Guitar Gear

Vangoa Ghost Fire Aluminum Pedal Board

Summary: The little brother of the larger and, in my opinion, more versatile board, this nonetheless provides a roomy surface to mount your pedals. It’s a basic board, really meant for using a 1-Spot, but that doesn’t take away from its quality.

Pros: Like its bigger brother, this board is lightweight. It’s roomy to accommodate several pedals. Great, basic fly rig type of bag.

Cons: Like the larger board, my main nit with this kit is the carrying bag, but this time it’s not the material, it’s the height. It is slimmer than the other bag and though it too has a large pocket, don’t count on fitting much in the bag itself. Another small thing is that – and admittedly, this could be an oversight, no patch cables were included in the kit. For me, it’s not a problem. I have patch cables – lots. But for someone who’s starting out, it would be nice to have had those included.

Features:

• Aluminum alloy construction
• Dimensions: 19.8″ X 11.5″ (kickstands raise front of board about 3″)
• Includes everything you need to mount pedals.

This is built to the same quality standards as its bigger brother, but it is geared towards the 1-Spot user as kickstands fold in and the board will lay flat. So if you want to use a power unit like a Voodoo Labs power supply, you’ll have to mount it on top. But that’s not really a downer. If you want a good quality, lightweight grab-and-go board with not a lot of bells and whistles, this bag is for you! Also, if you’re just starting to use pedals, this is an ideal started board.

This is the second of the two units I received as review samples from Vangoa. And again, at least from a quality perspective, it exceeded my expectations. I was a bit disappointed that it didn’t include the patch cables as advertised, but I will chalk that up to a simple oversight by the company.

Fit and Finish

No pictures of this because it’s effectively the same board as the larger one but with a smaller footprint and has kickstands as opposed to a solid bar to elevate the front of the board. It is very well-made and as I mentioned in my other review, the build quality is a testament to the quality standards in play in China.

Overall Impression

I’m really impressed by the quality of this board and its larger brother. It’s nice and roomy, and super-lightweight.

In a nutshell, I see a few uses for this board:

1. It’s a great started board. My first board was a Gator board made of vinyl-covered MDF board that weighed a ton, and it really didn’t have all that much room. This board is much larger and can easily accommodate an expression pedal and a few regular-size pedals.
2. Another use I see for this – and it’s how I’d probably use it – is as a spare board with a minimal setup; in other words, it would be a great secondary fly rig. I’d place a wah, an overdrive, a digital or analog delay, chorus or vibe, and a reverb. That’s it. My main board has more stuff on it because I need to be versatile (even though I too could use it as a fly rig). But with a smaller board like this, I’d just grab-and-go.
3. It’s actually just a great, basic board, and frankly, I could see using this board as an acoustic rig board. You don’t need many effect pedals for acoustic. But I use a looper and a preamp and a few effects like an octave (T-Rex Quint Machine), chorus, delay, and reverb. All that will fit on this board.