Okay, yet another product review on a fairly mundane piece of gear, but hey, sometimes you have to be practical!
A few years ago, I was pretty spoiled when it came toting guitar gear around. I was using a Line 6 Flextone III as my amp, and as a modeling amp with all sorts of effects built in, the only thing I needed to hook up to my amp was my floorboard and guitar. That all changed when I moved to a tube amp for performance. All the things that I used to do to tweak my sound were no longer built into the amp! I had to get effect pedals to get the types of sounds I wanted.
At first, I only had a couple of pedals, so just putting them into my guitar’s gig bag wasn’t a problem. Then I got a couple of more pedals, so I started carrying my pedals and cables in an unused large camera bag. Still, it wasn’t a problem. Once I got to seven pedals, it became a problem. At every gig, I’d have to hook up the pedals to each other, not to mention having to hook up my 1 Spot power cable. What once was a five minute affair was now taking up to 20 minutes to get everything set up and dailed in. So I broke down and bought a pedal board.
There are lots of boards on the market. You can get them custom made, or go with fully powered units. For me, my needs were simple. I wanted a board that could carry up to 8 pedals, and I didn’t want a powered board. The reason was that most powered boards only provide 9V power for all the connections, and I have a couple of pedals that can take18V. Also, powered boards run pretty expensive (for an 8 to 10 pedal board, expect to pay close to $200). There are other powered boards that take 6 pedals, but that wasn’t a real option for me. Enter the Gator Pedal Tote.
The Pedal Tote is a non-powered, inclined pedal board made of 8-ply plywood. It’s covered in black tolex, and topped with small loop carpet. It comes with two 1-inch strips of velcro (about 2 1/2 feet all in all) to stick to the bottom of your pedals. I love the sturdiness of this board. The only beef I have with it is that Gator doesn’t come enough velcro for eight pedals. I had to go down to an arts and crafts store to buy more sticky-back velcro in order to attach all my pedals to the board. Not a big deal, just a minor inconvenience.
So how do I like it? I love it! It’s built like a tank, and has made my life a lot easier. Set up and strike are simple, five-minute affairs now.
Guitar Gear 
I’m in the market right now and this is one of my candidates on a list of about 5. I can’t decide between building my own or shelling out the dough. How is it holding up? Has it been dropped or skid across the stage? I’m not one to take out a feather duster and ‘fluff’ each boutique pedal as i set it up, but i’m a little worried about obvious damage or early ‘character’ buildup on the finish!
This pedal board has really stood up in the 6-7 months that I’ve had it – surprisingly well! I’ve dropped it a couple of times, and other than a small dent in the corner, it has been awesome! It’ll hold up to 8 pedals, but I’m finding that I’d like a little more room, so I think I’m going to build the next one. But this pedal board has really served me well!