Pricey but worth it. This is THE solution for a guitar pedalboard
This stuff is great! I don't know how they make it lock so tightly when you want but able to be removed so easily if you need at the same time, but it does just that. If you're making a guitar pedal-board, this is THE solution. Previously, I'd used industrial velcro on my guitar pedalboard, but there always seemed to be issues. The wooley side would pick up dander and detritus, the pedals always felt like they had a bit of wiggle to them, and sometimes they would pop off in transit. Furthermore, the adhesive had the tendency to rip off paint and labels and left a residue on the pedals which would affect resale value, so I had to cover the bottoms of the pedals in gaffer tape first which would be fine until I decided to move or swap out a pedal and the gaffer tape would peel off before the velcro came undone. Enter this wonderful stuff! It's pricey but holy hell, does it work. The sticky adhesive is quite strong and I'm confident it will hold onto the pedal, but when you want to remove it, as long as you SLOWLY peel it, it won't damage your pedal or leave any residue. The actual locking part (the 'velcro') "clicks" into place when you press a pedal down to your board with a satisfying "cla-clack". After that, your pedal is ON your board. No wiggle, no popping off in transit. I can actually grab a pedal and lift my entire board with it so that thing is SECURE. When I want to remove a pedal all I need to do is wrap my fingers around the pedal and lift from one side (with a little bit of leverage) and it will pop right off. It's definitely more expensive than velcro, but a little went a long way for me. It seems that the amount you use directly correlates to how firmly it sticks. I put full-width strips across the lanes on my actual board, but then cut strips in half to put at the top and bottom of my pedal (eg, 1" strips were cut into two 1/2" strips and put at the top and bottom of the pedal spanning the entire width). Feel free to use a full strip if you more or less want to lock it in place forever but I like to change things around occasionally. A half-width strip seems like a good balance between holding it firmly while also allowing it to be removed with very little hassle. For my purposes, I have absolutely no worries anything will pop off. I probably WOULDN'T line the entire bottom of the pedal lengthwise like I normally would have with velcro. It's a waste of costly product and a bit overkill, but YMMV. Next, I'm going to experiment with using full size strips to lock my power supply to the bottom of the board. As crazy as it sounds, I'm not at all worried about the powersupply falling off despite hanging from the bottom like that. I'll report back if that ends up being a stupid idea. I know it doesn't make sense that both the adhesive and locking part of the strips both hold firmly AND are able to be removed easily, but give it a try and you'll see what I mean. It kind of reminds me of Newtonian fluid where if you punch it it becomes really firm, but you can easily dip your hand in slowly like it's water. Different tech, I know, but that's the best analogy I can come up with. If you search guitar forums, some people will recommend using a combination of black and clear strips, but I'm almost 100% certain that's just for aesthetics. I used 100% clear strips and it's fine although you can see the strips on the board. If that bothers you, use black on the board. For now, I honestly don't care. Also, if the pedals you're trying to use have rubber bottoms of them, you'll either need to peel that back or better yet, get a flat backing plate from reverb.com, ebay, or perhaps etsy. The adhesive for the strips won't stick to the rubber very well. You could also cover the bottom with gaffer tape and then stick the strips to that, but I wouldn't recommend it for the reasons I'd already mentioned above. I found flat backing plates for the few Boss pedals I have on reverb.com which work swimmingly. Now that I know this stuff exists and how it works, I'm sure I'll find tons of other uses for it in the studio. I can't recommend it enough. Read more
