Pedalboard Minimums

If you’re familiar with Instagram these days it’s easy to feel like you need 3 Strymon pedals, the newest hype brand of a Klon klone, and 10 other pedals you saw on your favorite guitarists pedalboard. In reality, that’s not the case at all.

Don’t get me wrong - I really love effects - but when I really stop and think about what I can get away with on most worship gigs I really only need a few pedals. Here’s what I think a solid minimal setup would be:

Tuner - The most important pedal on your board

2 Overdrives - For different gain settings. 

Delay - Preferably with tap tempo or presets for tempo settings

Reverb

Power Supply - Preferably with isolated outputs, but a 1 Spot will do fine

While it's always great to have some more options for different sounds, such as a short and long reverb, I would feel confident being able to play a worship set well if I had a board with this setup. 

After this point it's really up to you on where you want to expand. Some pedals can simply make things easier for you, while others will help inspire deeper creativity.

For info on the order to place your pedals, check out Pedal Board Signal Flow.