Neural DSP Archetype: Petrucci
As one of the company’s most comprehensive plugins, it features four amplifiers, a pre-effects section with a wah, compressor, and four stompboxes, and a post-effects section with rack-design stereo chorus, delay, and reverb.
$169 street
Universal Audio Friedman Buxom Betty
This plugin aims for an exact representation of the original EL34-powered amp. It includes 100 recording chains, a host-syncable vintage delay unit, and preamp and power amp bypass.
$149 street
STL Tones Tonality: Andy James
Developed from Andy James' signature guitar sounds, this plugin suite uses advanced modeling algorithms to provide real-time simulations of his amps. You can also employ an 808 emulation and James’ signature preamp pedal.
$119 street
Softube Amp Room
Softube's professional audio guitar and bass platform offers a wide range of precisely modeled amplifiers, cabs, pedals, studio effects, and more, as well as several IR Producer Packs.
$149 street
Blue Cat Axiom
A fully customizable amp simulation based on Blue Cat's Destructor, this software has a flexible routing system with two parallel amp simulation channels, input and master sections, and more than 70 built-in effects.
$199 street
bluecataudio.comWaves GTR3
This collection of amps comes with Fender, Marshall, Mesa/Boogie, and Vox plugin models, in addition to over 30 different cab simulations and 25 stompboxes, including distortion, delays, and modulation.
$129 street
Native Instruments Guitar Rig 6 Pro
Here’s a setup that offers a range of classic vintage tones and modern high-gain sounds, and artist presets from Yvette Young, Vernon Reid, Pete Thorn, Zola Jesus, and Eric Krasno.
$199 street
IK Multimedia TONEX
TONEX is a standalone application that allows users to create, play, and share 400 of their own Tone Models of amps, cabinets, combos, and pedals. It comes with 40 amps and 20 pedals.
$149 street
ikmultimedia.comLine 6 Metallurgy Collection
Using this collection of Metallurgy’s Modern, Thrash, and Doom plugins, you can select a variety of high-gain tones drawn from the company's HX line of amps and cabs.
$199 street
Overloud TH-U Eric Gales Expansion Pack
One of the most astounding blues guitarists of his generation, Eric Gales, has collaborated with Overloud on this plugin that emulates his live rig. It includes three amps, three cabs, and 15 effects.
$59 street
When Louis Cato received this Univox LP-style as a gift in high school, it needed some major TLC. A few years later, it got some practical upgrades and now makes regular appearances with Cato on The Late Show.
By this time, us audience members have been sitting in Manhattan’s chilly Ed Sullivan Theater for about 90 minutes. We’ve gotten our seats, had a bathroom break after getting settled, and had some fun with warm-up comic Paul Mecurio. The first musician summoned by announcer Jen Spyra is drummer Joe Saylor. Wearing his trademark cowboy hat, he jogs out, gets behind the kit, and kicks off an up-tempo second-line groove. Next comes upright bassist Endea Owens and percussionist Nêgah Santos. The band’s trumpeter, Jon Lampley, is introduced, and he’s brought along his bandmates in the Huntertones as guests, so saxophonist Dan White and trombonist Chris Ott come out as well.
Louis Cato feat. Stay Human "Look Within"
The multitalented Louis Cato leads the Stay Human band through a special rooftop performance of his song “Look Within,” from his album, Starting Now.
The audience is now on its feet, the band’s pocket is thick, and the energy is building. When bandleader Louis Cato charges onstage, he reaches his mic on the bandstand and shouts, “I feel good today!” with explosive enthusiasm and a big grin, and the band launches into Jon Batiste’s “I’m from Kenner.” Cato sings the catchy and gleeful refrain: “I feel good, I feel free, I feel fine just being me / I feel good today.” And the audience is feeling the love. Almost everyone is bouncing and clapping along.
