Effects pedals are great, they can make your playing sound way way better than a simple amp can, making you feel good about your playing, while keeping your audience, if you have one, far better entertained. But whether you have an assortment of pedals professionally clamped down to an expensive pedal board, or just a couple of pedals strewn about your bedroom floor, you are going to need to power them. If your pedals do not come with their own power supply, and most do not, deciding how to provide power to them can be quite daunting, as there exist many, and varied options, that run from a few dollars, to a few hundred!
Depending on how many effects pedals you have, how fastidious you are about electrical hums and buzzes, and how fat your wallet is, the solution to power your pedals will be different. As always, the more you spend, the better the result will be, though you could end spending more than you need to. A bedroom amateur does not really need professional equipment.
While a two dollar battery may, at first glance, appear to be the cheapest option – batteries will need replacing often, and you will almost certainly end up, over time, spending considerably more money on them than you would on a cheap adapter.
I have picked three options here to have a good close look at – The first, decent cheap option, a simple adapter with a daisy chain, for beginners, newcomers, and those who are just starting out. The second, a good medium option, a power supply with individual outputs, for the more discerning amateur, for those playing small local gigs – for those that want more than a basic bedroom sound. The third, a more expensive option, for people breaking into the next level – for those that want, or need, something a bit special!
Some hardcore fuzz pedal, and distortion pedal users, insist batteries are the best way to power their fuzz, and their distortion pedals. They may well be right – Batteries can affect the sound of the fuzz, giving better fuzz and distortion sounds – while fuzz or distortion pedals use very little power, so the batteries should last. So if you are a fuzz, or a distortion connoisseur, the best way to power these pedals may well be batteries – But you do have other pedals to power too – right!
Mostly, batteries work out being significantly more expensive than adapters, and troublesome to constantly replace. You may only get two hours out of a battery if you are powering a looper pedal, and then find you have to start unscrewing the back of the pedal, to replace the dead battery! Not something you want to have to do halfway through a gig! If you are still using batteries, then you should probably stop using them, and get an adapter instead! It will be far, far cheaper in the long run, and much, much easier. Way better for the environment, and the planet too! As long as you have somewhere to plug your adapter in, you are good to go!
The cheapest, and easiest option, is something such as this basic NEUMA Guitar Effects Pedal Power Supply Adapter 9V DC 1A (1000mA) with Cable 5 Way Daisy Chain Cord. This type of power supply is the solution most guitar pedal users start out with. Although some people do persevere with batteries longer than they should! If you are a home user, with only a couple of effects pedals to power, and a limited amount of cash, then a cheap adapter, such as this one, with its included daisy chain, is almost certainly the best option for you
This is an adapter with a European plug! Make sure the adapter you buy has a plug you that is compatible with your country! I have put up some international links below, to very similar adapters with daisy chains – each one specific to it’s own country or region – Although the US link should, in theory, redirect you to the same item in your own region, it may not take you to the correct plug type!!! The US plug will not plug into the socket in the EU – The Canadian plug will not plug into the socket in the UK… – I’m sure you get the idea – so pick your country or region correctly – That’s not too difficult, right!
The daisy chain plugs directly into your adapter cable, and will generally, but not always, have five plugs on it, allowing you to plug in up to five foot pedals, or 4 pedals and another daisy chain! Some daisy chains come with up to ten output plugs on them. While theoretically you could keep adding more daisy chains, powering more foot pedals – the reality is, too many pedals plugged in to the same adapter are going to give you problems! The more pedals you plug, the more problems you are going to have!
If you plug too many pedals into your adapter, more pedals than your adapter can handle, the pedals are not going to get enough power each, and that will start to affect the sound coming out of them. You will eventually get a sad groaning moaning sound, like the sound of a horribly sick frog, or of slowly dying batteries – which is probably not the sound you are aiming for!
So how many pedals can you plug into your adapter? – Well that depends on the pedals you are using. Some types of pedals, such as looper pedals, and especially digital pedals, use significantly more juice than others! While some, such as distortion pedals, or fuzz pedals, use significantly less. Check out the individual pedals tech specifications, to be sure how much juice they each consume – You will probably find these on the underside of the pedal, or in the user manual. If you are plugging too many pedals into your adapter, the sound coming out of them will soon let you know!
The main drawback with the daisy chain solution to power your pedals, is not a lack of power, but unwanted electrical noise! Daisy chains have the nasty habit of adding together all the buzzes and interference of each one of your pedals, and amplifying it some. Depending on your pedals, your cables, and your setup in general – things can get quite noisy – even when there is supposed to be complete silence! If your setup has the problem of too much unwanted noisy electrical interference, the chances are, it caused by the power supply and its cables.
Plugging more pedals onto the same daisy chain is going to increase noise – even without straining the electrical output of the adapter, there will be some sound of electrical interference. Every effects pedal makes some kind of electrical hum, and the daisy chain seems to add together the hum from however many pedals you have. I myself persevered with an adapter and a daisy chain for many years, but as I added more effects pedals, the irritating electrical noises, the whinings, the buzzes, and the hums, increased and increased, until I could bear them no longer – Something had to be done!
