litford.NET // New Fangled Since 1982

This session of How Things Work features John Maeda’s first two laws of simplicity: Law Number One: The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction Law Number Two: Organisation makes a system of many appear fewer I’ve been playing bass for quite awhile, and over the years I’ve been getting into stompboxes. They’re little boxes of electronic magic that can transform your bass’s tone into something else, or totally destroy it. Anyway, I amassed quite a collection, and housed everything into one of these:

That was in 2008, when I was at the height of my stompbox collection. However, as time passed, I realised that I didn’t need such a complicated setup, and when you have less equipment, less things can go wrong too. That’s when I started to strip my rig down to its bare essentials. In the end, I found myself constantly playing with only three stompboxes, and still, I was carrying a large flightcase that had only three stompboxes. It was because of this observation that I seriously considered making my own pedalboard, in an effort to simplify what I needed to bring for rehearsals and gigs, and to concentrate on playing bass itself. Cost of project: Less than $20 Materials bought from: Art Friend, Bras Basah Complex, 132 Bain Street Materials: A block of wood, Velcro, A pair of scissors

Step 1: Lay out your stompboxes, so you can decide how to place your velcro.

Step 2: Stick the velcro (furry side) to the piece of wood like so.

Step 3: Stick the other side of the velcro to your stompboxes. It helps to remove the stoppers from the stompboxes if there are any.

Step 4: Stick your stompboxes to your board.

Step 5: This is additional, but you might want to stick something on the underside of your board to prop it up.

That’s it! The beautiful thing about this board, is that it fits perfectly into my 13″ Manhattan Portage Messenger Bag, and I can probably fit my macbook in there as well.

The next thing I have to do is probably decorate it. Any freelance illustrators / painters want to give me a hand? I can’t pay much, but maybe we could work something out? I also might have screwed myself because maybe I should have primed the wood first. If you would like to feature artwork on my board that will be seen when I play live shows, please email me at litford[at]gmail[dot]com