A couple minutes in, when it seems like the song has reached its super-positive-vibe, high-energy climax, Cato shouts into his mic, “How do you feel today, Stephen?” And with that, Colbert comes running out from the middle of the set. Cato leaps from the bandstand toward the host as the crowd explodes. The two grab hold of each other and attempt to spin around, but the bandleader, holding his black-sparkle Tuttle T-style, loses his grip and goes sliding across the shiny stage. There’s a second where both are comically stunned—Kevin McCallister Home Alone-expressions on both of their faces—but Cato quickly jumps to his feet, both he and his guitar unharmed, and runs back to the bandstand, where he keeps the song moving along with his bandmates, who haven’t missed a beat.
All this excitement isn’t even for the TV audience! Colbert is coming out for the un-televised pre-show Q&A. In a few minutes, they’ll do a new taped intro that looks more like what we see every night. But they’ve gotten the crowd energized, and we need to keep it up. They need our energy to do their jobs.
The Late Show Band welcomes a lot of guests up on the bandstand. Here, Cato and Joe Walsh boogie down.
Photo by Scott Kowalchyk
As Cato sees it, that’s what his role as bandleader is all about: keeping the audience engaged and amplifying the drama and action of the show. “That translates to the energy that the viewers get at home,” he explains. “For all of us here, we’re able to feed off that energy and do the best possible show that we all can.”
Colbert agrees with that job description and adds that the bandleader himself has the same contagious effect on his players. “Louis is an extraordinarily gifted multi-instrumentalist,” he says, “whose spirit of creativity and collaboration not only elevates everything the band does musically but inspires me to be better at my job.” He adds, “I’m so happy to call him my friend.”
Beyond his infectious energy and charisma, there are a lot of ways Cato keeps the Late Show Band invigorated from night to night. For one, he keeps the music fresh by tackling a new cover song every day. That doesn’t mean running down rote note-for-note charts. Cato and the band take a reconstructionist approach that fans of his work—whether from his collaborations with artists such as the Huntertones, Scary Pockets, or Vulfpeck, or from his regular Instagram cover-song posts—will recognize.
“Louis is an extraordinarily gifted multi-instrumentalist whose spirit of creativity and collaboration not only elevates everything the band does musically but inspires me to be better at my job.”—Stephen Colbert
On this evening, the band runs through a host of multi-genre reinterpretations during the two-episode taping, including a slow-burning and soulful “Smokestack Lightning,” a New Orleans-style “Down by the Riverside,” and a fingerpicked, acoustic-led take of Joni Mitchell’s “Free Man in Paris” that gets Colbert lip syncing along off camera. On a horn-driven arrangement of Stevie Wonder’s “Love’s in Need of Love Today,” there’s a re-worked bridge that creates a generous feature spot for the guest horn players.
Every arrangement brings a new and unique perspective to a classic track, to ensure the band is “not just a wedding band doing a cover of a song on the radio.” Cato adds, “We’re arranging it and making it our own—because that’s the sonic fingerprint of our show.”
St. Vincent jams with Louis and crew.
Photo by Scott Kowalchyk
A Lifelong Path
Listening to the story of Cato’s musical life, it seems that this job—with its demand for a blend of careful strategizing and on-the-fly creative thinking, as well as effortless instrumental skills and charismatic showmanship—is what he’s been training for since the beginning.
On the morning of the taping I attended, I meet Cato in his dressing room. Painted with sky-blue walls and a cloud mural on the ceiling, it’s a comfortable place to hang. The bandleader is wearing slim-fit floral pants, a hoodie over a black T-shirt, and a long necklace. He sits across from me on his couch, next to a guitar stand that holds a few instruments—including his Tuttle, a Jesse Stern-built baritone acoustic, and his Univox LP-style—and a ’65 Deluxe Reverb reissue with a Universal Audio Dream ’65 pedal plugged into it.
“There’s not a time in my brain when I was not making music in some way or form,” Cato says. His mother, a pianist in the Church of God in Christ, bought her son a Diamond drum kit that he recalls having paper heads when he was just 2 years old, and she started teaching the toddler to accompany her. “I marvel at my mom,” he laughs. “Like, who buys their 2-year-old a drum kit?” After playing those drums every day for a year, he started accompanying her at services.
