Half the fun isn't owning the pedals. It's figuring out what happens when you put them together. I still use Pedalboard Planner to move the pieces around before committing to the real thing. It's basically Tetris for guitar players.
I use Mogami everywhere I can—from the guitar to the board, between pedals, through the amp loop and throughout the recording setup. Low capacitance matters to me because I don't want the cable becoming an accidental EQ before the signal ever gets where I intended it to go.
My normal starting point is a Mogami Platinum cable into the board, then mostly 2524 for the connections that follow. Everybody has their favorite cable. This is mine.
World's Best Cable has been a great source when I need finished cable at a reasonable price, including tight stereo builds using Tiny Connectors.
WORLDS BEST CABLESAn organized board is not optional. I use the 25-foot Graphite Pedal Python to carry the runs between the board and the amp—power, amp input, effects send and effects return—inside one clean sleeve instead of dragging a pile of separate cables across the floor.
I only use West Coast Pedal Board for my boards. Spencer Henderson builds, answers the phone, and has created a real learning resource around the product instead of simply selling rectangles with Velcro on them.
His how-to videos are genuinely useful, and he offers the DIY kits, supplies, parts and support to build a board correctly yourself. That's important to me because the organization under the board matters just as much as what is sitting on top of it.
WEST COASTPEDAL BOARDBuilt, not picked from a shelf. My Ultimate Time Machine was handbuilt for me in Sobótka, Poland and completed March 24, 2024. It's #18, a custom Dark Side of the Moon edition. What makes it interesting isn't only what it does. I have the build: the enclosure, drilling, boards, wiring and finished circuit. Turn it over and the builder left my name, where it was going, when it was finished and a handwritten line from Dark Side of the Moon.
“There is no dark side of the moon. Matter of fact it’s all dark. The only thing that makes it light is the sun.”
That's the difference between owning gear and owning something somebody made for you.
