After exploring how to order your pedals, we realized another big question is how to power your pedals. Now that you have your pedals ordered in a way you love, it is time to get them the power they need. They way you go about powering your guitar pedals is every important. If you pedal is receiving bad power it will become very noisy, and as you add in new pedals you are adding even more noise. If you are only using one or two pedals you may not notice the noise, but as the number of pedals you own increases the more you will notice this issue.
Getting Started
The two most basic things you need to understand about powering your pedals are:
Voltage
Current
Voltage
The first thing you should look for on a pedal is its voltage requirement. Most likely this will be noted with a V. The pedal must receive the exact voltage required. If you use a supply with too high of a voltage you can burn out the circuit board. If you go too low the pedal might start to cut out or lose some sound quality. Most likely your pedal will need 9V but there are some out there that differ. I have seen pedals that need 12V, 18V, and even 24V.
Current
The second thing that you will want to make sure you know is the current requirement. This will be marked on the pedal with a mA. This does not always appear on the pedal, so you may need to do some research. Current is a little different from voltage in that you don't need to be as exact. A pedal will only draw as much current as it needs. This means that as long as you are supplying the minimum requirement you can go over the current needed.
Power Supplies
Once you know both the voltage and current required for each pedal you will need to decide how you want to power them. There are plenty of options on the market ranging from batteries to daisy chains to Isolated power supplies.
If you only have one or two pedals batteries can be a good option. They are a low cost solution and wont introduce any noise into your signal. The problem with batteries, other than constantly replacing them, is that you never know when one is about to die. Plugging into power provides a nice piece of mind in knowing you will have consistent power.
A low cost solution to this is a daisy chain like the popular "1 spot". However, these daisy chains come with some significant problems. The most obvious being noise. As the chain moves power from one pedal to the next is also carries along any noise it picks up. With each pedal you power the noise gets added back into your signal. After a few pedals this noise can become overwhelming. The other drawback to a daisy chain method is that they only allow one type of voltage.
The best option for powering multiple pedals is an isolated power supple like the Walrus Audio Phoenix or the Voodoo Labs PP2+. There are tons of them out there and can cover any set up you may have. On these units each output acts like a single battery in that it is isolated from the other pedals. This keeps and noise from moving from one pedal to another like in a daisy chain. The other great thing about these power supplies is that most give you voltage and current options.