The family moved around a lot. Cato’s father was in the Air Force, and Louis was born on a base in Lisbon, Portugal, before moving to Dayton, Ohio. Not long after he started playing in church there, they moved again to Washington, D.C., and when Louis was 5 they settled in Albemarle, North Carolina. A few years later, Louis started playing guitar on a “little burgundy sunburst acoustic. Eventually, I busted a string and busted another string and just kept playing with four strings. I delved more into bass from playing bass lines on the acoustic guitar. So, for my 9th birthday, my dad bought me a 4-string bass.”
“I’d show up to Tip’s and we’d do a week of writing sessions with John Legend or have André 3000 in the studio for a couple of weeks.”
While it was strictly pragmatic reasons that initially drew him to the bass, he says his biggest inspiration was the bass player he knew best: his mother’s left hand. Her playing, rooted in the COGIC (Church of God in Christ) style, “involves heavy left-hand bass. I wasn’t as psyched to play bass in church since the way my mom plays is very defined. But eventually I kind of had to learn how she plays. It was always just her and me playing. And I had to learn to move with that and follow that. She’s a great bass player.”
Along the way, Cato picked up more instruments. By the time he headed to Berklee, he was playing drums, guitar, and bass as well as tuba, trombone, and euphonium. “I was going from being a big fish in a small pond to a small fish in a large pond of super-talented people who had heard oodles of music I had never dreamed of,” he recalls. So, he decided to focus his studies on the instrument he’d played the longest.
Louis Cato's Gear
A glimpse at Cato’s pedals and amp, which mostly live outside of the camera’s eye, behind his stage monitor.
Guitars
- Univox LP-style
- Tuttle Custom Hollow T
- 1961 Gibson SG reissue
- Martin OM-28
Amps
- ’65 Fender Princeton Reverb reissue
Effects
- Boss FV-500H Volume Pedal
- Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner
- Dunlop Cry Baby
- 3 Leaf Audio Octabvre
- J. Rockett Archer
- Truetone Jekyll & Hyde
- Xotic RC Booster
- MXR Carbon Copy
Strings and Picks
- D’Addario EJ16 (.012-.053)
- D’Addario EXL110 (.010-.046)
- Dunlop Max Grip .88 mm
Cato completed just two semesters—fall ’03 and spring ’04—before deciding to concentrate on playing the gigs that were paying his bills. “My rationale was, much to my parents’ chagrin, here’s an opportunity where I can keep learning on the job and be working my way out of the debt I went into in this year.”
Gigging with wedding and church bands gave the multi-instrumentalist an opportunity to keep all his instrumental and vocal skills alive. “My oldest daughter was born soon after that,” he recalls, “so I felt really, really aware of how lucky I was, how lucky any of us are, to make a living and support a family as a musician.” Cato spent five years in Boston, playing various instruments in gigging bands, and he frequented local institution Wally’s Cafe Jazz Club, just two blocks down the street from Berklee, “for self-education and inspiration. When that felt like I hit a ceiling, I looked at where I could go to continue my inspiration and working on the kind of projects I wanted to be working on, and that led me here.”
By that time, Cato’s friend Meghan Stabile, had moved to New York and created the promotion and production company Revive Music, which was dedicated to the kinds of jazz and hip-hop collaborations he wanted to pursue. Cato moved to Bushwick, Brooklyn, with his band Six Figures— “There were six of us; we did not make six figures!”—and would head back to Boston each weekend for the gigs that were paying his bills. Eager to soak up the New York scene, he’d return to New York on Sunday nights and go directly to jam sessions.
All that time back and forth on the Northeast Corridor paid off. A self-described musical “utility knife,” Cato’s multi-instrumentalism, as well as his talents as a songwriter, arranger, producer, and engineer, made him a major asset as a collaborator, and the New York scene took notice. Soon, he established essential connections that would affect his career, forming “an instantaneous brotherhood that continues to this day” with producer Kamaal Fareed, aka Q-Tip. “Through that, I ended up really delving into a lot of relationships and credits.”
The two artists worked on high-level collaborations that not only bolstered Cato’s reputation but served as a major piece of his education. “I’d show up to Tip’s,” he explains, “and we’d do a week of writing sessions with John Legend or have André 3000 in the studio for a couple of weeks. Sometimes things would come from it, and sometimes nothing would come from it. But being in the creative process on that level in a trusted space was invaluable for me. I learned so much.”
