit counts.

Matt (aka Knobs and Noises) shared this simple bass build he put together for a customer. Sometimes, simple is all you need and will get the job done.

Don’t forget to swipe for the under-board photo. We get asked a lot if our Lite and Lite+ pedalboards fit Strymon power supplies and the answer is a resounding yes.

Pedalboard Classics

For the players that want the essentials and a little more. Here are our favorite Small and Medium builds of the month.

This is a build we’ve been looking forward to seeing.

MONO artist Dave Giraldo latest #MONOpfx build houses all of our favorite boutique effects. This latest setup includes the highly-coveted Benson Preamp, excellent drive choices courtesy of JHS Pedals, and a limited edition Walrus Audio Deep Six compressor.

Top that off with a dual Specular Tempus combo, GFI System’s latest Synesthesia, and Morningstar Engineering’s MC6 and you have countless modulation, delay and reverb presets without the tap-dancing.

Christian Meares impressed us with the amount of tone he managed to pack onto our Small board.

He’s combined some fan favorites like the Jackson Audio Prism, 1981 Inventions’ DRV, as well a pair of coveted King Tone pieces.

On the digital side, we’ve got heavyweights like the Eventide H9, the HX Stomp and yet another Morningstar MC6 on controller duties.

Jeno Lesada put this together for a friend and that clean cabling makes us want to be friends with Jeno too.

A number of iconic pieces on this pedal system with a Barber Tone Press adding a splash of color (literally and figuratively) to this signal chain. Other highlights include the Vertex’s Steel String mkII and a pair of Disaster Area controllers.

Go big or go home

Big isn’t always better, but big is always big — and sometimes pretty epic. That’s what the our Medium and Large pedalboards are for.

Are you a fan of big pedals? Steve Shimmin is.

If you thought Empress effects or the Walrus Descent had pretty chunky enclosures, check out the Two Notes Le Clean preamp and the Goodrich Sound Volume Pedal occupying all of that real estate. Thankfully, our Medium pedalboard can handle these two giants with plenty of room for more.

Jay Caceres is only concerned about playing high-end gear.

There’s a lot going on here and you’re probably familiar with many of these units, but this build definitely get plus points for Morningstar’s ML5 controller for non-MIDI pedals, DSM & Humboldt’s Simplifier, and Shnobel Tone’s custom volume pedal with its in-built tuner.

We’ve fallen in love with Simone Pettirossi’s synth-heavy tabletop setup — there’s just so much creativity to love.

This beautiful mix of old and new tech is a sight to behold. Modern pedals like the Meris Hedra and Flux Effects’ Liquid Ambience Stereophonic sit alongside Electro-Harmonix’s Superego synth engine and a trio of Strymon pedals including their latest Iridium.

Hovering above all this is a vintage HOG (Harmonic Octave Generator) which provides plenty of satisfying slider action with Old Blood Noise Endeavor’s expression slider. Top that off with Barefoot Buttons and this build lends itself to hand-control very well.

One of Sean’s (Edge of Breakup) many #MONOpfx builds

We all know that Sean of Edge of Breakup takes incredible photos, but he also wires a mean pedalboard.

This particular setup rocks some Mythos Pedals favorites alongside the best of King Tone, Bondi, Empress and Origin.

Definitely a pedalboard that sounds as good as it looks, with an impressive amount of utility to boot.

Want a chance to be featured? Tag us on Instagram at @monocreators and hashtag #monopfx to celebrate the best board builds with our community of gearheads.

You can also shop MONO pedalboards and accessories here.


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