There is of course a solution to this for anyone who wants to get rid of, or at least reduce to the minimum, that sound of crickets, frogs in chorus, or any nasty electrical background buzz there may be. The bad news is, its going to cost more than a simple adapter and a daisy chain do. The good news is, it’s not going to break the bank – and if you want things to sound more professional, moving up to the next level is really the only way to go!
The solution is a power supply with individual isolated outputs. I know it sounds like that’s going to be expensive, they look so much nicer than the cheap adapters do, but they start for as little as 30$ or so – Not too scary really! I plumped for the Donner DP-2 which cost me just 34.99€. With its individual power outputs, It cuts out most of the excruciating fizz, buzz, and electrical hum, the daisy chain and adapter were irritatingly making.
Another advantage of both the Donner DP1 and the Donner DP-2 have, is that they look amazingly cool – LED lights give them a somewhat futuristic aspect, almost like they belong on a space ship! A Donner DP1 or a DP2 will make your rig look good if you are playing on stage – or amaze any visitors to your bedroom, if you play in there! You do take visitors to your bedroom to show them amazing things, don’t you!? Maybe this is where you start! “Come and check out my power supply!”
Donner make several different power supplies, of which the cheapest, most basic, and widely available is the Donner DP1 – Though for a few dollars more, the Donner DP2 is a slight upgrade from the DP1 – Though sadly not available in all areas. The Donner DP3 and the Donner DP4 are both significantly more expensive, being double, even triple, the cost of the DP1 – and also not available everywhere!
Of course, if you want to spend even more money – even better solutions are available. Better shielding, and more outputs are going to cost you more, and unless you really need them, you may be better off spending the extra couple of hundred or so, that an expensive professional power supply is going to cost you, on another couple of interesting effects pedals instead!
For those of you that need it, or those of you who can afford it, the Truetone 1 SPOT PRO CS12 is a beast indeed! Boasting twelve fully isolated outputs, which eliminate those irritating noises of electrical interference. Three different voltage options means you can plug in all your pedals, even any peculiar ones you may posses!
The Truetone 1 Spot Pro is the power supply that comes top of all the ‘best of’ lists out there – and for good reason! Though this option is significantly more expensive than any of the Donner models, indeed, it is more expensive than most other guitar pedal power supplies – there is a reason for this! Quality and detail!
Rigidly built from durable materials, and designed to last, this great looking, Truetone model comes with a number of very interesting features, such as its variable voltage feature, that will allow you to turn the voltage down to anywhere between 9v and 4v on one of its outputs, to get that perfect sound you love, from your fuzz, or your overdrive pedals. You can switch the voltage on three of the isolated outputs, between 9v and 12v, if you have several atypical or less conventional pedals. You can use it with any idiosyncratic pedals that need 18v, or any 9v pedals that need up to 800ma of juice. You can even reverse the polarity, changing the tip negative to tip positive, should any of your pedals need it – Real Star Trek stuff!
The Truetone even comes with its own brackets, so you can clamp it onto your pedal-board, if you have one – and then connect it to your pedals with the cables that come provided. It seems like absolutely everything has been thought of, and provided for!
The Truetone 1 SPOT PRO is far more than you are going to need if you just bought your first pedal, or even your first two! But it is what you are going to need, if you want to sound like a professional guitarist. It is the power supply you must have, if you are doing gigs in front of anything more than school discos, or your friends parties – or if you are lucky enough to have the spare cash to splash out on this technological masterpiece. I just wish I could afford one!
While you probably don’t want to spend unnecessary cash on a super expensive power supply you don’t really need, cash that could be better spent elsewhere – you don’t want to skimp too much either, and end up with electrical buzzes and hums that, when amplified, whether on stage or on your recorded tracks, are going to sound awful! You need to find that elusive ‘Goldilocks zone’, where you are not spending too much, or too little, on powering your pedals.
The solution to supplying the right amount of power to your pedals, for the right price, is going to be different for everyone, depending on how many effects pedals you have, and whether you are playing by yourself in you bedroom for fun, or on a stage in front of hundreds of people. There really is no ‘one fits all’ solution here – So consider carefully, the various options, and choose the power supply for your pedals which best suits your needs and your wallet!
If you have decided you may want to buy any of the articles mentioned above, or if you just want to find out more about them – I have provided links to Amazon to make things as easy as possible. The ”US link should take you to the correct product at your nearest Amazon store, but where it does not, I have provided links to some regional Amazon stores too.
Prices will vary over time, and from region to region, so I have not included them. Sadly – not all products are available in all areas – though some of the products will ship to other areas! These things, I am afraid, are beyond my control!
Remember – You can help out a starving artist by buying him a coffee or a beer – at TimB.Green@BuymeACoffee.com or at TimB.Green@ko.fi
Yours Gratefully –
Tim B. Green
If you have any comments or questions, please leave a reply – I will try to get back to you with an answer promptly.