Outside of Q-Tip’s studio, Cato was learning from plenty of masters, mostly from behind the kit. “It’s really special when you find yourself learning things you connect to,” he says about his work alongside artists such as bassist Marcus Miller, keyboardist George Duke, and guitarist John Scofield. “And I learned so much about myself from connecting to some of these people.”
Staying Human
Back in 2015, Cato received a phone call from pianist Jon Batiste. The two had never met, but Batiste rang him up about a mysterious project—a theme song for a TV show that he couldn’t disclose. “I had a wisdom tooth appointment back in Boston, and I got a random call,” Cato remembers. “I think his exact words were, ‘I’d love to have your ears on it.’ And I followed my gut, rescheduled my trip, stayed in New York an extra day with an abscessed wisdom tooth.”
The two got together to co-write and produce “Humanism,” which would become the theme song for the Stephen Colbert-hosted Late Show. Batiste played piano, Cato played the guitar, bass, and drum parts and “put on my editing hat.” They brought in Joe Saylor—who would become the show’s drummer—to play tambourine, as well as saxophonist Eddie Barbash. “After the session,” Cato remembers, “I went back, got my wisdom tooth out, and went back on the road with John Scofield.”
Three of the four go-to guitars Cato uses on The Late Show: a black Tuttle T-style, a cherry-red Gibson SG, and a Martin OM-28.
At first, Cato played the multi-instrumental role of his dreams, attempting to surround himself with every instrument he could play. “That lasted about three days before reality set in,” he laughs. “Slowly, one by one, things started disappearing—a floor tom going away here, a Pro Tools setup going offstage there. Eventually, as the band formed out, I moved around to what was needed. I was the utility guy—played a lot of kazoo, a lot of cowbell.”
While on the road drumming with Sco’, Cato got the invite from Batiste to join the show’s band, Stay Human. “It was a huge life shift for me,” Cato explains. “I was making really good money on the road with really good musicians, which was really fulfilling. And I took a chance. I loved the idea of being a part of something creatively from its inception.”
Eventually, Cato settled into a more consistent electric bass role, until Batiste brought in upright player Endea Owens, and he moved to guitar, where he’s mostly stayed. When Batiste left the show last year, Cato took over as bandleader—officially starting this season, back in September—and decided he’d lead from his role as guitarist. “Of all the places I occupied,” he says, “guitar was the easiest and most natural to me to lead the band, in the energy. From behind the drums, it’s a different thing, and we’ve done it when Joe was out. But it just was a really natural progression.”
Same Show, New Job
In just a few months, Cato’s new role as bandleader has had an impact on the show. The renamed Late Show Band’s engine seems to be burning on a new kind of fuel. And it feels as though that energy is coming directly from Cato.
When we talk, the guitarist is deeply engaged, in a kind of hyper-focused way that is not intense but more casually un-distractable. He brings that same focus to the show. While Colbert delivers monologues, Cato is zoomed in on the host, listening to every word, often riffing around on his guitar to contribute musical commentary. During interviews, he’s taking cues and following the tone of the conversation, looking for ways to adapt.
The bandleader gig requires loads of big-picture improvisation, but also lots of prep. Cato explains that each week he makes a set list, but the band will react and make changes in the moment. “My job ends up being a lot of judgement calls that affect the flow of the show,” he says. “We have a group of compositions we wrote for the show that can complement different moments. If there’s a major energy shift in an interview that takes a turn or something happens in the day, like a tragedy, we’ll call one of the songs we wrote for the show for a moment such as that. Recently, we had a guest on that started improvising a song. So, I have on our in-ear mic and call out the key and start playing, and we all jump in, and now we’re doing this instead.”
Cato poses with his black-sparkle chambered T-style, made by Tuttle. “When I’m checking off core priorities in sound,” he says, “if I’m going for rhythmic things, I go to the Tele.”
