pedal board
/ˈpɛdəl bɔːrd/
CommonA flat board or case that holds a guitarist's collection of effects pedals, wired together in a signal chain.
Pedal boards are a major part of guitar culture. Sharing photos of your board is common. The hobby of building and tweaking pedal boards, sometimes called 'pedalboard addiction,' is treated with affectionate humor in guitar communities.
Real-world examples4 examples
| # | Example | What it means | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | just finished my first real pedal board build, five pedals and a proper power supply | The person assembled their first organized effects pedal setup with a power solution. | reddit, 2024 |
| 02 | my pedal board takes 20 minutes to set up and i play a 30 minute set, the math is not mathing | The setup time for the pedal board is disproportionately long compared to the actual performance. | x, 2023 |
| 03 | all these years and my pedal board is still just a tuner and a delay, some people call that minimal, i call it done | The guitarist keeps a very simple setup and is content with it. | instagram, 2024 |
| 04 | i went to buy one reverb pedal and came home with a full pedal board somehow | A single purchase quickly escalated into building a whole effects rig. | tiktok, 2023 |
Use it when
- Describing a guitarist's collection of effects pedals organized on a board.
- Talking about the setup, routing, or layout of guitar effects in a chain.
- Sharing gear photos or discussing tone-shaping equipment.
- Referencing the culture of building and collecting effects pedals.
Do not use it when
- You mean a single effects pedal, not a collection.Use “pedal” instead.
- You mean a keyboard or MIDI controller board.Use “keyboard” instead.
Origin and context
Pedal boards became practical tools as guitarists accumulated more effects units from the 1960s onward. The culture around sharing, photographing, and obsessing over pedal board setups grew noticeably with online guitar communities in the 2000s and 2010s.
- First seen
- late-20th century
- Confidence
- medium
Cite this page
Use this stable URL to reference the entry.
https://slang.fyi/pedal-boardUpdated: 2026-08-29License: CC BY 4.0