Photo by Scott Kowalchyk
Watching the Late Show Band in person, I see this play out as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen explains the steps the U.S. can take to avoid a recession. It’s a heavy and heady conversation, and, frankly, it’s anything but fun. Cato knows he’ll need to pick the audience back up. As he watches from the bandstand, he gives tempo cues to the band, who nod along, so they can effectively shift the energy and get the audience re-focused for the next guest, actor/director Sarah Polley.
As a guitar player, Cato says he sticks to playing things that feel most natural to him so he can concentrate on his bandleading duties. He adds that he considers himself more a rhythm guitarist than a lead guitarist. (It’s worth noting that his delineation is more conceptual than musical: Cato is an inspired and dynamic melodic lead player, but his deeply rooted phrasing and feel is at the forefront of everything he plays, so the rhythm-first thing applies to it all.) “This is not a space as a guitar player where I’m jumping out of the box trying any and everything and exploring,” he explains. “You get to some of those places. But for me, it always has to start from something I can do while leading the band and reading the energy and making judgement calls.”
“We’re arranging it and making it our own—because that’s the sonic fingerprint of our show.”
That rooted, pragmatic ethos applies to the gear he chooses as well. “I never was a big gear person,” he admits. Luckily, he has Late Show Band tech and informed gearhead Matt Mead to help him keep his pedalboard well-stocked. “There’s so many things I’m learning about the job and trying to keep straight in my head that this ends up getting the short end of the stick, and it wouldn’t work if there was not a Matt Mead to make up the rest of that stick and make it sound good.”
“The show throws a lot of curveballs,” Mead points out. “He steers the boat as far as the tones he’s looking for and if there’s a particular sound he’s looking for. Sometimes, I’ll recommend stuff and say, ‘Hey I notice you’re doing this, maybe we should try this.’”
Cato’s collaboratively curated pedalboard is pretty simple at its core: It starts with a Boss FV-500H volume pedal, a Boss TU-3, a Dunlop Cry Baby, and 3 Leaf Audio Octabvre. Cato shows me how he uses the latter for more traditional, Hendrix-style playing, but he points out that the band plays a lot of montunoes, and he tends to use the octave pedal for those. For drive, he uses a J. Rockett Archer and a Truetone Jekyll & Hyde, which are followed by an Xotic RC Booster and an MXR Carbon Copy, all into a Fender ’65 Princeton Reverb reissue, and powered by a Voodoo Labs Pedal Power Plus.
In live performances outside of The Late Show, Cato uses various guitars, but says that the studio’s cold temperature doesn’t do many favors for instruments such as his Gibson Luther Dickinson ES-335 or some of his acoustics, so he’s careful when selecting which guitars come on stage at the Ed Sullivan Theater. The three guitars that most commonly appear on the show are his black Tuttle Custom Hollow T, a cherry red Gibson SG 1961 Reissue, and a Martin OM-28.
Another guitar that sometimes appears on the Late Show is his LP-style Univox, which I ask Cato about in his dressing room. “If I need to be altogether comfortable,” he explains, “I pull out the Univox, because it’s my earliest guitar. I’ve had this since high school.”
Cory Wong "Lunchtime" - The Late Show's Commercial Breakdown
When musical guests visit The Late Show, they get the full-band treatment from Cato and company. Here, Cory Wong sits in for a rhythm guitar showdown of the highest level.
Back when he first got the guitar, Cato remembers, it was in rough shape, desperately in need of wiring and pickup repairs and a new set of tuners. It stayed that way until he was in Boston. When he picked up a wedding band gig playing trombone and guitar, he was lucky enough to have a roommate who could get the Univox performance-ready by replacing the original tuners with locking units, cleaning out the electronics, and swapping the pickups for a pair of Seymour Duncans.
“I didn’t even know there was a such thing as a professional musician.”
But Cato says that even before those repairs, he’s always “loved it because it’s all I had. I remember I was playing a little Vox amp, and this guitar had a feeling out of that amp. This guitar just became home base and felt super natural to my fingers. If I need to just not be thinking at all, this is home.”
Did he ever dream he’d be on television every night, holding this Univox and chumming with a late-night host? “Never! Not once!” he says. “It was just a product of my nurture growing up in a small town. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a professional musician.” And yet, Cato pursued music as fully and single-mindedly as he could. “I just knew that I liked it and felt connected to it.”
Fishman Loudbox Artist BT
With an impressive 120 watts on tap, this dual-channel combo offers both instrument and mic inputs, aux input, XLR output, built-in modulation and reverb, plus Bluetooth connectivity.
$659 street
Fender Acoustasonic 40
At only a hair over 16 pounds, this grab-and-go combo packs 40 watts into a rather small package. It has two channels with combination input jacks, independent 3-band EQ controls, digital reverb, and an XLR output that you can either use to record or feed FOH.
$199 street
Boss Acoustic Singer Pro
This portable gigging machine is specifically aimed at guitarists who want to add a new dimension to their vocals. Included is an automatic harmony setting that builds harmonies that correspond to your guitar chords in real time .
$789 street
TC-Helicon Harmony V100
Built around a single 10" Tannoy speaker, this 100-watt combo offers independent channels for guitar and vocals, modulation, and effects such as pitch correction and harmony. Another bonus is the TC’s BodyRez control, which adds resonance to acoustic signals.
$639 street
Blackstar Acoustic:Core 30
A 2x5" amp that is also an audio interface? Not only does this uber-portable combo offer options tailored for the recording guitarist, it also has independent vocal and guitar channels, built-in reverb and chorus, plus switchable EQ shapes.
$179 street
Hughes & Kettner ERA 2
Designed in collaboration with amp guru Michael Eisenmann, this combo—which includes two 8" custom woofers and a 1" dome tweeter—offers a whopping 400 watts along with three different types of reverb plus chorus, flanger, delay, and phantom power for the vocal mic.
$1,219 street
Orange Crush Acoustic 30
Usually, boxes of this color and shape are found crushing eardrums, but this 30-watt, 8" combo can not only run on batteries, it packs a ton of features in a rather small chassis. Features include dedicated mic and guitar channels, plus dedicated XLR and 1/4" outputs, and an effects loop.
$399 street
Vox VX50AG
Combining a full 50 watts with the company’s Nutube tech, this svelte combo can handle coffeeshop gigs and late-night practice sessions with ease. Each channel features independent EQ controls, digital reverb, and phase/phantom power options.
$299 street
Roland AC-33
A fully featured, gig-ready combo that can handle nearly any one-person show, this box includes feedback controls, a looper, and Roland’s famous chorus effects. It also has a line out, aux inputs, and the ability to run on batteries.
$599 street
Rivera Sedona Lite
This high-end acoustic combo is an incredible tool if you want to go the hybrid route and need a single amp for both electric and acoustic. It also includes a six-spring Accutronics reverb, an anti-feedback equalizer, plus a customized input for Expression System-equipped Taylor guitars.
$2,249 street
DiMarzio Super Distortion T
This single-coil-sized version of the company’s legendary Super Distortion is aimed at T-style players who want the thick sound of a ’bucker in the bridge. It has a pronounced low-mid response with a roll-off on the high end.
$99 street
Seymour Duncan STL-3 Quarter Pound
Centered around a set of alnico 5 magnets, this high-output single-coil crosses into P-90 territory. You can also get a tapped neck variation that allows for both vintage- and high-output sounds within a single set.
$89 street
TV Jones Starwood Tele Bridge
Introduced in 2016, this T-style pickup features the guts of the company’s T-Armond pickup, but with a little more juice. Like many of the pickups on this list, it’s a straight drop-in replacement for standard-sized pickups.
$120 street
Mojo Tone ’52 Quiet Coil
With less than 10 components in a single pickup, Mojotone made these designs very simple. They use their “Quiet Coil” technology to get rid of the hum without batteries or stacked coils. The pickups are also scatterwound for more sensitivity and clarity.
$98 street
Fender Ultra Noiseless Vintage Telecaster
These stacked-coil setups aim to capture the classic sound and sparkle of vintage Tele pickups. They use alnico 5 magnets, Polysol-coated wire, and flat, non-beveled pole pieces. The neck pickup measure about 11k resistance and the bridge comes in around 10k.
$199/set street
Lollar Special T Bridge
Jason Lollar is a bona fide pickup genius, and his take on the classic ’50s Tele sound is represented here with a pronounced mid and bass response along with a smoother top end. Described as slightly hotter than a vintage Broadcaster pickup, the bridge comes in at 8.0k.
$125 street
Fishman Greg Koch Gristle Tone
Wisconsin’s most gristly guitarist teamed up with Fishman to create an entire T-style setup based on their Fluence technology. Each set includes both pickups, a control plate, and an output-jack cup with a USB charging input. With the push of a button, you can easily go between “blackguard” and “whiteguard” tones.
$359/set street
Ron Ellis 52T Bridge
Ellis might be one of the most in-demand pickup designers around today—and the going rate for his offerings bear that out. This particular flavor goes after the “blackguard” tones of classic Tele pickers such as Vince Gill and Brent Mason.
$375 street
Lindy Fralin Steel Pole 42
Described as a cross between a T-style pickup and a P-90, this design houses a ceramic magnet and adjustable steel pole pieces. Sonically, it has a mid-forward tone that offers a faster breakup when playing with distortion.
$115 street
EMG RT
Hate the hum? These active pickups aim to balance the punch and clarity of vintage Tele pickups with the modern convenience of quiet. It uses alnico magnets and a custom winding to increase bandwith and fullness of tone.
$89 street
Schmidt Array SA350
This double decker setup offers pro-level features within a road-worthy enclosure that has a hinged upper deck, IEC power socket, room for two custom patch bays, LED lights, and a USB rechargeable power pack.
Blackbird Feather Board
Available in a few different Tolex options, this barebones setup can carry about five regular-sized pedals. It also has two power bays for easy access and has a built-in loop top to keep your stomps secure.
MONO Pedalboard Small With Club Accessory Case 2.0
This sleek board that’s crafted entirely out of a single piece of lightweight aluminum offers a ton of flexibility due to the cutouts. The comfortable incline allows plenty of access to the back row of pedals and room to mount a power supply underneath.
Gator Small Pedalboard with Bag - 15.75"x7" Black
If you only need to pack a few pedals, this rugged setup might be the way to go. It has several cutouts for cabling, a mount underneath for a power supply, and it comes with a deluxe gig bag.
SKB 1SKB-PS-8 8-Port Pedalboard with Gig Bag
This low-profile setup contains an integrated power supply that can fuel up to eight pedals, plus it includes all the various cabling you’ll need to get up and going. Bonus: It also comes with a nylon gig bag with a shoulder strap.
SKB 1SKB-PS-8 8-Port Pedalboard with Gig Bag
This low-profile setup contains an integrated power supply that can fuel up to eight pedals, plus it includes all the various cabling you’ll need to get up and going. Bonus: It also comes with a nylon gig bag with a shoulder strap.
Voodoo Lab Dingbat Pedalboard - Small 18" x 7.75"
Crafted from aircraft-grade aluminum, this board weighs less than 3 pounds, is custom designed to work with Voodoo Lab power supplies, and comes with hook-and-loop mounting fasteners.
Pedaltrain Metro 20 20-inch x 8-inch Pedalboard with Soft Case
This three-rail system comes in at 20", which can likely handle up to nine pedals comfortably. Its durable, low-profile frame offers plenty of room for a power supply underneath and comes with both hook-and-rail tape and zip ties.
Boss BCB-30X Deluxe Pedal Board and Case
An ultra-portable board that is integrated with a hardshell carrying case and comes lined with high-density foam. You can even cut the foam to create a customized fit for your pedals.
D'Addario XPND Pedalboard - Small
Not sure how much space you'll need? This fully adjustable pedalboard can be customized to your current needs by simply expanding the available real estate. It stretches from 13.75" to 24.75" and comes with an inventive cable management system.
Temple Audio SOLO 18 Templeboard
Designed with an entirely modular approach, this board uses the company’s quick-release mounting system to keep your pedal secure and offers different modules to keep the inputs and outputs as streamlined as possible.